Now for the next big news, I have joined the board brand Fanatic for the upcoming season which is a very big deal for me, as I will be leaving the brand that helped me coming up, Angulo boards. As sad as it is leaving these guys, we are still on the same level, and I wish nothing but the best for Angulo boards for the many next years.
Having said that, I am very ready for new challenges, and I think that I have truly found another brand that I can identify myself with. I have always had a look over to the Fanatic guys, as I always saw them as having a great team and good atmosphere which for me is very important. I am super happy to welcome new times with new people, and to be moving in a new direction.

Now taking this decision was far from easy for me. First of all. I was super comfortable where I was, so leaving was not as easy as I expected. Furthermore there were several players in this changing game, and suddenly taking decision became much harder, which set me back a bit, but after lots of turmoil I had to follow my heart, and I felt a connection between the values that Fanatic represent as a brand and my own personal profile which I could se making a good match for the future.

Now with everything in place, I am looking forward to a season which I feel is going to be great. I feel like I have had a good start of the year, and so far I feel pretty comfortable with what I have done. With a busy tour schedule to come this year, I feel its important that I have managed to get an earlier start than usual, and of course I hope to be able to keep up the same pace for the next few months before the first events start.

My time in the new year, I have spent on Maui, which has turned out to be great. Lots of windsurfing, SUP, surfing and so on. I have simply taken what I have and moved it all to Maui for now, where I feel like I can concentrate on getting some hours on the water and generally stay focused on the things that I need to do without too many distractions.

For now all seems good and I hope to be able to keep up the same level of motivation for the upcoming months. Until then,,, aloha to everyone.

Kiani

KK on top

The best thing about this year is definitely the people that I have met around the world. People with great passion for what they do, no matter what culture or beliefs they should have

Since I did my last competition in Miami back in october, all my focus has been on preparing myself for the upcoming 2012 season. My motivation has really been at its top level and is still up there. In november I packed up all my things and headed out for a journey that will last all the way until the next competition next year. I headed out for Cape Town and hooked up with some great friends and training partners, and found a great rhythm to live by. I spent lots of time in the waves, and put all of my slalom equipment a bit on the shelve, just to bring my mind on other things for a while, and I can just say that it was a great decision.

Working on my wavesailing in Cape Town

However after a while my time in South Africa came to a stop, and I made it back home to my family just in time for christmas. There is nothing like coming home when you have been away, and even though I had the greatest of times back home, it was just temporary. A few days later I was back on the airplane and this time headed to the capital of windsurfing, Maui. Now I do get questioned a bit about this somewhat crazy plan that I am executing, but it is all done with one goal in mind, to improve for next year and stay focused. Weather it is a good plan or not, only time will tell.

Racing in Aruba with Josh Angulo

Now sitting on the beautiful island of Maui and looking out at the sea, I know that I am truly blessed with the life that I am living, but looking back at the many previous years, I also know what it took to get here. It sure was not any free ride, and it took lots of effort. I also know that it will take even more effort to progress from this point, but I´m ready for it and will take up any challenges that may come up in the future. I am determined and feel that I have the piece of mind to carry onwards for a long time to go.

Lining up for a turn in Fuerteventura

Once again, I believe that my progress this year is the product of the great support I have had from sponsors, friends and family, so before this year ends and a new one comes upon us, I will take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported me this year in the crazy life that I have, and I truly appreciate all of the help which has been given to me around the world.

And on for the upcoming year, I can just say that exiting things are to come.

Happy New Year to everybody out there.

I´ve put together some pics from the best moments of our way too short Miami trip. Hope to be coming back again in the future. Check it out. Ohh, and thanks to Sean and Alex Morales for lending me the pics.

Racing just off Fishers Island, apparently top dollar real estate of the area

Cruise ships a very regular sight!

Oggi, Rick and Diego

Fully loaded on my 9,5

Launching the 9,5 and my big Angulo board

Cruising back to the town after a great day of sailing

Meeting new friends

Another great day on the water

I only used my biggest sail and board in Miami,, I was loving it!

