Pierre Mortefon wins the first Slalom scoreboard.
After a couple of days of waiting for wind, day three of the Playa Surf CBbC Hotel Tenerife El Médano Windsurf Grand Slam finally provided the impetus to end the wait for an official competition, with the Slalom X starting in the late afternoon with 15-18 knots of wind. With the wind on the low end of the spectrum, competitors had to use their largest registered gear to tackle a very different test from Fuerteventura. With the wind only picking up late, there was only time to complete one elimination, but the usual suspects made themselves known.
Slalom X
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Pierre Mortefon (FMX Racing / NeilPryde) made a seamless transition to his new sails to secure his first win of the event. Mortefon, leading the race for the world title after winning in Fuerteventura last month, produced a superb second gybe, using the wave to gybe inside Matteo Iachino (Starboard / Severne Sails / Z Fins) for the lead, and once there, he never looked like relinquishing it. Iachino starts the event in a solid second place, but knows he’s missed a chance to secure his first win. The Italian produced an excellent first gybe, going slightly wide and powering out of the tack to move from around fifth to the lead, but then mistimed his gybe into the same wave Mortefon was using, costing him some momentum and valuable ground he couldn’t regain.
After the opening race, the top three is identical to the one in Fuerteventura, with Maciek Rutkowski (JP / NeilPryde), who held the lead until the first leg, completing the current top three and it looks like the three heavyweights could be in for another epic battle here too.
Indeed, the current top ten is made up of exactly the same names as those in Fuerte, but at least for now, in a slightly different order. After the first race here, Amado Vrieswijk (Future Fly / Point-7 / Z Fins) sits in fourth place, followed by Ingmar Daldorf (Tabou / GA Sails) in fifth, Jordy Vonk (Duotone Windsurfing) in sixth, Nico Prien (JP / NeilPryde) seventh, Taty Frans (Point-7 / Z Fins) eighth, Jimmy Thieme (PATRIK / PATRIK Sails) and Bruno Martini (I-99 / S2Maui / Z Fins) round out the current top ten.
The forecast for Monday looks slightly windier than today, with 16-20 knots expected in the afternoon, while the skies are expected to be clearer, which could mean we’ll benefit more from the local thermal effect. The skipper’s meeting for both the Wave and Slalom X fleets will be held at 12:00 (GMT+1), with racing starting from 13:00 onwards.
Dieter van der Eyken (Severne / Severne Sails), who lives in Tenerife, on the weather forecast: “I think there’s definitely a good chance from tomorrow [Sunday]. For Slalom X, I think it will be good tomorrow and definitely Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and for the waves I think we can start doing something from Thursday and then the conditions are looking good for the weekend. Actually, next weekend looks quite strong, not too choppy, but I think even on Friday/Saturday I might have to prepare a 4.0 or even smaller because we have Calima, so the temperature rises a lot, which can really accelerate the wind here. Overall, I think the conditions are good.”
