The dazzling island of Aruba marked the second stop on the Caribbean leg of competition, and played host to the world's finest freestyle and slalom windsurfing talents for eight days of exhilarating action between 19^th - 26^th June.

The happy island had previously hosted PWA events for ten consecutive years, with the last competition taking place in 1997. After a 14 year break the conditions have not changed at all, the consistent trades blow every day, the water remains bath warm, and the crowds are extremely proud to have the world's greatest windsurfers on their shores.

19^th-22^nd June Men and Women's Freestyle

Opening up the competition the cream of the PWA's male and female contortionists took to the pristine water for a four day freestyle frenzy. Cue an explosion of spectacular aerial and sliding manoeuvres as the sailors battled their way through man on man heats, in order to decide which sailors had the greatest armoury of tricks.

Testing condition's had an adverse effect on the freestyle fleet for the opening two days of competition, due to blankets of cloud rolling in over the event site, leading to exceptionally gusty wind and bursts of rain. The sailors took to the water to make use of the occasional squall and polish their maneuvers, whilst the crowds were given a glimpse of the action that was to come. In an attempt to get proceeding underway the PWA headed out to sea to their floating judges tower, however the wind remained insufficient for a fair competition.

Entering the third day the sailors were greeted to wall to wall sunshine and Caribbean trades blowing between 15-20 knots. Head judge Duncan Coombs wasted no time in heading out to sea and putting the sailors into competition sequence, extending the heats to nine minutes, and announcing the best three out of six moves in either direction would count towards the sailor's scores.

As the single elimination progressed, the form-players slowly began to emerge; as a result it was no surprise that the quarter finals consisted of European freestyle wizard Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2 / Gaastra), Caribbean superstar Kiri Thode (Tabou / Gaastra), four times world champion Jose 'Gollito' Estredo (Fanatic / North) and the style master Tonky Frans (Tabou / Gaastra). Fuelled by his second place in Bonaire, Van Broeckhoven delivered an outstanding series of combination maneuvers. Taking advantage of the nine minute heat he timed each move to perfection, ensuring his advance into the final past a devastated Thode. On the other side of the heat, Tonky was firing on all cylinders performing his most spectacular aerial maneuvres. It did little to phase the four times world champion Estredo as he sailed a well-planned out heat granting his pass into the winner's final.

Van Broeckhoven and Estredo entered the final both hungry for victory. Van Broeckhoven opened with a funnel, which was upstaged by Estredo's double. The sailors then embarked on a game of one up man-ship as the opening minutes of the heat flew by. Both sailors fought tooth and nail, busting out everything in their collection of tricks but ultimately a 3-2 decision from the judges crowned Van Broeckhoven as the winner in the single elimination.