Finally, a windsurfing session in Piona worthy of its fame. Friday afternoon, the Colico spot on Lake Como gave us a 4.7 Breva wind!

Windsurfing, report: Piona, Colico, Lake Como - 30/05/2025

I had guessed (and written in the article on the forecasts) that Friday would be the best day for the Breva, of the three consecutive ones predicted. The completely clear sky really made a strong wind start, in addition to giving us a wonderful spring panorama.

Click  here, for the video of the session

After leaving work at midday, and blown away, with a nice coffee, a bit of tiredness from previous days, I head to the lake, and arrived in Piona around 2:30 pm. The lake was sparkling under the sun, and strong gusts were already in the bay. The parking lot behind the beach was finally open, and invaded by campers and vans of foreign tourists, especially Germans and Swiss, who came down on holiday for Pentecost, to enjoy the first pleasant warm days of late May (30 °C). Parking price increased to 6 euros per day, and 5 in the afternoon, this year. There would be a lot to talk about about this area, because the owners/managers could valorize it much better (e.g. agri-camping?). However, it is already comfortable and pleasant as it is.

Having sold the Goya Guru 4.7 the day before, I had to dig up an old Ezzy Wave 4.7 2021 with some broken panels repaired with scotch tape, which then in the water still impressed me for how high-performance it still is .... Ezzy makes wonderful sails, and the Spectra-reinforced X-ply window makes them usable even if there's hole in it! Luckily, in the meantime, the new Ezzy Wave 4.7 2025 arrived, which I will tell you about soon.

I prepared the Tabou 3S Plus 96 and entered the water shortly before 3:00 pm.

Leaving from inside the Piona bay, between gusts and lulls, is always a kind of " funny movie", but, this time, the close frequency of the gusts made the problem less complicated to solve. With hindsight, especially from mid-afternoon, you could have ridden inside the bay to have fun, taking advantage of the super flat water.

In reality, once out of the Piona inlet, at first I had some doubts about going back immediately to switch to 5.3, because the wind was not so intense. As usual, the best area was in front of the abbey, and in correspondence with the promontory to the north of the the bay mouth into the lake. But I had just a while to think about what to do, and the heat of Valtellina and Valchiavenna started to do their job pushing the wind.

I started to glide steadily, without needing to have the big sails of the foreign riders around me, and actually on the gusts I started to be overpowered! The first hour was wonderful: smooth water and strong wind. These are the conditions that make you seem a better rider in the water. Fast tacks on both sides, easyly performed, nice jibes, some hely tacks, and some 360 ​​attempts (see the end of the video). But for this, I have to remember to bring the sail further back, towards the stern, in the final part to exit the maneuver.

Around me, lots of sails, especially of foreign riders, as I said. It's nice to go out in a spot, again, where you don't feel like an endangered species, surrounded by wingfoilers or kiters. And I was also surprised to see so many Ezzy sails, which evidently still sells a lot abroad.

After about an hour, the wind started to feel less well spreade over the spot, even if still strong. In front of Piona, very powerful gusts from the South East; closer to Gravedona and Domaso (opposite lake shore), strong wind from the SW that came down from the valleys behind the villages. In the middle of the lake, the battle between the two wind directions was taking place, with a calm area to avoid. The water surface, consequently, got choppy and chaotic.

Chasing the gusts too much when planing, I drifted a bit and it took me a good half hour to get back to the bay of Piona, and then to the beach, at 6:00 pm, after three hours in the water, happy, but dead tired. It was a really nice afternoon, pleasantly concluded with a nice chat with Max, a German guy who speaks Italian very well, because he often works in our country.

In short, summer is around the corner, and let's hope it will be really a nice season for thermal winds on Lake Como and Lake Garda.

Hang loose. Fabio