A sick day of sailing at home

Hello everybody

testing the freek in Western-Australia

Last Friday I had a sick day of sailing at home, 25 knots of wind, not too cold and almost nobody on the water as it was a weekday! The morning was the best and was the perfect moment to test the last prototypes for next year. It’s been a whilesince I sailed small sails but the 4.4 Freek I tested Friday was just insane, I had the feeling there were no limits anymore and could just fly through the air in total control in all my moves!

testing the freek in Western-Australia

 After testing a lot of 4 batten sails in Australia this winter I couldn’t be convinced of the 4 batten systeem and decided together with the guys from SEVERNE to stay with the 5 batten concept for a few goodreasons..

During the testing of the 4 batten sails I always had the feeling that I could never get a good combination between a stable sail which is good for ducking and a sail which gives great lift. Either the sail was super easy toduck but didn’t give me any real lift or it was way harder to duck and gave good lift. So with this in our heads we decided to move away from developing a 4 batten freestyle sail (unlike almost all other brands this year) and stick with a 5 batten version.  Almost immediately I got what I wanted from the sail: easy ducking and insane lift!

testing the freek in Western-Australia

Besides the fact that we could combine stability and lift with the 5 batten sail it also has a much bigger wind range, which is great for places where it’s gusty or really strong wind.   Windsurfers who sail on a freestyle waveboards and who want an allround sail  with stability and windrange will also love the FREEK. 

The main reason other brands have chosen 4 batten versions is to keep the weight low.  SEVERNE sails are already lighter than the other brand’s sails, eliminating the need to drop a batten from the design to save weight.

testing the freek in Western-Australia

I’m stoked at the chance SEVERNE gave me to help develop a sail towards everything a Freestyler needs and I’m super happy with how the sail turned out. The sail helps me to push my own limits and everybody who sails with it. Have a look to the clip below from me last Friday and then you may know what I mean by pushing my limits!

Cheers Dieter

PWA Podersdorf 2012

Hello Everybody

JC/ PWA  big  Severne team @ podersdorf

Last week we had or first PWA competition of the year in Podersdorf Austria! Podersdorf is one of the biggest events every year and always gets a lot of people visiting the events and the parties, nothing less this year if it wasn’t the busiest year I have seen in the 3 years I came here so far. The whole 4 days where spoiled with a lot of sun and warm temperatures. On the wind site it wasn’t the best but at least we got a result which is always better than no result!

JC/PWA

On Sunday the wind finally kicked in a bit, not the normal cold conditions and onshore winds like we are used to here in Podersdorf but almost Caribbean conditions with temperatures around 27°C and weather for the summer wetsuits. The wind was pretty gusty from the south going up and down the whole time but still enough in the gusts to start the competition. Because it was light I took my biggest sail the 5.0 where I only sailed a few times on in Bonaire but felt confident in it. My first heat went well, I sailed a pretty good heat with kono’s, culo’s, shakas etc and with my opponent Adrien Bosson injured on the side I had a warm up heat. In the second heat I was meeting Antony Ruenes from France. The wind got really unstable with only strong gust and nothing in between making the heat duration go to 12 minutes and give us an unseen format of 3 out of 8 moves counting.

JC/PWA

With this long heat I made a very good start and felt confident in my sailing doing moves like airfunnel, shaka one handed and ss chacho on one side and shaka, culo and not the best kono on the other side. After this the wind dropped a bit for a second but then came back during the heat, I managed to improve my starboard tack with a double spock and clean burner but didn’t manage to land my burner on port tack which I normally never crash but now did twice.. Antony got more in it towards the end of the heat scoring a shakaflaka, double flaka and a shovit spock on one side and kono, culo and chacho on the other side this gave him the advantage in the heat and made him win over me leaving me on a 9th place in the single which also ended up in the final result as there was not enough wind in the double to fight back up to a higher place. I hope to do much better on the upcoming event but for Podersdorf it’s another 9th place for me.

JC/PWA

But besides the PWA in Podersdorf this year we also had the EFPT tow-in sponsored by Chiemsee open for 30 riders who wanted to compete with 5000 euro price money for the top 10. We had 3 qualifying heats where each time the top 3 would be going to the final on the 4th day. In my qualifying heat I landed my first burner ever on tow in coming out one handed because I was a bit surprised how good it went!! In the end that scored me 30 points which was enough to qualify for the final! In my second heat I went for a ss kono but as I thought already before it’s a bit impossible but it was better to try it then than afterwards in the final!

JC/PWA

The final itself was just action packed with an incredible high level and a really strong fleet. I came in as 9th and had to go as second. I decided to go for a double funnel to open with a bit a saver move but still technically difficult as you have to pop twice. It went extremely well and I came out with a lot of speed still which scored me a 26.25 . With more strict judging this time this was a great opening score putting me in 6^th place after the first round. In the end I still dropped to 8th in the second as my burner didn’t score above the 26.25 I had before. I’m really happy with this 8th place as the level is just insane and besides at events like this I never can practise it in my free time and so only can get better during competitions like this, so more than happy with this result.

JC/PWA

In the end Podersdorf was again a great event and thanks to the organizers to make it so good again like always, I can’t wait to come back next year! For now I will be at home for a while doing school work and catching “hopefully” some good winds here -  will see, still a long time till the next competition Fuerteventura end of July!

JC/PWA

Cheers Dieter