October 30th 2008. My class and I spent our first lesson outdoors when a strong wind began to emerge. What a strange feeling, the kids were almost blown away and I started realizing that this might become an epic windsurfing day. Only a few more hours at school and I would be off to rip the Danube River at Donauinsel, the urban windsurfing site in Vienna/Austria.
I sent a short text message to my brother Felix and I got a reply only a minute later “I’m on!”.

Time is passing slowly at school and during my first break I quickly went into the staff room to check the forecast online…strong SouthSoutheast with gusts up to 110km/h…sweet!
I just had to finish my last lesson and then I could hurry back home and pack my stuff.

Felix was already back home after finsihing his Math lecture and ready to leave when I got home. I quickly ate and hurried up to join him. Our parents decided to accompany us and take some shots from our upcoming session. It took us 10 minutes on the express highway to get to the Donau Insel.

Once we arrived we were really dissapointed by the crappy wind that was far from what was forecast.
Felix decided to rig his Force 5.3 and I went for the Force 5.7
The wind was coming too far from the South and really gusty so conditions were far from optimal but good enough to train some freestyle moves.
I was practicing my eSliders and Felix almost did an airjibe. When conitions got worse we decided to quit our session at Donau Insel and give our secret spot a try, “the bridge”.


Derig, drive 5 minutes and rig again weren’t an option. So we decided to go for a downwinder, heading down to our next playground. We started off in light wind conditions while our arms began to grow longer and longer from all the pumping. Suddenly we got back into the wind window and started planning quickly. I went switchstance in the straps and my eSlider attempt ended in a switch stance airjibe. Felix performed a nice body drag.
A few people ashore noticed our action and started yelling after each move – the atmosphere was sensational and we were only halfway to the bridge.


We went from one shore to the other, duck jibes, air jibes, semi eSliders, body drags. We passed a few fisherman that couldn’t believe their eyes as we quickly jibed past them and splashed water right into their path.
The bridge came quickly into sight and we spotted another sailor in the distance.

A few minutes later we arrived underneath the bridge and spotted local Tom Galla. Tom is an exceptional sailor, showing some clean spocks, onehanded grubbies, flakas and loops. I was totally impressed and spent more time watching him instead of concentrating on my own moves.
Time went by quickly and we had to end our session at nightfall. With some nice shots on my Dad’s camera we were totally exhausted we packed our car and looked forward to our next epic session “under the bridge”.

All shots copyright (C) by Ewald Hauft
Thanks to Clemens Hauft for providing this story,