Monday 18 January 2010

Jesper Orth joins RRD Family

Ciao RRD Family.
right now all the World of Windsurfng already know that Jesper Orth (AUS 10) chooses RRD boards for the upcoming 2010 season.
Jesper is Danish born, but has been living on the windy West coast of Australia for 7 years. 5 years on the PWA Slalom tour has seen him progressing steadily through the years. Jesper is one of the super dedicated sailors and a fighting bull.

Here you can find a short interview to ntroduce him to you,
and to show you the great work that RRD R&D team is doing...

Check it out:

Ciao Jesper, could you introduce yourself to the RRD Family?

Hi I’m Jesper Orth AUS 10. I’m born in Denmark but have been living in Perth – Australia for 7 years, where I worked for Severne Sails. Recently I stopped there to look for new challenges.

Which are your expectation and your feeling at the start of this season on RRD boards?

The first word coming into my mind is –confidence.
The importer here in Australia “2nd wind” was very efficient and excited to get the first set of Xfire slalom board flown into Perth. I’ve already had 2 weeks on the boards, where I have tested all sizes. The boards are just amazing!! Very easy to sail and super fast. You are really looking forward to jibing as you can throw those boards around with ease. I also had a chance to sail the WaveTwin 82 the other day, and – wow,, that board also rips,,

Which are your goals for this season? Will you attend again the whole PWA slalom tour?

My goals will be to improve my results from last year. I’ve been training a lot, and the gear feel fantastic so I can’t wait for the racing season to begin this year. Last year I only missed Sylt., however this year there is still a little uncertainty regarding some of the PWA Slalom events. It can be difficult and expensive to travel to all the events from Australia, but I will try to fit everything together as efficiently as possible

You already had the chance to test the new range of X-Fire boards developed by our Finian Maynard, and you already raced on it, which are your feed back about those boards and which will be the boards you will register to attend the 2010 PWA Slalom season?

Look!!- You guys and Finian made me a big problem!!, because all of the boards and sizes are really really good. The same smooth feeling going through the whole Xfire range. For PWA Slalom you have to pick 3 boards for the year. It will mostly come down to what fits in best with my sail sizes, and weight. But for now it looks like 122, 102 and 90. (but I would like to take them all,,)

You already scored a top result at the Lancelin Classic, where the whole RRD Australia Team was on the top position of every category. Could you tell us something about this cool Oz event and something as well about your race?

The Lancelin Ocean Classic is our biggest event in Australia, and it’s been running for 25 years now. It is a 26km downwind marathon, with a beach start. 7 big Cray fishing boats are used for the marks. 2 days before they run the Wave competition, and the day after the marathon they run the Slalom. All in all it is a great 4 days.

The marathon is the main event with over 200 competitors entering this year. It’s a beach start, which can be a little mad, but seeing 200+ sails running at the water together is an impressive sight.

You will see all level of sailors entering the marathon here from the pro to the guys that can hardly jibe, but the level of comradely is fantastic with most people just enjoying being a part of such a special event and glad to make it to the finish (many don’t!). This year had a good international turn out. I have won this event 2 times some years back, and it is such a great feeling,,
This year, the wind picked up shortly before the start, but I didn’t change down and went with too big gear (8.3 and 122 Xfire). To be honest I was struggling the whole way down, and was kind of happy to make it to 7th place. If I could do it again then the Xfire 102 and 7.5 would have been the go. Peter Volvater who won was on a 7.0.


I talked to other users of the Xfire boards, and they were very happy with the performance and the easy feeling of the boards. My girlfriend Annika Gillgren got 2’nd in the women on the 90 Xfire

Have you already had other slalom competition in Australia? Where? Can you tell us something about?

The Lancelin Ocean Classic also had a slalom competition on the Sunday. Up to 30 sailors signed up, with many of the top racers from the marathon participating including Volwater, Patrick Diethelm, Chris Lockwood, Dan Engdal and a lot of good local sailors.
We had 5 rounds of very high level racing, with a close battle for the top positions.
There wasn’t much separating us but it was Lockwood 1st , me 2nd and Wolvater 3rd.
I used the Xfire 102 and a 6.4 and the set-up was really fast,, and give me great confidence for the events ahead.

Which will be the competitions you attend before the start of the PWA season that it seems will be in Korea mid of May?

Here in Australia we have some slalom and marathon events still to come, they are not having the same attention and size as the Lancelin Classic, but they are still very competitive and exciting. Every Wednesday we have some slalom that is very popular.
We also have a very popular GPS team Challenge ongoing speed competition, with over 350 members. I’m looking forward to use the Xfire 80 for clocking some good speed.

Thank you very much for your time and good luck for this challenging 2010 season from the whole RRD Family!
Thanks a lot, - I’m stoked to be a part of it and will for sure do my best.

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