The 10 year Event History:
Originally a single event in Pistol River on the Oregon coast back in 2010, the success of that 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 4 events: Santa Cruz California USA, Pistol River Oregon USA, San Carlos Baja Mexico, Maui Hawaii. This was the first year that there had been 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 3rd international event, this new one was in Carbo Verde. This took the tour to 7 wave events, still with the best 4 to count toward overall rankings, 3 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, joining now only 2 American events: Oregon and Maui. The Tour was now 3 to 2 International events. The tour continued like this strongly for 2017 and 2018.
In 2019 the tour is receiving a long overdue injection of funding that has allowed it to greatly expand its’ media platforms, offer overall tour prize money for the first time for the Pro Men and Por Women, and begin a global media campaign to unite the tribes of WINDSURFING to once again present the sport to the world as one nation of many tribes = WINDSURFING.
2019 sees Omaezaki Japan on the international Wavesailing calendar and this is deeply symbolic because 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 opportunity for more riders, of all skill levels, and to unite the global tribes of WINDSURFING to support the continual evolution and expansion of the sport around the world.