This day we sailed down the sun

Closing down the beach

Prizegiving and the end of a great week

So all in all, a great way to end the season. I´m now back in Denmark where I´m trying to get everything sorted for the winter, and basically get the hell out as soon as I can. Because its getting pretty cold, and I can just feel that I´m not a cold weather guy anymore. Pity but I must have changed.

Kiani

Getting ready to tackle another season hard!!

But now, as this season has come to an end, I´m already stressing about the next one, and I feel that time is very short. Thats not the normal me, so something must have changed. Maybe its because I really want to get started again and get out there and battle it out again on the water. Maybe its just because I really want to get back out on the water no matter what. Personally I think its a combination of the two above. I must admit that my motivation for windsurfing is as big as ever, and I think this season has been the reason for that. I have just had amazing experiences and sailed amazing places and found new ways of improving myself out there on the water.

Cruising with windsurf champ Mikkel Asmussen at my home spot.

Anyways the worldcups are over for this year and its time to focus on what is going to happen for the winter. As many know, this years last worldcup on the German island of Sylt wasnt excactly the success we were looking for. I think I spent a total of 20mins sailing in 11 days, which in the end got quite frustrating. After while I felt more like I was on holiday with the boys going to parties and in general just chilling out. Okay thats fun too, but we are there for competing, and I would have liked at least a day or two of sailing.

The sailing that we did went quite well actually. My gear was working really well in the waves. In general the conditions in Sylt are a bit similar to where I used to sail as a kid, so I actually like that sort of wavy rough sea. Anyways, I won my qualifying heat and started off leading my quarter final until it got cancelled. I was a bit gutted they cancelled it, but then again it could have been me being stuck back in the pack with no chance for planing, so all in all that was a fair call I would say. It really wasnt windy enough.

Battling it out in Sylt.

So that day we got called off and I put all my sails ready on the beach for next time as I was going to be in the first heat whenever the wind would come back. And there my gear was for the rest of the week without even being touched once. That will explain a bit about how little wind there was. The freestyle and wave guys could entertain themselves with some tow-in freestyle while the rest of us couldn´t do much else other than eat “curry wurst” and check out girls. Which in all fairness is fun too, but gets a bit boring after so many days. Not that I had a bad time. I had a great time with all my friends and all of the acquaintances that I have come to get over the year. Sylt is a place to meet old friends, race in the rough conditions and have fun, and I am sure that next year it will be awesome.

The look of Sylt for a whole week.!

Now before Sylt I had a pretty crazy schedule. Just after the worldcup in Turkey I packed up and jumped on the plane to Greece where I was met by some very passionate windsurfers who took me to their home spot of Lake Volvi which is in the north of Greece. Here I competed and had the best of times with the local guys at their great windsurfing location, and I can without a doubt recommend this place to anyone who wants to truly enjoy windsurfing in a relaxed environment.

Racing in Greece.

Chilling out in Greece.

I came back from Greece with lots of energy and headed to the west coast of Denmark for the annual long distance race called WaterZ which is a race between windsurfers and kitesurfers. When I arrived on the morning of the competition the beach was absolutely packed with people getting ready. It was so great to see that so many people still are interested in windsurfing and so many people decided to show up for this race. Last year I came 9th in this race after breaking my harness a while before the finish, so I was hoping for a better result this year. Unfortunately i did a fairly bad start compared to the guys who did a good start and I gave the first guys a good head run of 10-20secs. I knew I would catch up a lot as I was fairly confident in my speed, but I only managed to come back to 5th place, which everything considered is fine for me this time. Lesson learned!! Best thing was that we beat the kitesurfers by quite a big margin, so its all good!

Caught from the helicopter following is throughout the race.

Danish championships was also meant to run this weekend, but we didnt have any wind, so the rest of the weekend was spent chilling out and catching up with the Danish guys. After that I headed back home to Copenhagen to stay at home until the worldcup on Sylt would start. I spent some great days at home and cought up with old friends and in general had a great time in my home town before it was time to pack up the car and head down south again towards Sylt.

Packing up in Sylt.

