Chris Beng - SIN69

NWF and Windfest

2009-09-13T03:38:00.000-07:00

The last 2 weekends have been super busy with the National Windsurf Festival at Hayling and the Poole Windsfest.

NWF was an amazing event. Loads of industry presence and some really good support shown for the SWA. SWATeam riders Adam Sims and SJ really flew the flag and it was great to see so many people wearing SWA rashies on the water. I'm sure I saw Windsurfs former features editor, Sarah Cotton and OTC owner Tris best on the water in SWA stash.

The conditions on the water were a little on the light side but it looked good if you had a sail over 7m. There was even just about enough wind for a little freestyle expression session although the boys were having to work real hard to get planing. The party in the evening was pretty good as always, although the end was slightly hazy!

Friday night this week we went to the Animal Windfest Ball. This was a change from our normal saturday night antics at Windfest, we decided to take a more civilised approach and dress up for the ball. However a bit of black tie did nothing to calm us. By the end of the night Ben was lying on the floor and Jake was cowering under a table! God knows what I was up too! Two fantastic weekends. I just wish I was able to windsurf at them!

2009-09-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

Here we go. As Promised a picture of my collar bone with screws and all! 6 weeks down the line I'm now on the road to recovery. I'm riding bikes again, although I'm sticking to the roads for a while, and will be making my gentle return to windsurfing in a couple of weeks.

I'm planning to get some slalom kit and train up to give it a bit of a go next year. Now that I'm living in Bournemouth, it seems to make sense. The Poole Slalom events happen here and it's probably a safer way to get me back on the water.

I'm not gonna loose my love for freestyle but gonna take it easy for a while.

I'm aiming to get this metal taken out of my shoulder in 4-6months and then will be back and riding hard as ever.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic with starting work and all the windsurf festivals happening. I'll get up more about that soon.

New title, new flat, new hobbies and the like

2009-07-24T07:49:00.000-07:00

I passed. I'm now Dr. Beng. haha. I still don't really believe it. After getting results I flew over to Singapore to see the old man for a few weeks leaving Luce to move us into the new flat. How very selfish of me. Whilst over there we took for 4 days to go diving at Pulau Aur, a small island off the east malaysian coast near Tioman. It was a really relaxing trip with good diving and amazing scenery... not to mention the food. I'll try and get a few photos up.

Instead of going away like originally planned, we decided to enjoy time in our new place near the beach. It's amazing living within 5 mins walk of some of England's best beaches. So i've spent nearly everyday out windsurfing when it was windy or riding on my new bike if it wasn't.

I had a couple of sick freestyle sessions on 5.3 and 4.7. I wish everyday could be like that. Unfortunateley all went wrong last night when i stacked it super early into a mountain bike ride snapping my collar bone in two. Hence i'm now sitting here writting my blog one handed, wondering how i'm gonna get through the next 6 weeks without doing anything active. It also looks like i'll be missing out on the Windsurfing festival at Hayling and probably windsurfing too. I'll try and get my xray pic up too.

Keep riding hard...

C

New Boards!!!

2009-05-11T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on the ol' blog front recently. So What's new? I've finally picked up my new boards!!!! I'm now riding for Boardwise and SWA on Mistral Boards and Severne sails. Ever since I started windsurfing, I have always considered Mistral and Severne to be the highest quality kit available and couldn't be happier as I'm now riding the kit I always dreamed of!

I've not had much time for sailing recently as my finals in Medicine and Surgery are quickly approaching but the few sessions I've had have been awesome. I tuned into the Joker within a few minutes of riding it and even managed to scrape a 4th at the SWA student Nationals freestyle comp. I had a cheeky session the day before the nationals sailing a S.Easterly at Hayling...bizarre but fun, and session at Brogborough, my local lake in Bedfordshire. That place never fails to amaze me. There is always a super friendly atmosphere there and I always seem to have a fun session.

Now that the wind is back, I can't wait for exams to be over so I can really get out and test the boards. Bar any major hiccups, I'll be moving to Bournemouth to work in July. Hopefully living that close to the beach will give me more opportunities to get on the water.

Oh by the way well done to Adam Sims for winning this years SWA Wave and Freestyle titles. His sailing has gone through the roof this year and he thoroughly deserves it!

Dahab March 09

2009-03-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I just got back from a week in Dahab. A week is never enough. We were lucky enough to be out there for the Club Vass pro clinic with Andy 'Bubble' Chambers, Colin Dixon and Ollie Scott. Fellow Severne team riders Vicky (Sanchez) and Tato were also out there and ripping. It was great to sail with all of those guys.
We only had a couple of days of wind but one of them was a perfect 4.7m all day. We sailed 2 sessions and I spent the entire day destroying myself trying switch stance and ponches. Here are a few of the photos that Lucy got on her new camera from our epic morning session up at baby bay.

