Oxbow Totally Bananas tour Guincho

GUINCHO, Portugal — Under changing weather conditions, the legendary surf spot in Portugal offered a great opportunity to the Hawaiian team riders and all participants of the Oxbow Waterman Challenge to display various Boardsports disciplines. From a cloudy sky to bright sunshine and gusts of wind, ideal conditions made it possible for everybody to display their real waterman potential.

Saturday, SUP was at the very fore: 14 professional riders carried on heats during the morning. Even though the waves weren’t very tall, the riders impressed with their great skills and moves. Laird Hamilton started very early in the morning before assisting the competition and joining the last riders at the end of the day for some sessions. Right next to our gifted rider Kai Lenny, all riders showed off with their great agility and skills.

Besides, our windsurfers and kitesurfers adjusted to the poor wind conditions that day and replaced their boards with more suitable equipment so as to ride the waves. Hence, Bertrand Fleury left his kitesurfing equipment and replaced it with a fish. During the evening, lots of people gathered on the beach of Estoril in order to assist the movie premiere of “The Oxbow Waterman Experience” and to enjoy the great live gig ofthe band “The Dukes”.

On Sunday, the weather conditions improved: stronger wind and taller waves! The first discipline, the Hawaiian pirogi, gathered lots of curious people. Rico Leroy who masters this sports discipline accompanied our Brazilian team rider Eduardo Bagé and two other volunteers during one session.

After this nice show, it was the turn of all shortboarders and longboarders who captured the beach during the whole morning before leaving the place to the kitesurfers and windsurfers who made a great show under 30 knots of wind.

Jason, Levi, Kai, Jérémie Eloy, Bertrand Fleury and Manu Bouvet really enjoyed riding the waves and sharing some sessions with the people that came to the Praia do Guincho. Kai showed us his high push loops, Jason impressed with back loops and Levi displayed his outstanding aerial.

Bruno Grandela is our week-end’s winner of the Oxbow Waterman Challenge and who takes a way a trip to Hawaii. Two young Portuguese riders, Inês Necas (15) and João Carvalho (19) are equally placed second and will therefore both win Oxbow equipment. The next and last stop of the Oxbow Totally Bananas Tour will be in Scheveningen (the Netherlands) on June 19&20…we keep you posted as usual!