Dutch Freestyle Champion 2012!

Hello everybody

Last weekend we had the last stop of the Dutch Freestyle championships which where held at Lauwersmeer in the very north/cold of the Netherlands! It was the first time for me to ever come to this lake as last year I missed out on it and I have to say that the organisation did a really good job providing us nice parking place, a great pool party on Saturday night and a nice prize giving on Sunday afternoon!

On Saturday we didn’t have enough wind to run an official competition which made us move to a tow-in competition.. With only 10°C I have to be honest it wasn’t the most fun I had during the weekend as I was more freezing on the side than getting pulled in by the boat, in the end it was just to show something and have at least a result of something in case it wouldn’t get windy the next day. In the evening we had the best way to warm up with a nice pool party together with all the competitors, which was really a lot of fun and a great way to spend the evening!

On Sunday the wind looked much better with winds around 20 knts. We started the competition around 11 a.m. and by 4 p.m. we finished 3 single eliminations to get the end result. I can’t remember the last time I sailed competition in such cold conditions with air temperatures around 2°C it was hard to stay warm and motivated to keep on sailing and get in the cold water again.

In the first elimination I sailed a good semi final, which gave me a lot of confidence for the final where I would meet Davy Scheffers, Rick Jendrusch and Nick Van Ingen. Unlike my half final I started terrible with pretty much crashing every single move during the first half of the heat. We had 6 moves to count with no limit of attempts so I knew nothing was lost yet but I was getting really cold of falling in the water the whole time. As soon as I landed my first Airfunnel I got a bit warmer and got my form back linking one move after another, kono, culo, burners, big shaka and an airfunnel 900 gave me the lead in this final where the level was lower than in the semi finals. Rick got second in that final in front of Davy who got 3rd which gave me a good lead in the overall of the year (with my 2nd place in the first competition just before Sylt). With the plan of only doing 2 singles it even looked good for the event lead.

In the second elimination Davy re found his form in the final and I didn’t manage to land my big moves like the spockculo and the kabicuchi. And with Davy making in the final minute of the heat a perfect flaka shaka I knew I had to be satisfied with second place in that final before I even heard the results. I didn’t mind too much as I thought it was over for the day and was more thinking about a nice hot shower than the result of the final as I was getting really cold of standing on the side. But with the wind that still was their and enough time to run another single elimination we decided to do another 3rd single elimination.

I knew if I wanted to become Dutch champion I had to finish in the top 2 to win the overall title even if Davy would win the last elimination. With that in mind I was a bit more relaxed for the final in the 3rd elimination but still wanted to win of course! I sailed a good heat making spock culo, big kono, perfect culo, super fast Burner, airfunnel into funnel, airbob and a good shaka720 . I didn’t see what Davy did but I knew I had enough to be in the top 2 and had the title. In the end I lost the final in a close decision against Davy, which gave him the event win, and me the Dutch title as I had a better discard.

So great weekend with good competition and good Dutch conditions cold, windy and rainy just like we know it! Dutch Freestyle Champion 2012 for the second time in the open category after winning the title for the first time in 2009, missing it in 2010 and getting second in 2011, stoked!!

Up next are the EFPT’s in Le Brusc/France and Weymouth/England, hope to score good here as well before winter training starts in Brazil!

Cheers Dieter

PWA Sylt review

Hello everybody

September has been extremely busy with good winds and a lot of action. The most important of the month was of course the PWA in Sylt and I have to say this year we where absolutely blessed by so much wind, almost every single day there was enough wind to do either, slalom, wave or freestyle. In freestyle and wave they finished a double in some of the best conditions you can wish for Sylt, nice side shore instead of the usual onshore you get there.

 JC/PWA

Freestyle single

In the single of the freestyle it was still onshore which made it extremely hard to freestyle as shop and waves where really coming from everywhere.. The day before during the warm up the wind was a little bit more side shore and I was hoping for the same during the competition but it wasn’t. I pretty easily past my first heat against Fabien Weiber although I didn’t have my best heat against him so I knew I really had to step it up against Anthony Ruenes in the next heat. The wind picked up pretty strong just before the heat and I better had taken 4.4 instead of the 4.8 I had. I started with a massive backloop but just crashed in the end and the nerves already started to take over. In the end I still did a nice shaka, airflaka and burner on one side and on the other side kabichuchi ,culo and kono in the end it was not enough to advance against Anthony who sailed a better heat.. So 9th after the single, not my goal but there was still the double to come!

