GEORGE SHILLITO

For those of you who don’t yet know, I need all the votes as I can get as me and Muzza have gone into a whole new kind of personal battle to win Flow watersports ‘Hunk of the Month’! Help stop Muzza’s jammy/lucky streak by voting at: http://www.flowindsurfing.com/node/1433

It’s been a windy and WARM couple of days recently down here in Cornwall and I hope where ever you are you’ve made the most of the conditions as it’s a pretty rare thing not to have to wear boots, gloves hats and all….Infact you can rest easy in the fact that the guys in Cape Town are hitting the water with the same amount of neoprene! OOHHH YEHHHHH!!

Plus for a bit of a laugh; for all you gnarly, rad, extreme rude boys out there have a quick read of the following and you might not be so cool afterall:

FOR ALL OF U THAT THINK IS NICE TO WALK WITH UR PANTS BELOW UR BUTT, READ THE FOLLOWING EXPLANATION: THIS TREND WAS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES’ JAILS, WHERE PRISONERS WHO WERE WILLING TO HAVE SEX WITH OTHER PRISONERS NEEDED TO INVENT A SIGNAL THAT WOULD GO UNNOTICED BY THE GUARDS SO THEY WOULDN’T SUFFER CONSEQUENCES, SO BY PARTIALLY SHOWING THEIR BUTTS, THEY SHOWED THAT THEY WERE ‘AVAILABLE’. JOIN THE CAUSE FOR A BETTER DRESSED AND A MORE EDUCATED WORLD!

…..AND A HAPPY NEW YEEEEEAAAAARRRRRR!!!!

It’s been an incredibly mild winter so far, with plenty of wind and waves around which has been EPIC! Shortly before Christmas me and muz did a shoot with JC off the beaches of Devon/Cornwall and well it was extremely hardcore conditions and flippin stormy but hopefully that will all be shown in the next issue of WINDSURF so get your subscriptions ready and keep your eyes peeled! I also had an awesome SUP with one of my house mates right on our doorstep at Polkerris! It was one of the biggest ground swells I have ever seen down at the beach and the waves started to break half a km up the headland before peeling into the bay, it was just awesome!

On to Xmas prezzies and if you didn’t get ‘Minds Wide Open’ in your stocking this year, then I can say nothing else than; YOU HAVE TO GET IT! It’s truly awesome footage with a really good sound track, plus they do the same trip that the Tushingham team did in Egypt to Ras Abu Galum. Even copied us by putting a hot girl on the end of a spit as they sail past; some would say we did better though as we had 3 hot girls!!!! hahaha! check out the trailer:

Off skiing for New Years Eve any day now for a bit of something different, can’t wait! What ever you are doing have an awesome New Year, see you in 2012! WOOOO……..

After finally closing everything up for the season, me and hols took a well deserved break to Berlin; a very cool city (and I’m totally allergic to cities, towns or anything built up!) so it’s well worth taking a trip there if you want some down time and fancy some Christmas cheer plus I can highly recommend staying at the Amano Hotel as it is Awesome!!!

On our return we headed east (as oppose to south west) to meet up with Muzza, Ed Sinclair, Ellie (x2) and Emma to do the Hellrunner Down South. Basically its a pretty hardcore, 11 mile, cross country race through waist-chest high bogs and super steep hills so it’s full of army/ion man types who love a bit of bog running! Cutting a long story short I came 44th out of nearly 2000 people with absolutely no training whatsoever which I’m stoked about as I was only 10min behind the winner, maybe I’m in the wrong sport! Check out the vid:

Finally, today saw some INCREDIBLE conditions in Cornwall with a peak wind speed of 65.2 knots recorded near Fowey!!! Unfortunately I headed to Daymer Bay for the incoming tide as I knew it could cope with the varying wind directions, however it was just sooo flipping gusty that it wasn’t much good for anything as one minute I was chest deep and sinking the next I was fully stacked on my 4.2 Rock and 74 quad!! fingers crossed for tomorrow….

WOOOO…….We won Silver for ‘Best Tourism Activity, Sport & Experience Of The Year’ at the Cornwall Tourism Awards!!! We won it last year too but it’s epic to have won again as we were in the top three with St. Mellion International resort (with its two world cup standard golf courses and three spas!!) and the Minack Theatre (a worldwide attraction!) so for a little cove like us to be mingling with those big shots is pretty amazing! Massive pat on the back for the whole team…WOOP WOOP! Checkout the official press release at: http://boards.mpora.com/news/polkerris-scoop-cornish-silver.html

CHECK OUT THE DICKIE-BOW!

Well…..with all the comps finished for 2011 I can only say it has been a truly epic year for UK windsurfing and a great season for me too, I think I’ve finished 6th or 7th which I’m pretty happy with after spending another summer teaching at Polkerris and only windsurfed properly as many times as you can count on your hand!! Look out for the Tiree article in the new BOARDS and Gwithians report in the last mag of the year!