And now its all over and I´m back in Copenhagen again trying to get everything planned for the winter. The planning and organizing part of windsurfing is not as easy as you would think. Imagine a sport where you are sort of a lone ranger with no coach, no manager and no one telling you what to do. Its a great freedom but if you cant handle the freedom with responsibility, everything becomes hard as well. The only thing I know for curtain is that I have the love and support of my family, friends and sponsors who make it all happen. So when I´m hauling big bags around the world to different locations, my motivation and support is what yet again confirms that this is my life as I like it to be!

For now its aloha to everyone and I will be back once all my winter and 2012 plans have been finalized.

Kiani

After coming home from the worldcup in Aruba I must admit that I had no actual plans until the Fuerteventura worldcup which was to set off around end of the month of july. A couple of days after I got home a friend of mine called me up and asked if I was up for doing a junior kids windsurfing camp at the west side of Denmark, and after a bit of thinking I decided to do it, and the week after I spent my time with a group of amazing kids who had only come to spend their time on windsurfing. It was a great experience and very motivating in the same time to see how much these kids were into windsurfing. I remember waking up one morning fairly early to look out the window and see they were already rigging up to go on the water. That was just great to see, and I had the privilege to sail them completely tired for hours before they gave up. That night they were the most quite kids I have ever seen. It just reminds me so much of my own days at their age, where I could just not get enough of blasting around. It was probably the most motivating days of this year.

So we passed mid July and I got tired of the no wind situation in DK, and decided together with my friend Kasper to take off to Fuerteventura a little bit earlier and get some hours of sailing in before the worldcup at the end of the month. I managed to find flights last minute and off I was to Fuerteventura. My friend picked me up in the airport, and later that day I was already rocking it on the water. Danm life was good at that moment. There is nothing more rewarding than flying for a day or two, and then hear straight to the water from the airport and surf your ass off. TRY IT!!.

Just setting up in Fuerteventura

Followed by a night of mayhem in the party tent on the beach, I was now reset and ready for the battle at this years Fuerteventura event. Maybe a little too ready as I basically came last the first two days. Hmm,, very strange, but the conniptions were strange as well. I specifically remember going from 2nd place to last place in one reach just by being in the wrong end of a gust. Oh well thats racing I guess. Nothing to do about it now. I came back strong the rest of the days which is good enough for me at this point. I proofed that I can sail well in those strong winds and be consistent with good speed and good technique around the marks, so that is a progress I´m very happy for.

I just love racing at Fuerteventura. Even though its pretty difficult I think its the most fun. Its super windy, and the first leg coming towards the first mark is just great fun with everybody blasting at full speed towards that first mark. Its just great action, and you don’t know how it is before you´re tried it, or at least watched it from the beach.

Fighting for it.

So the Fuerteventura worldcup eventually came to an end with a very disappointing prize giving party compared to what we have seen before, but at we managed to have some fun before going to bed. Next day I was flying out in the afternoon on the flight from hell. I had forgotten about this from last year. By incident nearly 15 of us had booked ourselves on the same flight, which is no problem if you play football or table tennis, but we all had at least 4 windsurfing bags, and by no surprise none of my gear made it on the flight, which somehow was a relief as I didn’t have to carry it when I got back to Copenhagen. This little thing turned out to be more of a problem though as I was flying out only 2 days later and I desperately needed my boards and sails to compete in the next worldcup in Turkey. In a true hustler fashion I gave up using the phone and decided to make a house call at the airport ground service people. And what a good thing that I did, because nothing was under control. A few of my bags had arrived but far from all of it was there.
This situation was so out of hand but just by miracle, I saw my bags rolling in at the arrivals hall just an hour before I had to fly, so I pulled everything out of arrivals in a hurry and rolled everything back around to check-in and off to Turkey I was.

Chilling at my little rigging place.

My favorite RedBull girl.

Everytime I set foot in Turkey I feel half home. I just love coming back here for windsurfing. Great friends, great weather, great food and the list goes on. I just feel good here, and good I felt the whole week that I was here. The previous years that I have been here I have never done well, but this year was different. I felt on top and I was ready to race. This reflected on my performance I was sailing consistently good and a few of my personal goals were coming to be real, which I am super happy for. Of course I had couple of incidents here and there, but overall I felt that I was much more up there and fighting for it. Definitely a feeling that I would like to hold on to. The atmosphere at this event is just amazing, and I must say all the RedBull or whichever promotion girls are doing their best to get you out of focus.

