Jun 9, 2010

Team Mistral

Ingezonden door: Jaco
 
Our friends from Mistral were kind enough to send us a piece about the introduction of the  new team riders of Mistral. see introduction below and some very nice pictures taken by Anke Fransen of Mistral International. Also check the nice video of Jonas.
 
 
Jonas Ceballos, Martin ten Hoeve and Dan Ellis are the three new Team Riders for Mistral and Jonas and Martin went to Lanzarote and Fuerteventura together with Anders Bringdal for a photoshoot session of the new Mistral boards.
 
Armed with a van full of boards we tore around the islands to find the perfect wind and waves and made some great pictures.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jonas - Sail no. E-40 - was born in Spain (1982) and started windsurfing in Las Palmas when he was 9 years old. By the time he was 14, he realised that he had found his true passion in life and wanted to become a pro. He trained in Pozo every day and started partcipating in Spanish contests in 1999, where he was successful straight away. Becoming 3rd world ranking in the PWA in 2008 he received the fruits of his hard labour. Since then Jonas has been travelling the world, improving and enjoying his sailing and promoting his sponsors. Jonas is very glad to be joining the Mistral family: "I'm very glad that I can be part of it, it's going to be a big motivation for me. My plans for the next years is to do my best and grow as a family with Mistral. My main goal is to bring some good results & put my soul into working with Anders Bringdal for the upcoming wave boards".
 
 
Martin was born in Holland (1980). As a teenager he tore apart the streets on his skateboard before embarking on a Carpentry Study in Amsterdam. It is during this time that he started building his own skateboards, which came in handy during his early twenties when he started windsurfing in Wijk aan Zee & IJmuiden and was able to repair the torn boards of his friends. He became overall 24th in the PWA in 2009. Martin's nickname is 'Lampi', which can be loosely translated as 'lamp post'. He is well over 2 meters tall and makes Anders look small! As Anders says: "He is big time out of the normal size... but when sailing manages to use this to his advantage and has some amazing top to bottom connections on the waves with plenty of drive and pop". His favourite manoeuvres are one handed and one footed backloop - which he first started practising on a Mistral board. He is delighted to join the Mistral family: "For me the first sensation of windsurf all started on a Mistral windsurf board back in the beginning, I am really happy to continue this feeling once again on the Mistral boards".
 
 
Dan was born in England (1978). As a child Dan first got into Dinghy sailing before taking up windsurfing in 1988. He competed in many sailing and windsurfing challenges and became UK Speed Champion in 2008. In 2009 Dan moved to Maui where he currently resides with his newly wed wife Jessie.
 
Then I accompanied Anders during a trip to Golf de Roses in Spain, where we met-up with all the resort Managers from Club Mistral. Anders had brought all his new boards, so they could be tested a bit more by all Managers prior to them receiving them on some of their Club Mistral sites this coming Winter. The boards were extremely well received by the Managers, but you may also have read the independent test results on the Mistral Twinzer 82 board in the French Wind Mag (which translates as) : "The board is very will balanced and has great control. On a straight line the board has great control and is fast. In side-on conditions, like during our test, the Mistral Twinzer accelerated well backside to be able to get around and hit the lip. In the top turn, the control and ease offered by the board, besides its volume, blew us away in the conditions we sailed in. The Twinzer 82 has left us with a great impression".
 
Text and photo's by Anke Fransen  Mistral International