Photos: @JeffShotThat
The idea for the Phase 5 Regatta started off innocently enough. Plan a lake weekend with the team riders and their families to get together, surf, hang out, and have a good time! Pretty simple, right? In theory, yes…but when the call went out, we got a lot more RSVP’s than expected, but hey, the more the merrier, right?! We were stoked with all the riders that came out and we love to see how everyone interacts with one another outside of the competition scene.
The weekend started on Friday, February 14th, as riders began to show up to the spot. It was a bit of a free-for-all as we were finishing up the set up for the weekend but we had some boats go out to ride so everyone stayed entertained. The weekend officially kicked off that evening as we had a “Welcome Party” at a local brewery to break the ice and get everyone stoked for the days to come.
Saturday morning started off strong as we drew names for riders to get put into boats to go shred. We wanted to make sure that the riders were out with new people who they may have not gotten to spend time with in the past so they can get out of their comfort zones. Once the names were drawn, the boats were loaded up and the shredding commenced. It was a bit windy out on the water but that didn’t stop anyone from throwing down and having a good time! Once the session wrapped up, we all headed back to the dock for lunch and some backyard games like volleyball and cornhole. It’s always funny to see professional wakesurfers try their hands at more “conventional” sports and how uncoordinated they usually are…but that’s part of the fun!
Our team managers/referrees, Drew Danielo and Mark Walser, had devised a fun wakesurfing basketball game to entertain the crew that afternoon but due to the wind, we had to revise the game to do it at the dock rather than behind the boat. It wasn’t exactly what they had hoped for but it was a good time nonetheless! Plenty of riders surprised us (and themselves) by draining buckets off the dock into the floating basket. We were expecting airballs all day!
That evening, we held an Awards Dinner to honor some of the standouts on the team from that season. More from that night soon in an upcoming blog so keep your eyes peeled!
We woke up Sunday morning to the wind calming down a bit so we loaded up the boats and went out for another ride! Riders and their families started slipping out to either head back home that afternoon or continue their vacations to other parts of the state. All in all, it was a solid weekend full of fun, camaraderie, and of course plenty of surfing! Check out the images from the weekend below and be on the lookout for the full video recap soon!
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