Cranking that turn.

Getting nailed

Great starts off the line in Turkey.

Perfect flatwater conditions.

After the event finished I hit up the club Babylon with couple of the boys, but it wasn’t what it used to be, and we had planned to go to another place, but I think we somehow all forgot about that plan as the night progressed. A couple of the guys had to get up early and go to the airport, so it wasn’t the latest night ever, but good fun with the boys and a great finish to another great stay in Turkey. Next day we were taken to the airport like 5 hours before our flight only to find out that you can only check in 2 hours before the flight so a good 3 hours was spend staring into the air before we could commence our flight back to the Danish Kingdom.

Now back in Denmark I have taken a couple days of resting before starting up the last leg of my season which consists of training here in Denmark, doing the Danish slalom championships along with the long-distance waters race. And at the end there is the last worldcup of the year on the great island of Sylt. To be honest I really like this time of year as I am going to have time to sail with my friends and be more relaxed as I´m going to be on my own home ground. I always like the Sylt worldcup, so I will look forward to that as well.

Until then its all Aloha from Kiani

See you on the water.

K

Or so it seems. Times are flying in a very fast pace, and I really don’t know how to slow it down to start enjoying. Feels like I am just drifting back and forth around the planet, a true drifter. Maybe am I forgetting to stop for a moment and think about my life now and then? My friends say I am super lucky with the life that I live and I agree with them. But lately things have been so busy that I haven’t given it much thought.

So since last time I blogged I was in Costa Brava for the traditional PWA windsurfing worldcup which brought quite a bit of excitement with hurricane winds and generally all sorts of conditions during one week.

After that I took a timeout at home getting some things organized and not long after that I was back on the airplane on my way to Aruba for this years return of PWA granslam on the tropical island of amazing windsurfing. But before I would get there I set my course by New York for a one day visit at my sisters place. Of course I had problems with all of my gear in the airport as they wouldn’t hold it overnight and the luggage storage, well they just seemed way to lazy to be wanting to deal with it.

Finally an angel of a lady from Continental helped me find a storage for my gear and off I was on to Manhatten where I had a great evening with my little sis before heading back to the airport really late night. I dragged all my gear out of the storage and took it up the stairs for check-in where I of course got in trouble as they were trying to charge me once more for all of the bags, but I was having none of that. After lots of intense discussions all of got checked in once more and on my way I was.

Once I arrived on Aruba I could see that it was my kind of place. Great weather, great windsurfing and the touch of civilization in the form of lots of people. I like it at places where there are cities, people and stuff.

So anyway going to the beach on Aruba was at first a pretty hot experience. It was so unbelievably hot when you have been in Denmark. I couldn’t stay on the beach more than an hour before having to head back to my room for a timeout. But not long after I got used to it all and was ready to go to war.

So-called ghosting…

Generally for this worldcup I felt much more at ease out on the slalom course and had an easier time going around the marks with no crashes. I will almost go as far as saying I was sailing stable. If its just stable or stably bad, well I don’t know. i just felt like I had great speed and that I was getting better at taking advantage of my speed with some good gybing.
The only thing I was struggling with this time, surprisingly was the starts. I am normally good with the starts but this time I had a hard time getting it right. Only a couple of times I won the start and lead the race.

The big mess up for this event was when I won the starts big time in the last round and was far ahead after the gybe only to sail to the wrong mark. I cannot say how much I hated myself after that and how much trouble I got from my friends about it. At that moment this whole live TV thing was not the best thing for me. I think everybody at home saw me mess up. But I can promise that it will never ever happen again.

Pretty good start followed by a pretty big mess up.

Setting aside these tinges it was an amazing experience to come to this amazing place. Racing there was truly a pleasure and I really hope to be coming back here for the future years. WIth a 29th place in the bag I didn’t come home with much of a result but I had a great feeling and improved on lots of things for this race which I will carry on and work on for the next race which will be on Fuerteventura. Here I will finally be pulling out my small board and small sails which I have been silting a great deal on this year.

