Because the Pier was there…

Post by Jeff McKee

Just finished a week of straight boat surfing on Slingshot’s latest creation, “The Arcane” surf board. I’m usually not one for boat surfing, but the Arcane has changed that. It’s not a boat-surf board, it’s a surf board for the boat. THe thing rips. Tony Logosz, our chief product designer at Slingshot even made the trek down to surf it with us as we shot photo’s / video with my two favorite media masters Bryan Soderlind and Josh McWilliams. We also had the chance to take it to Cocoa beach for some real surf and watched Mark Pachiatti get barreled on the 5′0″ fish shape. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s the only surf board for the boat that’s ever been fully barreled. Here’s a sneak peak of the images shot by “Bear”. Look out for the Arcane in the next issue’s of alliance and wakeboard mag as well as a SICK video on alliancewake.com in the upcoming weeks. I’m off to “get shacked” on the Arcane…wish me luck!

Yo Yo.  So recently I’ve been going to a few Florida Gators football games, which has been awesome.  It’s hard to route for them though, being from knoxville.  As much as I hate to say it, they probably are the best college team I’ve ever seen.  Here’s a pregame shot in the limo drinking out of a special device used to propel beer down your throat very fast.   The famous “paint stick”.  Best thing ever.

Here’s a little update from my end, it’s been a while. Have stayed at home for a while waiting for some good storms to pass by and do a Red Bull event. Unfortunately the storm never came blasting through, so I decided to move on and go on a big trip with Aaron Hadlow.

I was chatting to him and he had been staying in Brazil for the past two months at two of our Italian friends new kitecenter. Riki and Gigi started up ProKiteBrasil where they have a nice lagoon out front and a nice set-up in general.

Aaron and I put together a nice schedule for the coming months, which looks ridiculously sweet. Brazil, New Caledonia, Cape Town, Australia, Cape Town.

So I packed my bags which ended up being pretty heavy as I need everything for all the different locations.

Jumped on a flight to Fortaleza where Aaron and Gigi came to pick me up. It was good to see the guys again.

I only had two sessions with pretty light wind, and on one of the moves I did I had a weird landing and hurt my ankle. I thought it wasn’t too bad, but the next day it got worse…I tried riding and that was just really painful. I didn’t want to believe I re-injured my ankle, but I did. Such a bummer this is, to happen at the beginning of the big trip where we were going to shoot a lot and have a great time.

My mind was off for a few days, but I know I have to stay positive and get on top of this shit again. That’s what comes with the job, you ride hard, you pay the price.

So now we’re in New Zealand on our lay-over flight to New Caledonia. Pfff this is a long trip, but all went pretty smooth tho. I had a camera crew arranged for New Cal, but that’s obviously not going to work out. I hope I can get an MRI-scan there and see what’s up for real.

Till then I’ll just film the fun stuff that happens on the trip and keep you posted with some pics of the places.

They’ve got the last stop of the PKRA going on in New Cal, so I’ll just film Aaron rocking his moves in and out the comp.

Peace out, take care and whoever can ride, pull some moves for me!

LTR

Ruben LEN10

Whats up whats upp!

Has been a long time no update from me, there hapend alot of things but also not thats much hehe.

The last month i was in Brazil with my girlfriend to get some training done and some new tricks are in the pocket, so sweet.

I had a great time in Brazil ,we had wind nearly al days some days a little light but still good for 12.

At the moment i am in Lisabon waiting for my flight to Tarifa where i will stay for 1 day , after i fly to Holland for 1,5 day and teh 22nd i will fly to New Caledonia for the Final Pkra tourstop.

I am super excited to go to new caledonia , i seems that it,s super nice so waiting for it!

