'From the 1st to 9th of March, Australia?s top wavesailors and local stand up paddle surfers will descend on Phillip Island for the 2014 Wind & Surf Festival. This event hosts the 2014 Australian Wavesailing Titles, as well as the first Phillip Island SUP Classic surfing competition, and will be held at some of Victoria?s best beaches.

The Phillip Island Wind and Surf Festival will see the return of the Australian Wavesailing Titles to Victorian waters for the first time in nearly 15 years. The event is a great opportunity for the Victorian wavesailing community to show off in national level competition, with other competitors travelling from around the country to test themselves against Australia's best.

Phillip Island is one of Australia?s premiere destinations for all water sports ? be it surfing, windsurfing or stand up paddle surfing. The event is lucky to have access to Phillip Island?s best beaches, including Woolamai, Surfies Point, Right Point and Flynn?s Reef. The event is mobile between these locations, ensuring that competition is run in the best possible conditions and likely to give competitors a variety of reef and beach breaks.

We are excited to announce that aerial photographer Col Leonhardt (windsurfaustralia.com) and local sports photographer Jodi Stevenson (whitecapsphotography.com) will providing media coverage of the event. Col will be capturing stunning aerial images of windsurfing at Phillip Island for the first time. Together with Col, we will be producing an online movie of the event to showcase all of the great action at Phillip Island. Stay tuned for more!

The wavesailing will include divisions for all levels of competitors, including Open, Womens, Juniors, Masters and Amateur. The Open Division will feature the country?s best riders competing for the Australian Championship Title in epic conditions. Womens, Juniors and Masters divisions will offer Australia?s best talents a great opportunity to show off their wavesailing skills. The Amateur division will concentrate on getting everyone involved in a friendly competition.

The event is presented by Windsurfing Victoria, and is running thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, SHQ Boardsports, NeilPryde, JP-Australia, Severne Sails, Core Boardsports, Hot Sails Maui, Island Surfboards, Shoreham Solar, Flymount, K4 Fins and Goya Sails.'

Forecast:
At this point the forecast is looking promising for the Friday and registration day on Saturday. For anyone turning up early they will probably get two good days of sailing to kick everything off. We can't run any official competition on Saturday but it looks like a pretty good day to me - sunny, cross to cross off with around head high waves at Woolamai. Hopefully this develops further.

Registration:
To be in the lucky draw to win the pre-registration prizes you have to complete your registration tomorrow. We will draw the winners on Thursday. The link is here - http://www.shq.com.au/products/2014-wavesailing-nationals-registration


Accommodation:
We have got a pretty sweet house booked and currently have a couple of spare beds - contact me for more details. There will be options for those who want to crash as well.
Otherwise check here - www.phillipisland.com.au/ for some nice rental properties.

Please follow the event page on Facebook - www.facebook.com/windandsurffestival and check the website for updates - windandsurffestival.com/

Things have been moving along for next years nationals at Phillip Island - we had wanted to make an official announcement before Christmas, the permits are still under application with the council. We will get back with confirmation shortly in the new year.

The dates are 1-9 March - a few states have the Labour day public holiday so this should make blocking off time from work a bit easier.

The event will also be combined with the kitesurfing wave nationals and a local SUP Vic event so there will be plenty going on.

To give you an idea of the conditions at Phillip Island - there are a huge number of beaches on different angles so nearly every wind direction is covered. These beaches offer a variety of beach and reef breaks.

Feb/March typically offers a mix of South Easterly seabreezes - cross to cross off on the beach breaks - and frontal systems which light up the reefs. Typically it will be Port tack this time of year, although there are a heap of starboard tack options as well. The open beaches towards Woolamai pick up heaps of swell so you are pretty well guaranteed waves year round.

Here are a few pics from March this year showing a few of the breaks around the island. Stay posted for another update soon.