Until then i´m just going to enjoy the danish summer and cheer on my friends who are doing the formula world championships in Puerto Rico and the PWA wave worldcup on pozo.

Its over and out for Kiani

Thanks to John Carter, Sean Obrien and Jesper Orth for pics.

I landed in Copenhagen a friday morning and headed home for a nap before my friend picked me up and we drove to the west coast of Denmark to the town of Hvide Sande for the first ever dedicated slalom windsurfing camp. I set up this camp together with a friend and sponsor and it turned out to be a great success. All of our participants went home with new knowledge that they could work on for the rest of the season.

After about a week it was time for the PWA worldcup to start with event number two in Ulsan Korea. Now I have been in this place before and it is one of the most special places to windsurf for me. Like windsurfing on another planet

Now in between all of this I had some amazing windsurfing with some really good friends at my home spot. This place is just the best around spring time. There is always wind and sunshine. Nearly better than summer I would say. There was also room for a little get together with all of the boys for a fun night before I packed up my stuff and got on the plane to Korea.

Now traveling a lot makes you experienced working with the timezones and making sure you get enough amount of rest. I managed to hit the timing perfect(with the help of some sleepy sleepy pills) perfectly and slept a good 10 hours to wake up and start rigging up sails and boards. This year the Ulsan worldcup was a bit unusual. I had sails out of the bag that I would never touched at this location. My small sails were out and I even used them during the event. Usually Ulsan gives us lighter winds which means you will be using bigger equipment but this year the whole quiver was out and ready to go. I might have come prepared to this event but that was also it. I never really got in the right mode and generally didn’t have what it takes to compete at high level. My body and equipment was ready but my mind just wasn’t. There was nothing to do. i tried everything I could but my body and mind were not really working together which is a shame as i actually felt like i was pretty prepared for this event.

After the event in Ulsan I went with a friend of mine Sean Obrien from Australia to Busan to check out the city and hang out with Sean´s cousin who works there. We found it to be great times, and those 4 ekstra days that we had went by really quick and it was now time to head back over to Denmark.

I arrived in Denmark where a good friend of mine picked me up in the airport and dropped me off at home. I unpacked all my bags and went to sleep for about a day and a half. I really needed some rest. Weekend time came and I went down in my basement to pack up all my equipment again as it was now time to head over to the west of Denmark for a Danish tour event. The forecast was good and slalom sailing looked pretty promising for this event. My friend Assi picked me up and we head over to little town of Ronbjerg that once hosted a world championship back in the early 90´s. We arrived late night and went straight to bed. Next morning early we went to the beach and literally rigged everything that we had as the Danish wind can change very fast. Around 10. am we were racing and it was loads of fun racing with some of the old Danish worldcuppers who are not racing internationally anymore but still compete back home. They are still very hard to beat, and after full on racing a whole weekend I had to settle with a 3rd place behind legend Brian Rogild and the Danish horse Kasper Larsen.

It was now sunday evening and we packed up everything to drive back to Copenhagen. I arrived home in Copenhagen late night sunday only to pack down my gear as it was now time to go to the 3rd slalom worldcup of the year in Costa Brava. I can´t say enough how tired I was. i basically didn’t have energy for anything. I managed to get all my stuff checked in and many hours later I was laying in the bed at our hut in Costa Brava.

Next day around 12 my 5 sails were rigged and I was ready to go for another week of racing. And racing I got. We did a race on the first day, and the next day I woke up to 40-50knots of wind, probably the most radical slalom sailing I have ever done in my lifetime. As I only had my 6,2 m2 sail with me, that was I had to use, which kindof worked out. I managed to finish my heats which in itself was an achievement. But unfortunately I had to settle with not advancing through the quarter finals which was a bit frustrating but looking back at the given conditions, the level and my equipment I just have to work a bit more on my mindset and putting it together and I believe that I will do another step up.

Now things are more quite again. After the hard week of Costa Brava I have moved down to Barcelona where I will spend some time with friends before I head back to Denmark to recharge for the upcoming busy summer which consists of Aruba worldcup, nordic championships in Sweden and worldcup in Fuerteventura.

