The 10 year Event History:
Originally a single event in the Oregon Coast’s Pistol River, the success of that 2010 event demonstrated the huge hunger for fun pro/am regional and international events in the Pacific arena to compliment the strong PWA and amateur events that largely service the European hemisphere. Things have grown form there…
In 2011, co-founders Sam Bittner and Russ Faurot, formed the AWT (The American Windsurfing Tour) and expanded to four events: Santa Cruz (California USA), Pistol River (Oregon, USA), San Carlos (Baja, Mexico), and Maui (Hawaii, USA.) This was the first year for a wave tour of any serous description in the Pacific for a very long time, and there was a lot of energy and support.
In 2012 the AWT expanded to include Pacasmayo, Peru and the American Windsurfing Tour then had two international events on the calendar: Mexico and Peru. The tour remained strong for 2013 and 2014.
IN 2015 The AWT expanded to include a third international event, in Carbo Verde. This took the tour to seven wave events, still with the best four to count toward overall rankings, three of the events were now international: Mexico, Peru and Carbo Verde.
In 2016 the tour changed its name to the International Windsurfing Tour (the IWT) to better reflect the increasingly international nature of the event locations. 2016 saw Carbo Verde dropped, and Morocco come on board to join Mexico and Peru as the international event locations. The Tour was now three to two International events, and continued like this for 2017 and 2018.
In 2019 the tour received a long overdue injection of funding that has allowed it to expand its media platforms, offer overall tour prize money for the first time for both the pro men and pro women, and begin a global media campaign to unite the tribes of windsurfing to once again present the sport to the world.
2019 sees Omaezaki, Japan on the international wavesailing calendar, and this is deeply symbolic, as the last time international wavesailing was in Omaezaki was 1994 for the Sometime World Cup Grand Slam event, which was arguably the biggest single windsurfing event in the history of the sport, and symbolized the peak of the sport in terms of global media attention.
The long term goal of the IWT is to offer more opportunities for more riders, of all skill levels, while uniting the global tribes of windsurfing to support the continual evolution and expansion of the sport around the world.
