The seven-stop British Slalom Tour had its finale at Weymouth on the south coast of England this past weekend. Heading into the event, there was all to play for with three sailors in with a chance of the overall title, including reigning champion and Starboard/Severne team rider James Dinsmore. Main title contender Kevin Greenslade scored an emphatic bullet in the opening elimination which put the pressure on James Dinsmore in the second elimination...

"After an entire season’s racing it all came down to the final (25th) elimination of the season which I pretty much had to win in pretty patchy, borderline-raceable conditions. I lead the first run of the final but it got abandoned on the penultimate leg. There were then a tense few hours before we got a second crack at it.

I managed to nail another pin end start on my favoured Reflex VI 8.6m² / iSonic 130 combo but it nearly all went horribly wrong when my footstrap broke as I entered my last jibe in the lead. Panic almost set in but I was able to waterstart and scrape over the line in second place behind Sam Latham and that turned out to be good enough for the overall title.

It was another great season on the BSA with wind at 6 of the 7 events. I can’t quite believe that I have won the National Slalom Championships for a third time! I got pushed harder than ever before by Kevin [Greenslade] and Sam [Latham] and it was nail-biting to the end. Last weekend put quite a few grey hairs on my head!

Looking back, I won 18 out of the 25 eliminations run over the year and went particularly well when it was 8.6m² weather or smaller. I’ll have to keep working on my sailing in the marginal conditions and will aim for some good results in Europe in 2016.

Thank you to Starboard Windsurfing, Severne Sails, Tushingham, my wife Aneeta, my daughter Meenakhi and team manager Allan Cross for their support over what has been another hard year’s racing."

- James Dinsmore (GBR 659)

- Photo Credit: Dave White -