If you’ve ever surfed a wave you’ll know what an amazing feeling it is, however in traditional surfing the conditions are often fickle and the rides are short compared to the time spent on the water. The evolution of the hydrofoil has led to something quite incredible which is the ability to surf anything from knee high bumps to big ocean swell. Now the rides can be measured in minutes not seconds and the places to surf are limited only to your imagination.

Wind-swell turns any large body of water into a surfing playground where you never have to worry about a crowded break and not scoring a wave. Due to the long distances covered when riding continuous bumps that don’t just stop on a beach the easiest thing to do is to simply ride downwind and thus we have the new sport of “downwinding”

The area around Oban is blessed with having the ideal terrain for chasing downwinders. The long Lochs funnel the wind building clean swell that isn’t affected by ground swell which is often in a different direction to the wind driven swell and creates interference. In most cases roads closely follow the Lochs so there are plenty of bail out options and retrieves are easy.

Oban is also known as the Gateway to the Islands having the Hebridean Islands on its doorstep which are serviced by an excellent ferry network. This allows us to do downwinders between the islands using the ferries for retrieve!