Stormy Wave Sailing & NK Wave

Hello everybody

After my last update 2 weeks ago we saw the forecast not the conditions that I expected with only 2 days of surfing. Although I have to say Friday I finally could test my new 3.3 in the waves at the Belgian coast in good jumping conditions although my 3.3 was still to big sometimes. It was a perfect day with around 40-45 kts out of the W turning in the afternoon to WSW which means perfect sailing conditions in Bredene with waves around 2-3 meters but also with some nice steep ramps for my biggest jumps ever. I was not to much busy with trying back loops as I didn’t have to much control in the air as the wind was sometimes taking me away as I went in the air which is a great feeling. After 2 hours on 3.3 the wind dropped a bit more and I couldn’t plane not so good anymore on the way out because it became gustier which made it impossible to get planning on my 3.3 and gave me a nice wipe out all the way to the beach. Time to take a bigger sail to enjoy the wind as long as possible now there was still wind as it would drop in the afternoon. After another 2 hours the wind was totally over and everybody left home looking back at a really good stormy wave day.

The next morning it would be the Dutch Championships which I decided to enter because I was curious what the level in the Netherlands was as there are much more spots there than here in Belgium. The forecast said still some good winds for the morning till 11 with around 25 knts out of W which would have been perfect on Scheveningen. Which would be perfect, if there would have been 25 knts but it turned out to be only 13-15 knts, far from enough wind for wave sailing competition. I ended up giving it a try on my S-1 5.3 and Kode 86 but couldn’t get planning and didn’t have any power to do some wave rides although I tried as you can see on the pictures on the end of the blog.

Sunday it would get windy but very late and it was a big guess whether it would get there fast enough before getting dark. In the end we left as the wind picked up and went on the water around 5 o’clock in the evening, knowing the sunset was at 5.20 it gave us a nice session on my 4.7 with half hour in light where we still could see the shop and see further than 10m and half hour in dark where you could not see the chop till it was one meter in front of your board which made freestyling pretty interesting as you could not use your vision to see how the water was but you just did everything on feeling which makes it a lot harder. In the end it became really to dark at 6 and me and my dad decided to go back to the side before we couldn’t see each other anymore. Now this is still my last surf session so far but for sure it was worth every second, even if it would have been only 15 min.!

Now it’s getting colder with temp. around 0°C and will even drop more as they are predicting around -6°C next week and maybe already the first snow, Winter is coming way to fast!!!

Chears Dieter

Good surfing with first small storm.

Hello everybody

After BK wave was done the wind dropped for 3 days which gave me the time to work a bit on my school again as I missed some lessons because I went windsurfing and also had to go to school again the next week. But the wind came back in the second part of the week which gave me a good day with south winds and low tide for some wave riding out on sea behind a sandbank with small waves around 1 meter but perfect for at least 5 turns if you picked the right one! Afterwards when the water came up again I went back to the lake for another freestyle session from about an hour.

The second week, so last week from now, I had holiday with of course some good winds. Although we came to late to the water on Wednesday I still had 3 days of really good sailing. One was nice with 4.7 all alone on the water with a friend as we went to a spot closer to home where not to many people sail especially not with high tide. After a good 3 hours the wind gave up and we rigged of watching people arrive and knowing they where  bit to late to still have the good wind we had, worth waking up early enough. Thursday we had the first small storm of the year here in the Netherlands wind winds up to 45 knts, so perfect for freestyle… Not really in the beginning of the day as I didn’t have to much control anymore with my 3.7 as I left my 3.3 home because I thought it wouldn’t be that strong. In the evening the wind dropped of a bit but still strong which gave a great freestyle session together with Davy as we where both training to get as high as possible in our skopus on the flat water which gave some beginnings of airskopus and made it in the end a perfect day with a lot of sailing!! Friday the wind would drop early they said on the forecast so we arrived at the water around 9 in the morning to pic all  the wind there still was and giving the perfect freestyle conditions. Flat water, 4.3 fully powered up and all your friends around you just enjoying the morning surf, just perfect! And the best thing of al was that the wind didn’t drop till around 4 in the afternoon so we were actually dead tired waiting till the wind would drop but it didn’t so we stopped around 2 because we were still to tiered from the day before. That was the end of the week and also my last day of sailing so far, but now worries tomorrow the next storm arrives with even much more wind but also more rain and only 8°C the first day but afterwards 11-12°C so we won’t complain!! If you have time have a look on windguru and then you will see its going to be windy till the end of the week!!

Also yesterday I did my first part-time exam of school which went good so that test for me is also done now, now I’m sure I can make both school and surfing in a perfect combination hopefully with still a lot of sailing this year here in the Netherlands!

Here are still some pictures from 2 weeks ago with a session on Brouwersdam on my new 5.3 which I started using since the new 2011 arrived because they don’t feel like a 5.3 and give me the power I need in low wind conditions!