More stuff to come soon.

Aloha
Kiani

After couple of weeks of training with different guys on the water i shifted focus as Peter, the marketing manager from Simmer turned up and it was now time to focus on this years photo shoot. Along with him came Ben Profitt , and together we formed the trio called “the command group”. Our base was the nearly broken down rental truck rented at a local budget rental place.

The next two weeks the plan was to get as many photos and video clips as possible for next years equipment presentations. It turned out to be more of a team building trip rather than photo shoot. It was a great experience spending those days with the Simmer team and meeting new people that I normally would have never met. Together with team captain Kai Katchadourian we planned everyday to its full potential and got the most out of the conditions. We even did a trip on the south side of Maui for some radical wave action but only to be told to get lost by the surfers, oh well I guess thats life sometimes.

Guys like Francisco Porcella and Rudy Castorina also joined the daily team activities forming the perfect team for just about any kind of conditions that mother nature would throw at us. When not sailing we also managed to do bunch of lifestyle stuff which I hope will go public as it shows the characters of the team, what they think about eachother and so on. I can just say it was fun making it.

In between the photo shoot schedule i managed to squeeze in a couple of slalom training sessions here and there. Surprisingly enough I got to spend quite a bit of time on sails like 8,6 and 9,5 which is pretty unusual for Maui at this time of year. None the less a great opportunity for me to work on the bigger sails as those sails are used very often in the worldcup.

I even managed to sneak my 8,6 and big board out at Hookipa one day. That will tell you a bit about the amount of waves that came in that day.

After two weeks of “hard” work with the Simmer crew we managed to get almost any kind of material with the highlight being Kai Katchadourians performance with his band at a local bar where it apparently is very easy to get off on the wrong foot with the security. We survived it and even without earplug, the performance was great.

Finally we closed this years Simmer photo shoot by closing Hookipa park with a sneak BBQ and beers in basically pitch black. It was super good fun and am happy to have had this experience getting to know new guys and get a better feeling of the Simmer brand.

Now back in Denmark the focus has already shifted and I am trying my best to prepare for the upcoming worldcup in Korea which starts already next week. It seems like this whole season is going to by flying by before I know it, but I will try to keep my feet on the ground all the way through and work for the best.

For now its a bit colder Aloha from Denmark.

(Thanks to Simmer and Ben Profitt for the pictures)

Kiani

Oh well. Now I´m on Maui, and you cant really complain when you are on Maui. Everything seems to find its way on this island. Just as you realize you are missing something, it turns up, or that technique you are been working on at home which didnt really work out suddenly comes together here. You meet old friends, have great food, ride some waves and share the beautiful pacific ocean.

After those couple of weeks in Denmark, I feel like I have fallen in love with the sport once again, and I am just thinking of the next day when I get back to the house, a feeling I havent had for a long time. And after I have been windsurfing and come back to the beach, something strange happens. I dont know if it is because I am getting older, but everytime I get up from the water, I see a Phil McGain(windsurfing legend) sitting on my shoulder asking me if I really feel if I have sailed enough, and off I go into the water again to windsurf myself all the way down, or head off to the gym. As my good friend from Austria Chris Pressler would say: “I´m really motivated”.

Now I am not really sure where all of this motivation is leading me. Last time I was this motivated, I went down in flames in the racing, so I am hoping that things are different this time. Actually I know it is different. I am not thinking of any kind of results, but I am just stoked that I have some absolutely great equipment to sail on. The combination of my boards and sails are great, and its just great to be able to blast around and enjoy while in full control over the choppy waters of Maui.

I still have time to work on my stuff for a while before all of the Simmer crew hits Maui and we will be doing photoshoot which is so much fun. I really had fun last time we did this and I really look forward to it.

Until then its just about getting so much time on the water as I can before photoshoots and then hitting Denmark, where the sailing conditions dont really compete with the Maui. After some time in Denmark it will also be time for heading out on the world tour again starting with the PWA slalom event in Korea which should be pretty exciting.

Until then I can just say Aloha from Maui.

Kiani