Having had a fantastic start to the year Robby Swift (JP / NeilPryde / Maui Ultra Fins) currently sits in 9^th place on the overall results ladder and he has been looking stronger than ever, pulling amazing push-loop forwards in competition along with super-fast double forward loops. However we have received the unfortunate news that Swift has suffered an injury to his foot whilst sailing an enormous wave in Chile.

Swift explains all:

"My parents came to Chile to meet me to go skiing for five days, but the day that they arrived there was a massive swell. I couldn't bear to miss the waves so I made them come down to my house in Matanzas so that I could surf and sail for a couple of days, and then the plan was to go up to the mountains on the third day.

We arrived at my house at 3am and I woke up at 8am to go surfing in the morning. The waves were massive and perfect, and I surfed for about three hours before the wind picked up and I came back home, ate breakfast and left again with my windsurfing gear before mum, dad and Heidy were even awake. I rigged up my 5.3, sailed out, got one long sick wave and then caught one more wave where I did a 360 on a mast and a half high section and although I landed perfectly, the lip kind of barrelled over me and squashed me down onto my board.

I was pushed forward and my board was positioned slightly sideways on the wave, so it started to get sucked up the wave and that meant that my toes were bent unnaturally up towards my tibia. The footstrap didn't allow my foot to get out and the momentum and pressure of the wind in my sail pulled me forwards and I felt a sharp pain in my mid foot.

I didn't realise it was broken as the water was so cold, but I knew that it was badly hurt. I was able to sail back to the beach and then hobble towards the wooden rigging area. A couple of friends of mine from Australia and Chile were there to help me walk, and as we walked further and my foot warmed up on the sand, the pain became worse and worse. The foot started to swell up in exactly the same area that my other foot had swollen up 5 years ago so I became afraid that I had done the same injury as before. When I went to the hospital, they confirmed my fears and now I am back in the UK waiting for an operation.

We arrived in Chile on Thursday night and were already back in London in hospital on Monday.

In the end, nobody was able to go skiing and we had to pay thousands of dollars each to change our flights home, so I wasn't a very popular son. That will teach me for changing plans at the last minute as usual.