JULIEN TABOULET
I had been busy with my family at my watersports business, the Wesh Center crew, preparing for the new season as we are opening on the 1st of April. On Saturday, as I was knee deep between screws and pieces of wood, my friends Jean-Baptiste Caste and Thomas Traversa called and motivated me to come for a big swell arriving in Fuerteventura! I was rushing to get all my work done, look after my kids (3 ha ha ha), the business and organization of the Mondial du Vent… but Caroline and my friends in Leucate just told me: “Wesh just go, it’s your job, big waves, you love that!!!!” I was on the plane Tuesday afternoon, and in a good restaurant Tuesday night in Corralejo! I have known this place for a long time; I broke my first mast in Cotillo beach in 1990 when I was 10 years old!
Crazy story, crazy session! When I arrived on the spot, another friend (Christophe, I didn’t know that he was here) from the south of France was there, and he told me: “Wesh, the wind is too strong and the waves are way too big, I don’t want to die, take your board and give me your camera!” Yes, one year before I sold him my Goya 79 litre and I was just here with my new 85 litre, so it was perfect timing, just unbelievable!
4.0 sail and my small custom quad from Keith Teboul, I was ready to start the fight with this ocean on fire! The launch was just crazy, Stephane Etienne, the chief of the spot, showed Leon Jaemer and I the way out, but I still nearly wiped out on big rocks just 5 metres away. This is the kind of wave where the only way to ride is to go at it 150%! If you stay on the shoulder, the wind just blows you out the side. So you need to go deep if you really want to ride the beast. So scary but so intense, big adrenaline, just awesome! I got one big crash, I made a barrel with all my stuff, that was mad, big washing machine I can tell you!!!! These kind of days you are reminded how nature can be so powerful and how windsurfing can be one of the most radical sports in the world. These are the sort of waves I like riding! This session was for sure one of the best of my life, and the beer was two times better that night, I slept like a baby!
“This is the kind of wave where the only way to ride is to go at it 150%!”