It sounds like I missed some epic wind back home whilst away including a good day at the SWA southampton wave event. Well done to Adam for sweeping another victory despite the lack of swell. He seems to be clearing up at the moment!
This weekend I'll be heading over to Cardiff again to the SWA core event for a spot of freestyle and racing. Boardwise will be there with plenty of demo kit so head down to Llangeffed (or something like that) to check it out

SWA RRD/Ezzy Wave - Porthcawl

2009-02-24T10:55:00.001-08:00

Imagine the excitement when, after one month withouth wind, there was an amazing forecast for the second round of the SWA wave series hosted by Cardiff uni. Imagine then the dissapoinment when, just days before the comp, it buggered off....completely!

Well actually it turned out not to be all that bad. We all made the trip down to Cardif on the off chance of some wind, but mainly for a good booze up with mates. Saturday was spent chillin out on the beach at Rest Bay. A few of the guys took out some SUPs and surfboards while others kicked around on the beach with the turf dogs. I on the other hand spent the day drinking coffee in the cafe and nursing my hangover. Saturday night led to more carnage with one of Cardiff legendary punch parties followed by some questionable dancing at the union.

Chris Beng sailing at Trecco

Sunday did actually produce a bit of wind and just waves to run a comp. Guys were out in waist to shoulder high waves on 80L plus boards and sails 5.0m and over. I was out on my S1-5.9 and freestyle board and just managing to plane on the way out. To be fair all the guys made the best of the conditions, hacking the biggest waves and putting on a generally good performance. All of the SWA team performed well with SJ looking particulary clean in his wave selection and riding (although slightly out of the judges view). At the end of the day it was Adam Sims that sailed the best, managing to rip airs out of nothing. (God knows where he found the power for that!) SWA-Team riders and local sailors Seb Willis and Tom Malin put in solid performances in 2nd and 3rd place. I on the other hand got a quick schooling in wave sailing going out in a monster of a first heat to Adam, Tom and SJ.

SJ lining up a peach

All in all another fantastically run event thanks to Cardiff Uni and Puravida. I wont be able to make the last round of the wave series in southampton due to a cheeky week in Dahab.

I'll keep you posted on that and will be back in action at the next SWA core event in Cardiff. I'll be there along with my sponsors Boardwise and Severne and all the other SWA sponsors.

Photos: Javier Choi

Xpressions Online

2009-02-03T05:22:00.000-08:00

Xpression is the UK’s first ‘On forecast’ freestyle tour aimed at getting the UK’s top freestylers to the best freestyle locations on the best forecast. Xpression aims to help push the level of freestyle in the UK and get great exposure for windsurfing to the general public, crowning an overall Xpression freestyle champion at the end of the year.

The idea has been discussed for a while but recently Will Rogers and John Palmer decided to get the concept up and running after seeing the successes of WaveJam. Previously the UK freestyle competition series was almost non existent, due to the difficulties organisers faced with running events at the mercy of UK’s unpredictable weather. On-forecast Xpression freestyle sessions mean we will get much higher chances of getting top conditions and having the ability to push the levels. It will also make it possible to get awesome photographs and video footage of everyone enabling us to promote windsurfing around the UK.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be a part of the first Xpression Freestyle Session at Portland. It was great to see so many freestylers in the same location. Unfortunately I had to leave early on the Saturday and missed the best of the conditions and all of the competition on the Sunday. Luce and I drove down on Friday night to be greated by lashing rain and howling winds. After booking ourselves into a B&B for the night, we headed to meet John Palmer in the pub and were later met by Max and Will who had missioned over from essex. We go to the beach at 8am to rig up. We started rigging 4.0's but by the time we'd finished the wind had dropped. A quick 30 mins out on 5.3's was followed by a long wait (and a pub lunch) until the wind returned at about 2.30pm. I enjoyed a quick hour on the water on my 5.9 and it was about 4.7 weather by the time I came off. Apparently the boys were on 4.0's by the end of the day...bugger!

Check out the website

http://www.freestylexpression.co.uk/

Cheers to John and Will for organising it and i look forward to the next event.

New Blog

2009-02-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my new blog. I'm bored and snowed in at home so I thought it was about time I got a blog up and running to keep you up to date with all my windsurfing antics. I will get a proper website up on line eventually.

A little bit about me. I'm a final year medical student at Imperial College in London, Director of the SWA and SWATeam rider. I spend a lot of time windsurfing around the southcoast on competing on the SWA, UKWA and Xpressions tour. I'm also an RYA Intermediate planing Instructor although I don't get much time to coach anymore.

Thanks to my sponsors Severne, Boardwise, BooHai and SWA