Message: 03 may 2010, Dutch Championship, tourstop 1: Grevelingen Lake

The first tour stop of the Dutch Championship of Formula/Slalom windsurfing was held at the Grevelingen Lake in Holland. This spot is practical my home spot (full speed over the road it's about a 30 minute drive).
Both days, Saturday 1st of may and the Sunday after it, we had a Formula call. The wind prediction was about 10-12 knots and dropping in the afternoon on Saturday and 12-15 knots and rising in the late afternoon to 20 knots on Sunday. Those prediction were pretty good, however we've got a bit more wind on Sunday and a bit more early as well.

Saturday we've sailed 2 races in pretty nice conditions. The 11m TR4 worked pretty good with the F2 FX Z and a 72 cut down fin, but for the low wind I need a little bit bigger cut down I think. During the race it was going well as I said, but starting was a bit of a problem..
After a break the 3rd round was started, too bad there was an complete false start?! I don't know but I had a great start (Finally!!) and wasn't false at all! Well, shit happens. The next start wasn't that good as the first but still it was all right, too bad again, the race was ended because of to less wind, most of the people could hardly plane!

On Sunday there were no problems of planing at al.. the wind was blowing around 14 knots. The 11m was all right, but later on this day a 10m would have been superb! The first race was all right but the second race was already a big survival for me, and on top of that I got some material breakdown at the last downwind to the finish, because of that I got overtaken by two people.. I made it to the finish, but not so fast.



Then the next race I skipped to fix the material and to get some rest as well, the wind was getting stronger and stronger; I think it was a wise decision because in that race the wind was blowing over 20 knots, maybe 25 knots.. (the big guys were on 11 or even 10m).
After the 3rd race that day we had a break of 1.5 hour, which was to long. The wind was blowing and it was really cold, 7-10 degrees and a chill of around zero!?
After the break we started the last race in pretty suitable conditions, the wind dropped to 12 knots with only some very hard gusts, I was able to round the course pretty easy (compared to the 2nd race that day) and with a pretty good start at the pin end at zero seconds it should have been a pretty good score, too bad I didn’t know the finish line was moved all the way back to the starting line in stead of in the middle of the course, where it was all day long! (even the finish buoy was still there, because of the Belgian slalom attempt?!) I can only say it was my own fault, however more people made the mistake, including the in that race leading surfer. What should have been a nice maximal 15th place, ended in a DNF.

I’ve had a nice weekend, ended at the 20th place, had a bit of bad luck and I’ve a few points to work on for the next tour stop which is the 26th – 27th of June at Almere Harbour.

Message: 23 november 2009, end of season 2009

Long time no message posted at my website. The reason for that was graduating of my study and earning the bachelor of engineering (electrical). During the last season that was my main priority, but now i'm already 100% focused at the 2010 season. I really want a good result in 2010, in contrast with the 2009 season. The final results are also added to the result page.

Graduated in the end of august, since then i'm already sailin' a lot, getting my settings perfect and also my technique. Dispite the gps speeds ain't hi yet, but it can't take long. It takes some time to get a bit more familiar with the small gear and find the right fins for the missile xs 2008 and sx s 2008.

Sailing with big slalom gear, the F2 SX L 2008 in combination with the 7.6 TR3, is going pretty well. The standard fin for the L is great in high wind and I have a Select SL9 43 for lower winds and flatter water.

In formula I had my TR4 11.0 tuned well, it had enough power and handling, but it wasn't enough converted to speed and lift. That's a point to work on. I already tested a new fin, which felt very good. However the 2007 F2 FX is very fast, maybe I should go for the Z, to get more competitive.

Some pictures from the end of season 2009:

18-11/2009 speedsurfing at Herkingen


25-10/2009 regional competition South Netherlands

Message: 03 june 2009, Dutch Open Championship

Last weekend I sailed the dutch open championship formula windsurfing, which was held at Scheveningen.
With on Saturnday and Sunday very shifty and gusty winds, 6-12 knots and Side-Offshore, it was very difficult to sail. Also the water had a drive of 5 knots to the south (same direction as the wind), en with a swell of 0.5-1m high it was pretty difficult to keep the formula gear running and under control.
Monday the wind changed to Sideshore and 8-17 knots, with a swell of 1.0 to sometimes 2.0m high.
For me it ended in the worst result I did expected to have this year. But what the ***, I did sail so less Formula and I never sail on seaside.

movie from the beach



The one thing that went well was starting…

My pictures: link
More info at: wedstrijdsurfen.nl
Movie from Roger van Tongeren: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwvXfNouD54

Message: 19 october 2008, NK Monnickendam

A little late report about the dutch championship in formula windsurfing we had this weekend.
Both days there was enough wind for formula windsurfing, about 8-15 knots. With the 11.0 TR3 I had never used before, it was great. The sail was stabel and powerfull. And my fin was delivering enough power too. Unfortunately I had bad starts, while good starting is halve the work of winning ;) . In the Up and Downwinds I was able to sail most of the time consistend and for my feeling I was sailing pretty fast and high upwind and pretty fast and deep downwind. I also mostly took a few places in the up and downwinds. I know I can do better, with some more training and taktical skills.


