Friday 3 February 2012

Albeau and the Saint-Barth Fun Cup


First official event and first victory for Antoine Albeau powered by RRD X-Fire LTD V4 boards. We have seen some great action on the internet and the news of this victory already flied all around, so it's time to have a proper talk with the man to know exactly what happened in this paradise island!

 - Ciao Antoine, St. Barth event looks like being a great success... can you give us your first impressions about it?

Yes, the event was a success, it was 3 days of contest and we did 6 long distance and one show race in the lagoon on the last afternoon. Lots of Caribeans sailors came, from St Marteen, Guadeloupe and Bonaire as well. The people in St Barth are really friendly and they really liked the show.




- This was your first official event of the season and you won it, so we imagine that are already in a good shape. Did you had any challenging moment during the competition?


Yes this was the first official event for me and it was just perfect to tune and see my speed compare to the other rider like Julien Quentel, Antoine Questel, Pierre Mortefon and Tati Frans. All those guys have a really good speed in PWA so I was really happy to see that I found my speed again, my new boards and sails are working really good.


I won the event but this don't means it was a piece of cake! I had some challenging moment, and especially 2 races were very tough!



During the Long Distance 4 the wind dropped just before the start, so I decided to jump on my RRD X-fire 129 and my 9.5 Evo4, but as soon as we arrived on the starting line, the wind pick up again to 20kts! All the other were on their medium boards, so I was a little worried, but at the end I found that I had the same speed than them with my big gear, so I was really surprised that I could still fight for the first position! And at the end I won the race.




The other challenging moment was in another long distance: I was on my RRD X-Fire 114 and my 8.6 Evo4 and the wind dropp a lot, maybe 12 to 14 kts! It was really light for me on that gear, but I was still very competitive and I could fight and won the race against Tati, which means that my medium gear is good in low range of wind as well.



- Which X-Fire board did you use during the competition and which are your impression about your slalom weapons after the first official event?

I was all the time on the RRD X-Fire 114 and my Evo4 8.6 except one race with my X Fire 129 and Evo4 9.5. I reaaly like my new boards, it is a bit hard sometimes to change board sponsors but my RRD X-Fire are so easy to ride and to control in hi speed that I was already in the game from the beginning of the event!!!




- Do you want to add something for your RRD fans?
Of course: RRD is the best board brand and you were right to choose it !!!



- When will we see you in action next time?
Next stop will be Maui for testing the new RRD light wind program.




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