Inside-RRD: Introducing Francisco Fonseca

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Introducing Francisco Fonseca

I'm updating out RRD Windsurfing Team page with some hot RRD national riders.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Francisco Fonseca, a very talented guy from Portugal, local ripper in praya do Guincho... enjoy it!

Hi,
I just wanted to share with you a bit about me and my windsurfing history. I wrote a small text about me and attached some of my competition results and 1 or two fotos. I´m also sending you some links of Some of my old youtube Videos as well as a video of me (from this summer) that a guy from Guincho made.

My name is Francisco Fonseca.
I started surfing when I was 7 years old and as soon as I turned 10 my father gave me a kid windsurfing rig for children on Christmas, My father taught me to sail, he made windsurf boards at the time and was of the first to windsurf in Portugal. My father would take me to a lagoon near Lisbon to take me sailing whenever he could.
When I turned 12 all I could think about was going to Guincho beach that was much closer to my house and had several good wave sailors as well as some of the most challenging conditions in Europe.
At the Age of 15 I became Junior National Wave Champion, and that was what I was waiting for to be able to ask my parents to go to Hawaii. I found out about the Maui ocean academy and with a lot of economical strain from my parents they agreed to let me go study there for six months.
I Arrived on Maui on January 6th of the year 2000. When I got to the school the two first people I met Alex Mussolini and Baptist Gossein, Alex was also studding at the and Baptise was working. Baptise was the only one with a car license and him, Alex and me would drive down and sail Hookipa every day and that turned out to be the dynamic trio. We would sail hard, always pushing each other and always we would always go out on the biggest days, if it was 2 foot Hookipa we where there, if it was double mast we where there! We became the best of friends. Other good friends were Kauli and Charles another Brazilian that were living on Maui at that time, and with whom we would sail with every day.
I moved back to Guincho for the summer season, becoming Junior Production Board World Champion that summer. And returned to Maui for a month in October to do the Aloha Classic trails(I came in 9th and only top 8 went into the main event). I made it back to Maui another 4 times until 2003 when I had the help of Tabou Boards with my tickets. Then Tabou separated from Bic and that was the end of the budget. So it was another 3 years till I made it back to Hawaii. I travelled closer, Morocco, Cabo Verde, Canaries. At the Age of 18 in the year 2002 I started to study at the university of Marketing and Publicity in Lisbon and finished my course in 2007 having done a few Pwa events when I had the money to go.
With the lack of sponsor support I have never been able to fully achieve my dream of dedicating my self 100% to the PWA Wave World Tour, I think I have the talent and the dedication to achieve good results but I have never really been given a chance.
In 2007 I only did 2 events out of five (Guincho and Brazil) and ended up in a respectable 32ºPLACE in the end of the tour.
My plans for the future are to sail as most as possible push myself and push the sport, I want to do as many travel stories as I can and fully dedicate my self to the progression of wave sailing so as to show the kids how radical and amazing windsurfing can be.
And maybe with a bit of luck ill hopefully find my self one day finishing on the podium of a few PWA wave events.