As the comps have drawn to a close so too has another season for the Polkerris Beach Company! Time flies throughout the summer months and its crazy how quickly I find myself with a bottle of bleach in one hand and a power washer in the other which is pretty fun! We’ve been nominated for the top 3 leisure experiences in the south west again and are off to the prize giving, black tie ball tomorrow so fingers crossed we beat last year and claim GOLD! Wooo….

Also, we have a load of cheap gear up to sail all in VERY good nick for more info check out: http://polkerrisbeach.com/latestNews.php

So Tiree came and went in a crazy, alcohol, wave, banter and wind fuelled blur and luckily I took my last antibiotic on the ferry on the way across and they did a cracking job as I was able to hit the water firing to knock Adam Lewis out in the first round, rather than over-heat, sweat, cough, splutter and go back to the van snapped in half!! haha! Check out the muzza’s video below and keep your eyes peeled  for the write up in the next boards!

http://video.mpora.com/watch/jawzEXNmB/

On a different topic, as the winter months begin to take grip of the UK, it’s hard to keep your fitness going and competition fit, so it was a wicked surprise to return from Tiree to find Hollie had her personal training business up and running; AWESOME! Check her website out at: www.twoscompanyfitness.co.uk and follow her on Facebook as the company grows from strength to strength! Get FIT whilst the turkey gets FAT for Christmas!



OKAY! So it’s been exactly 3 weeks of illness….2 1/2 weeks of flu followed by 1/2 a week of tonsillitis and counting, I’ve literally been savaged! However, after crashing the doctors surgery on Friday, even though they didn’t have any appointments I basically said I wasn’t leaving without some antibiotics! Which seemed to work as I’m now on a course of antibiotics which are germ destroying gods and have put me right back on the track to recovery……fingers crossed!!!! not exactly what I had in mind for pre-event training!

With this in mind I booked the ferry for Tiree today for me, muz and Adam Lewis only to find the forecast for the time of the crossing is for 30+ knots and 6m waves!!! Could be a pretty horrible crossing, but promising to be an incredible event!! Here’s hoping that the ferry can even leave the port.

As you can guess I’ve got every finger and toe crossed for the fact that firstly I get better, secondly the ferry can leave, thirdly the crossing isn’t as bad as everyone is thinking and finally that the event is as epic as everyone is hoping – hence the title of this blog entry!



Sick; not in the hip/hop, totally rad sense but a serious bout of MAN FLU!! I was laid out for over a week after suffering savagely for the entire week prior to THAT! So I’ve been out of the game for nearly two weeks now and I’m still not back to full strength. For someone who has scarcely been ill his entire life, I am rubbish at being ill!! Feels like you’re about to DIE….jesus didn’t know getting the flu was so bad, thought it was just some excuse people came up with to bunk school!

Anyway no pleasure without pain and I’ve taken an order of my new quiver of tuned up Rocks and been given a 4.7 EDGE to put through its paces in Tiree…WOOOP, can’t wait for the event this year, haven’t seen the boys all summer and it’ll be a good vibe for sure, amped even from my sick bed!! check out: http://www.savagemediadesign.co.uk/tiree/ for more info!

What an INCREDIBLE few days we’ve had of wind and waves in Cornwall, it’s been firing!

Yesterday I had probably one of the best sails I’ve ever had at Daymer Bay, the wind was cross-off the waves were ranging from head- logo high and I was on my 4.2 Rock and 82l Quad – It was EPIC!

not Daymer, SA infact; but close!

The Dredger has been clearing the estuary all week so the Doom Bar (on the far side) has been sculpted into a perfect wedge setting up the waves perfectly. As the tide pushed in there was too much water on the Bar for the waves to form properly and the wind dropped so everyone (except me) headed in. I waited and watched for about 10/15 minutes and the bigger set waves started to line up and break perfectly sending spray tens of metres up – IT WAS ON!! Before I knew it, it was logo-mast high and just me, well I think you get the point – INCREDIBLE!!!



The reason the new EDGE sail  is special – is because never before has Ken Black worked with input from so many riders on developing a range.  It started with the first prototype being biased towards wave sailing. We thought we had it nailed, but then the Freestylers got hold of it and discovered it to be awesome in tricks and manoeuvres.  They then wanted to get the foot reshaped to help with tricks.  Finally came the reports from instructors at the beaches – they loved the lightweight sensation and wanted it to be tweaked for all round easy-ride windsurfing.

JUMP ONTO A BOARD WITH THIS SAIL AND LIVEN UP YOUR WINDSURFING

It’s four battened, straight cut foot, instant power and balanced.  4.2m, 4.7m, 5.2m, 5.7m.  The Edge will appeal to windsurfers who appreciate a more manoeuvre orientateddesign. Lighweight riders and freestylers will love the EDGE’s easy handling qualities, equally as busting the most insane tricks or gently cruising around.

Check out the vid at:

Don’t just take it from us even LADY GAGA can’t get enough of it in her latest song: