RUARAIDH SOMERVILLE: THE POZO FIX!

Ruaraidh Somerville heads to Pozo alongside Willy Maclean, Eddie Maclean, and Lucas Meldrum in search of a well-earned windsurfing fix. With the legendary Pozo Izquierdo delivering its trademark conditions, the crew from Tiree gets a taste of this iconic PWA hotspot.

Ruaraidh brings his signature wit and sharp storytelling to the trip: don’t miss his insightful and humorous take on the action, the atmosphere, and what it’s like to show the ropes to the next generation at one of windsurfing’s most hardcore locations.

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RS: “My plan to go to Pozo and put in some reps in Gran Canaria’s dubious windsurfing mecca came out of being injured. A quick windsurfing fix was needed now I was healed up from an ankle injury which had put me out for most of the 2025 winter.

KING KONG?

“Ho’okipa is king, Pozo is King Kong” reads the legend on the Pozo Winds t-shirts worn by sunburnt German nationals swigging a few San Miguels after a day of chop-bothering in the sun. Is Pozo King Kong? Is Ho’okipa king? There’s nothing particularly benevolent and Arthurian about the Ho’okipa rocks, about floating out on a 5.2 with nothing but your guts and a prayer keeping you from mashing either your sponsors’ goodwill or your hard-earned cash into pieces. Maybe they mean one of those horrible medieval kings who burnt people on stakes.

On the other hand, it’s hard to see a monstrous, misunderstood beast in Pozo, a spot that for the entirety of my most recent trip there, closely resembled a choppy lake in Switzerland. Once you get over the wind that never stops blowing and the mild risk of knocking a fin out on the bunker, Pozo gets a bit less scary. Pozo is maybe King Kong in that it’s a bit hairy and probably smells, and perhaps also that you’d be advised to buy lots of bananas if you’re planning to visit. Otherwise, the comparison falters.

POZO

Pozo isn’t scary – it’s fun. Ish. Playful is a more honest description. Accessible, for sure. Cheerful staff at the various rental shops arm a never-ending stream of bump and jump enthusiasts with shiny new toys to thrash around in friendly onshore mush. The only real fear at Pozo comes from some of the maniacs who sail it. Various misadventures on the rocks at Scarborough, on reefs in Ireland, or in shore breaks on the east coast of Scotland, made me think I knew fear in windsurfing. I was wrong. Real windsurfing fear is trying to water start out of Pozo’s bunker while Ricardo Campello bears down on you doing thirty-five knots with a look in his eyes that would, in any other circumstance, have men in white coats trying to fit him for a men’s size large straitjacket.

The waves are not scary. The rocks are not scary. The wind is not scary (until your towel blows off you in the car park and you find yourself chasing it down in the nude past Philip Koster and his very lovely wife and children). The PWA World Tour competitors warming up, on the other hand, are frankly terrifying. Pozo in early summer is exceptionally fun for this reason because you can go out in very accessible wave sailing conditions and absolutely terrify yourself watching the best windsurfers in the world beat themselves to a pulp in the name of progression. These people should be medicated. But instead, they are encouraged. The atmosphere is electric.

THE PLAN

After a good four months away from windsurfing with an academically beneficial injury (I went from a C or B student to an A student just in time for my honours year!), I felt the need to be around crazy people again. I like university, I like my books, and I like my quiet local pubs. But windsurfing is better! And so, I hatched a cunning plan to tag along with Britain’s world tour hope, Lucas Meldrum, who would be putting in the laps in Pozo ahead of the PWA World Cup in July. It’s fun staying with Lucas – on the UK tour, I get to flatter myself that we’re competitors, but the guy eats and breathes windsurfing, and it shows. I windsurf at the weekends and in my daydreams during mind-numbing epistemology lectures. He’s a real pro, is my point, and I admire his focus. I like sailing with him, trying to soak up a bit of advice that might help me get past him if he sails a properly bad heat at the next event, and I like filming him pushing himself on the water. It’s fun to catch up with the various people I’ve had the good fortune to meet and sail with over my time existing on the humble periphery of the pro windsurfing scene.

THE LOCALS

I’ve seen Liam Dunkerbeck here and there since I met him in 2019 when we were both tiny groms, played video games online with him during the Covid pandemic, and now cautiously approach him on the boardwalk as the Red Bull-fuelled heir apparent to windsurfing royalty. He carries himself with the confidence of the world-class athlete he is, yet he greets me with a humility and openness which contrasts with his status. I want to feel special from his cheery greeting, but the reality is he’s just a nice person, friendly and welcoming. They all are: Marino Gil, Koster, Sarah-Quita, etc. Windsurfing exists in a rarefied position as a sport which requires a near-daily commitment to potentially lethal training, but which has almost none of the financial compensation such professionalism would normally involve. The only reason somebody might have to pursue a career in this is for pure, undying love for the sport. Nobody’s in it for the cash, or for the fame and glory of it. And so, everybody is nice. And that, I think, is why I’m drawn back to Pozo. If I wanted consistent wind to practice in, I could go to Morocco, or maybe Lanzarote or elsewhere. But I go back to Pozo, because my childhood heroes are there, and they’re nice.

SCOTTISH CREW

For the uncultured among you, Willy Maclean is the owner of Wild Diamond windsurf school in Tiree and the organiser of the Tiree Wave Classic, and now the wider UK wave tour. I pinged him a WhatsApp a few days before I was due to go to Pozo, asking if his son Eddie might like to join us. Eddie is 14, a talented windsurfer, with several UK youth titles under his belt, and had never been to Pozo. Eddie spends his days daydreaming about getting married to Philip Koster, or something like that. He has all the same gear as Koster, rips like a young Koster, and I reckoned it was time he sailed with the bloke.

My initial plan was to get Eddie out on his own for a lad’s trip with myself and Lucas, but Willy wisely pointed out I was two years older when I first went to Pozo on my own, and that I had gotten into enough trouble while I was there as it was. And so, father and son, the Hebridean Don Vito and Michael Corleone, hopped on the ferry from Tiree and stayed the night at my folks’ place in Lenzie, before joining me for the flight to Pozo. Upon hearing the news that he was about to be knitting baby clothes with Philip Koster and playing tennis with Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Eddie sent me around two hundred WhatsApp messages in block capitals expressing his excitement. I reckon inviting him out was a good shout.

HEROES

We arrived in Pozo to a remarkably flat and windless day. I was starting to feel the pressure of having invited the two Tiree locals out on what I thought was an ok forecast, but clocking Eddie’s reaction to getting picked up from the airport by Marino Gil’s ever-lovely dad made me realise there was more than just good windsurfing at stake here. There was the realisation that your heroes are real, and I had forgotten how cool that was. I must admit to giggling a bit inside after shooting the breeze with Koster this trip. He’s got loads of world titles! And he asked me how my 4.2 was! It’s enough to make a grown man blush.

POZO SESSION

The next few days the wind picked up, even if the waves didn’t, and on Eddie’s final day, the fateful moment arrived. I spotted the iconic T6 transporter, emblazoned with G44 on the side, and soon enough a blood-red sail with Red Bull stickers was tanking it about the water. Not to be confused with the blood-red sail with Native Hebridean stickers flying right behind. Myself, Lucas and Willy watched the session with a similar level of stoke to Eddie, and it should be remarked that for the duration of a PWA heat or two, Scotland’s most promising windsurfer was beating Germany’s.

Pozo was pretty flat, and Eddy had two backside hacks and an air, along with some slightly soggy forward attempts to Koster’s solitary wave score and crashed back loop. Say what you will about the conditions, but our lad had Don Philipe beat for a good thirty minutes. We’ll forget about the tweaked push loop and one handed-goiter Koster pulled out later, because by that point he’d already lost the heat and was out of contention for the title of Best Sailor With A Red Sail On Wednesday Morning. Scotland 1, Germany nil. We haven’t seen that kind of result since the SAS took on Rommel in North Africa. Koster retired from the water, no doubt to lick his wounds and sink into an existential crisis about his impending irrelevance in the face of total Scottish competitive dominance. Meanwhile, Eddie went for a few victory laps and topped off a successful morning’s sailing with his first completed forward loop. A trip well spent for the lad, I reckon. I heard Ben Severne’s latest in-office memo was titled “Teuton out, Teuchter in”, but that may be hearsay. You know how gossip can spread in small businesses.

OLD FAVOURITE

We bade Eddie and Willy farewell the next day, and as it goes with windsurfing trips, their noble sacrifice brought some waves (okay, some chop), and Lucas and I got a bit of fun sailing in. My usual wave snobbery was replaced by sheer stoke to be windsurfing after so long hobbling about waiting for my ankle to heal up, and I had the added novelty of getting used to a new board. Well, an old board, actually. I’d put a wee hole in my 74l Goya quad, and I’d mistimed getting it fixed, leaving myself scrambling for a board for the trip. Thankfully, Willy had come to the rescue by bringing down my old 69l Quatro from the garage in Tiree. A 2012 vintage, not an old board in my head, but surprisingly alien compared to what I’ve grown used to. Much longer, much narrower, and a lot more banana-esque than Keith Teboul’s latest shapes. At least King Kong would be well fed. Admittedly the board was never meant for Pozo, with a down the line rocker, but at its size I reckoned it would still go pretty good in Pozo’s high winds. I screwed in some new foot straps, glued down the peeling pads and whacked a set of indestructible K4 Scorchers into the boxes, ready for a beating down the bunker. Thankfully I had all my nice shiny new Goya Banzai 11s, of which I only used 4.2 and 3.7 (the latter just once!) during the trip.

I wanted to believe Pozo wasn’t that windy for once, but the reality is I’m not a skinny grom anymore! Too much Guinness and too many pies in the recovery process, I reckon. The combo of super stable, powerful Goyas and the knife-edged Quatro was pretty lovely, if a bit weird at first! I’ve had the good fortune of getting used to modern wave boards and their ability to get on the plane with your feet already in the straps, or close to them. It really threw me to have my front foot right past the mast foot and my back foot tucked just behind the front straps to pump the board onto the plane, before carefully moving them backwards once I was up to speed.

It’s crazy how much the user-friendliness of hardcore wave boards has improved in such a short space of time. Once the board was on the plane though, it handled great! Hurtling down the bunker on a board I haven’t used since I was learning to bottom turn was a fun feeling, finally getting to put it through paces I’d dreamed of as a kid. Maybe it was a welcome distraction from the rustiness of my windsurfing, recalling how much I’d wanted to be able to sail at this level back then. A bit of perspective is healthy I think – I was finding myself frustrated at having lost a bit of my windsurfing instinct and having gone backwards a bit post-injury, but reminding myself to be grateful for all the time I’ve spent sailing since I last used this board dragged me out of the self-pity.

GOYA

Another nice thought was thinking back to being around Eddie’s age, looking at the shiny KT logo on the board and imagining myself sponsored by a team like Goya/Quatro, sailing the same gear as Marcilio Browne and the rest of them. I’ve gotten to meet and chat to Braw’ a few times, and each time he was friendly and kind. I’ve been lucky enough to windsurf lots, to get better and be picked up by Goya/Quatro, which is run by friendly and kind people. Being in Pozo again, on my battered old board, getting to share the stoke with Eddie, despite twinges from the ankle, a few missing waves and a lot of sore crashes, really cheered me up. It might not be king, also might not be King Kong, but it’s a grand old place. A few good down the line days at home and I might even miss it soon!”

Lucas Meldrum’s Pozo training video!

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