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About Wellington Windsurfing Association

About The WWA Goals Commitee Membership Text Event Notification Submissions Suggestions Logo and Brand Photo Gallery Contact Current Projects Coastal Highway Member Profiles Burkhard "Boogie" Vierth Bronwyn Ward Clayton Dougan Craig Mc Creary Gareth Wood Gary Mc Corry James Court Leland Le Breton Megan O'Donovan Tom Taylor Troy Purcel Will Thorp Chris "Woo" Norris Mark and Simone Hollenstein

Megan O'Donovan June 2003 Name: Age: Born in: Grew up: Lives in: Occupation: Years sailing: Spot sailed mostly: Favourite spots: -greater Wellington: - in New Zealand: - globally: Favourite move: Favourite food: Favourite music : My surf van is a: My equipment: Other activities: Disciplines:  Megan O'Donovan  17  Nelson  Wellington (spent 3 years in England when she was 4 years old)  Hataitai, Wlgt  Wgtn East Girls College student  1  Worser Bay  Worser Bay, the Ditch  Worser Bay, the Ditch  -  forward loop, volcan. At the moment,  she is focused on waterstart, upwind 360  and helitack Pasta  heaps of different stuff, such as  BoneThugs, Salmonella Dub, Jack  Johnson  "public bus", get a ride with my  friend  Mistral Vision 191L, North Sails  netball Freestyle THE QUESTIONS: My first time windsurfing: Summer the year before. My dad tried to take me out on an old, big board with no dagger. The sail was pretty old too so uphauling was not a very easy task. After this experience, I booked a lesson at h2osports at Worser Bay and Daniel, who was an instructor then, taught me the basics of windsurfing on a beginner board and 4.2 m2 sail. I just loved it! Best windsurfing experience: This must be the last race at the Youth Nationals in Rotorua last year and the lesson I had with Ben about 3 weeks ago, when he taught me how to waterstart and getting in my footstraps and harness for the first time. This was a great experience! What fascinates you the most about windsurfing? The fact that it's always exciting. There are always new things to learn and I never get bored. It's so much fun. Worst windsurfing experience: When I took my first lessons, I had no concept of the wind and sailed straight out. I ended up below the wharf in the bay of Seatoun and got picked up by the h2osports rescue boat a couple of times. It was actually not a bad experience but I got annoyed a little bit. In comparison to other sports and activities, do you think windsurfing is difficult to learn? No, not at all. The gear I learnt on makes it so much easier and it's also a lot of more fun. It's great to learn on the right gear. It's also good to have Ben (instructor) around, who pin points handling errors and immediately gives you the right hint or advice to make it work. Do you think you'll still be windsufing in 10 years? Definitely! I've got some plans and something I would like to do is going overseas; visit Becky and Sean on the Greek island Vassiliki. It would be great to spend some time over there and windsurf every day. What are your favourite windurfing conditions? At the moment, anything that gets me plaining, really. Doesn't matter if there's a northerly or southerly but I like steady winds and smooth water conditions Editors comment: Megan is not only a keen netball player, she has also done some surfing, prior to getting into windsurfing. Her interest quickly shifted towards windsurfing, after her Dad took her out on a windsurf board late September 2001. Real progress however was not possible until a few months later when she took a lesson at h2osports at Worser Bay and got hooked. She's consequently been out sailing every Saturday during the Summer. In this very short timespan, Megan has already competed at a national event. She won her division at the Youth Racing Nationals in Rotorua, which took place on April 5th/6th 2002. As a result, she's now also NZ girl school champ. Altough she had never sailed on a lake before and the wind conditions were very light, (unlike Wellington), she enjoyed every minute of it, and it was surely not the last we have seen of her in the NZ windsurfing comp scene. Not purely focusing on the Racing, she also enjoys other aspects of windsurfing such as Freestyle which is super popular amongst the younger generation. Megan is currently working on her upwind 360's and helitacks and has even competed in the recently held Wellington Freestyle Champs. Megan is very enthusiastic about windsurfing and now that she can waterstart, it won't be long until she is zipping around in the footstraps. Her Plimmerton debut is already in sight ! Her long term target is to pull off a forward loop and a volcan. With such goals in mind, progress will come quickly and its great to see that Wellington has once again produced a very young talented sailor who might go a long way in windsurfing.   Megan (far right) at the Wellington Freestyle Champs 2002 Megan enjoying a windsurfing lesson Megan blasting along at Worser Bay

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