The SWA core events calendar crashed into action this week with Cardiff's "Doing it Doggy Style".

A fresh breeze on the Saturday at the reservoir in deepest, darkest Wales offered nice easy racing conditions for all divisions.  The advanced and intermediates needed little effort to get planing around the course, causing mandatory carnage at the gybe mark.  Bicsport's Andy, commented on the "interesting SWA race design" as competitors chucked their kit on the bank and flew up the shore to be the first to touch the race officers in an attempt to secure victory at the end of each heat. 

Beginner racing presented great entertainment with the first person to make it out to the mark and back taking victory; a challenging feat as many stepped on the board for the first time without any form of prior instruction.  They rapidly became familiar with all those important points of sail and wind-zones, most notably "down wind".  Don't worry, we promise to teach you about "up wind" next time!

Race Winners

Freesailing throughout the weekend provided a chance for everyone to get wet and test out the range of awesome demo kit on offer, courtesy of Bic Sport and Boardwise. 

Sunday's SWA/Boardwise freestyle competition, won by Sam Stevens (Southampton) saw a great display of moves, including the "Boboscopy", "triple one handed, one legged pirouettes" and the intense two piece of an "extreme sail drop into a one handed, switch stance up haul".  Proving that the SWA is a breeding ground for the finest UK competitors!  Well done to Dave "big hands" Dawson (yep, they really are huge) for his valiant attempt to forward loop a techno in the marginal winds.  Unfortunately he wasn't entirely successful and trashed the nose in the process, but good effort anyway.

The speed sailing competition, run by none other than AK4 Speed Sailing Champion, Bob Shelmerdine saw records broken left right and centre.  Unfortunately the fastest attempt of the day wasn't recorded as we forgot to switch the device on but Bob reckons it was "at least 23mph" thus smashing previous attempts.  Congratulations to Southampton's Seb Graham for that attempt.

The Saturday night "Pirates of the"[insert your own words here]" party was brilliant.  Pirate accesories were rife with the occasional UWE student "pirate of the red sea" dressed as a tampon just to lower the tone of the party. Massive 50-person drinking games, naked intra-committee boat-races (the Southampton boys, of course), pirate plundering missions, a whole lot of dancing, MCing, skipping and fireworks made sure everyone was kept entertained well into the night.

Cardiff was a fantastic event and a great start to the SWA series of uni-run core events.  Bring on Nottingham in just three weeks on the 27th November!

Cheers to everyone involved particularly the Cardiff Committee, Bic Sport and Boardwise.