Me, sailing the MS TR3 (NED3).

Overall it was a great event, thanks to the sponsors and organisation.
For the 4th time Dennis Littel took the Dutch Championship titel in Formula windsurfing.

This weekend I ended 19th place out of 36.
This year I ended 20th place out of more then 50 competitors.

My pictures: link
More info at: wedstrijdsurfen.nl & Dennislittel.com



Message: 24 august 2008, The Mission 2008!

After a great weekend with lots of people at the brouwersdam and also with a lot of Pro's.
I've got the 7th place overall in the PRO-fleet!! This after 4 races in minimal slalom conditions. So I was sailing my formula gear to be sure I would plane. But also with this gear I wasn't planing all the time. I got 26th, 10th, 10th and 5th place. The worst races was deleted so I got 25 points and that was enough to get to the finals. In the finals I got 8th place. This brought me overall to the 7th place behind a few big names in the dutch windsurfing scene..


More info: www.the-mission.eu
Pictures: Link

Message: 13 august 2008, First time over 70 km/h

I've been surfing at herkingen (grevelingenmeer) this day. It was pretty gusty, I think the wind was around 6-7 beaufort but some gusts were around 8 beaufort! I was sailing my 5.5 TR3 and the *board sonic w52 with the 30 cm select lightning speed fin!

Going upwind was sometimes pretty hard, so that mostly results in downwind high speeds and enough power. But the angle between the wind and the dam was very big. The wind was SSW and the dam is a few degrees from vertical. And when the angle became better later the day, the wind dropped a little bit too. Finally I got 2 times 2 sec max over 70 km/h , that's a new personal record for me!! 71.42 km/h !! I was very happy with that result! :) However I could have done better, because the tuning of the sail was far from perfect and my stance was a bit forced. So I couldn't keep the speed for a long time and thats why the average is so bad..

You can see i've made quite a distance. Almost 130 Km ! I've been on the water from 13.00 till 20.30. Well, thats what I felt the next morning too!

My GP3S post click here!
The ranking of that day and the spot click here!

Message: 7 august 2008, First session with the BGT-31

Today I did my first session with my new GPS, the Navi BGT-31.
The session wasn't so interesting, only 1.5 hours of formula sailing.

I lost my other GPS device, but now I can again analyse my tracks, with some help from the gp3s forum, thanks ;)
Before I did not know how to analyse the track with Google Earth, but with this new device it's pretty simple:

The highest speed was 45.5 km/h at an angle of 115 degrees.
I posted the session at GP3S.

Message: 16 july 2008, Training Grevelingendam

Finally I've got no school any more for this year. I passed the most of my exams and now I've time for some TOW (time on the water!!)
I went for a short session to the grevelingendam. I expected Formula conditions but it seemed to be pretty ok for the light wind slalom gear!
With my 7.6 TR3 and the F2 SX M, I was planing the most of the time, but it was low wind slalom indeed! It was nice to do some low wind tuning and make the set work in those conditions and working on my technique. I think the wind was around 12 knots and some gusts of 15 knots..

.

As you can see on the picture I've been lucky to have some wind.
The orange spot is where I've been today.

Sailing today was nice together with my mate Vincent who came along unexpected!
It's predicting some winds on friday again so I think I might increase my TOW!!

Message: 29 june 2008, Pictures NK Grevelingen

Jan de Jonge made some pictures at the grevelingendam, where was held the dutch open championship formula and slalom. The pictures are of the slalom elimination rounds.

Doing the formula races was very tough for me, conditions were changing from 12 to 26 knots, and I wasn't able to change sails because I only sail the 10.7 in formula. I didn´t have also the time to train a lot, and did my last formula session like 4 weeks ago.
I think I should train a lot more, to get into formula racing. Getting to know more about tactics and about how to sail the big shizzle right. The slalom and speed gear is allready tuned up and ready to rambo. I begin to like smashing into the chop on high speed, something I more should do with the formula too.

Overall the results were not great, but I had a nice weekend.
Btw, the slalom elimination wasn´t completed, so they decided to remove it from the results and try to start a new elimination the next weekend.

Message: 18 may 2008, Pictures NK Scheveningen.

I did put some pictures made by my parents at my fotoblog account. See pictures.


I had some bad luck of destroying my 10.7 RS5 on the shore, but I was happy to loan a sail from the van Zelst family!

Message: 16 may 2008, Welcome to my webpage.

I've renewed my webpage as you can see.


Session at Gruissan during the BK/NK NSWO Speed.