Will keep you up to date of whats going on out there

Cheer,s

Youri

Whats Good everyone,

Alex Fox here. Over the past few months I have been almost everywhere in the beautiful state of Florida. Two months ago I made a little road trip up to the states capital, Tallahassee, with the whole Abington crew to hang with some friends and winch. We hooked up with the FSU wake club and hit their private little winch park, which is sick to say the least. Three winches and 4 rails. We had all the 2010 decks out there and they were never off the water, people were in love.  We have been doing lots of filming around florida to find wind and also hit up the cable whenever we can. I threw some pics up from our latest cable sets and our latest demo tour. Fellow Slingshot and Abington rider, Matty Sexton, and I took all the new 2010 kites and boards on an eastcoast demo bonanza. We stopped in cocoa beach this past friday and scored perfect wind and swell which is kind of a rare occasion in Fla. After that we rolled down to Jupiter and hooked up with Jeremy Green. Jeremy Green owns Jupiter Kiteboarding and he is a good friend of ours,  so we went down there and conducted a demo at the local kite beach. 25 knots of wind and overhead shorebreak typically leads to disaster and the days ended with a few ripped kites and tangled lines…but that’s just a normal day in jupiter. After Jupiter we headed back north and put on a demo day in Cocoa again for our bro Billy Bosch, we had a great turnout and lots of wind, 25-30 and we easily demo’d 30 kites. Matt and I are going to be doing this very frequently, so if you live in the SE USA and want to hook up with us, follow us on twitter to find out where we’ll be next (@fox727).

enjoy the pics

lates,

foxxxxy

Hello everyone,  It’s Robby Jacques.

Recently I have taken a lot of my focus off of certain “tricks” and what-not and thinking about things more as a whole.  I have great friends within the industry, some of which will be great friends long after I am done wakeboarding.  I know a lot of you reading  have a similar situation to this, and it is these good friends that truly amplify the fun and love that we have when riding.  I have been riding with numerous friends recently and I took a step back and realized that we are so lucky to participate in a sport that is so profoundly group oriented.  Fun and expressing yourself is what it is all about when it comes to riding, and sharing it makes it that much more special.  To everyone that has come and introduced themself to me at a boat show, contest, demo or whatever event it might have been, I thank you for sharing your enthusiasm with me and I consider you all friends.  Thanks for stopping by and reading our blog here, I really appreciate the love and support.  Feel free to follow me on twitter.com/robjacques, It will give you an insight of what my day to day life is like and you can also add me as a friend on facebook.com/notrobjacques.  I am always willing to talk, so if you have anything to say or have any questions please send them my way.

Your friend,
Robby Jacques

What up party people, Florida kite season is back on and winds are looking promising, just now I’m coming off a 10 day session bender its taking its toll.  I’ve got a tweaked knee at the moment and starting some new laser therapy to help get my foot back to 100%.  No time to slow down though, i’m headed to Grand Cayman on friday for a demo weekend and to scope some new spots, after that i’ll be drivin all over FLA for the next month doing product shoots for Slingy and some sick slider stuff for the movie were putting together.

Stay tuned for some more footage and photos, just got a bad ass new HD cam and a full housing and lens set up for it.  Untill then hold yourself over with this new art project i’ve been working on.  Its called the New Abington Art Project and features action sports inspired artwork from a bunch of close friends that I work with in Saint Pete and went to school with.  This is the first round of the project and features wakeboards and kiteboards that we’ve broken over the past couple seasons and painted to the artists liking.  We’ve got some old moto-x inspired sculptures and a bunch more stuff coming out so keep an eye out, this is just a taste.  Hope you enjoy, if you want to see more close ups of the artwork follow me on twitter (@matthewsexton) and their will be pics and updates on the gallery opening.  Word!

-Matt Sexton

My trip to Hatteras was dope.  My hommie Andy over at Transcend Clothing rented out this huge house right on the water just down wind of the Real Slick for the whole team.  A lot of friends that I hadn’t got to ride with in years were there so I was super amped to bust huge.  Although the wind wasn’t the greatest we got a few good sessions at the Slick with the Real Crew and did a full moon down winder through Planet of the Apes.   Definitely looking forward to next years trip.

Peace out,

Eric Rienstra

With the support from KiteThrills, Kawana State School on the Sunshine Coast has officially brought kiteboarding to their school, becoming the first school in Australia to do so. Kiteboarding will join the school’s elite aquatic programme, alongside surfing and other outdoor water sports. This is fantastic for kiteboarding in Australia.

So for the last few Friday afternoons, myself and Mike Walker from KiteThrills have been teaching the Kawana students out on the open beach of Bokarina. I was initially concerned about Mike and me teaching 15 students at one time, but they all picked the skills up so fast and literally taught themselves. Most of the students are seasoned surfers so they were so quick to grasp the concepts and get up on the board. It was so good to see them get up on the board and go down the beach, quickly run back upwind and give the kite to the next student.

I think that if other schools see the success of this kiteboarding program, they too will follow suit and bring kiteboarding to their own school. It would be such a massive boost for the sport if kiteboarding becomes mainstream in coastal schools. Only time will tell but in the mean time, I’ll just concentrate on getting the Kawana students safely into the sport.

Later, Andy Yates