Freestyle Double Part 1

In the double we got the best conditions I ever had on Sylt, perfect side shore, nice ramps and pretty flat between the waves just a joy to sail!! It was pretty much the best conditions we had the whole year and that in Sylt. Besides that I was just having a blast on the water, my first heat against Mattia Fabrizi was the best heat of my whole live, it was just SICK and that you could see at my scores as I scored on one of my sheets a 53 out of 60 which was the highest score of the whole event. Besides that I also went for the SSkono into forward and came pretty close to landing it, if I would have stayed a bit more horizontal I’m pretty sure I could have landed it but hopefully next year I will be able to land it in the competition it’s definitely possible! After this I was full of energy and ready to work my way up in the double. After beating Mattia I took on Max Rowe who was sailing really good beating him with only 3 points as I didn’t have a great heat like before, next up was Davy Scheffers one of the most talented guys on tour who became 5th overall last year and knowing from sailing with him at home he has all the big moves in the bag to make it a hard fight. I knew I needed a heat like against Mattia and that’s what I did not yet the same level as that one but close to it, throwing down spock culo’s, burner, Kabichuci etc. In the end I obviously won as Davy had just his worst heat of the event which placed me in the top 8 where I would meet Phil Soltysiak. Because the wave conditions got good enough to start the wave competition, the freestyle was over for that day and wave was on!

Double elimination wave

I also competed this event in the Wave’s for the first time, just for fun and didn’t bother about ending last; I just wanted to see how my level was on the waves. In the single I lost against Taty Frans as I had a really hard time in the onshore conditions and couldn’t really show my wave riding which made him win in the end. In the Double I would meet Robby Swift who got 4th in Pozo this year and was equal to Mission impossible so the only thing I wanted to do was to show the judges that I at least can better wave ride than I showed in my heat against Taty and I think with the side shore conditions I made clear I could also wave ride a bit, scoring 2 waves of 5,3 and 5,5 giving a total of 10,8 points for the heat which wasn’t enough to win against Robby Swift who scored around 12,5 or 13. But at least I scored above 5 on 2 of my waves which looking to the rest of the first round of the double elimination wasn’t bad at all! Satisfied with this result I was eager to go further with the Freestyle competition again. After they stopped with the wave because of the bad conditions I went out on my Freestyle board to show the judges it was still great for running the freestyle but in the end they where to tiered of judging already the whole day since 9 in the morning that they stopped at 4 with the competition.

 JC/PWA

I was really bummed with this decision as I really found my form that day and was sailing my highest level during the free sailing, making backloops, culospocks, spock culo’s and all the other new school moves.. I’m pretty sure that the story of the rest of the double would have gone totally otherwise if we kept competing that day instead of 2 days later, but it was like this and you can’t change it anymore.

 JC/PWA

Double Freestyle Part 2

This part is pretty short as with an early morning start and no chance to warm up at all I sailed the worst heat of the whole event, I couldn’t get even close to the level which I was sailing all the other days and definitely wasn’t warmed up enough with just 2 runs out because before that it was still dark which made warming up impossible/dangerous. In the end I lost super super close winning on one sheet with half a point and losing on the other 2 in a tie-break which made me extra bumped cause if on the way out I would have just landed one more easy move I easily would have won but instead I tried a burner and crashed my chances.. So 7th after the double and also 7th at the event, good work up again in the double but still disappointing result..

Starboard takes the constructor title again!! Proud to be part of this team!

With this 7th place I worked myself up again to a 8th place overall which is the same as last year and far from my goal of reaching the top 5 which was the meaning at the beginning of the year. The main thing I can take home after this year is that the level is getting really close to the top guys and that if you put a good heat together you can win against everybody, now I only have start to do this a bit more often and get even more consistent in my sailing to make my best heats so consistent that I get it more times on the moment when it counts!

 JC/PWA

Now I still will do 2 more EFPT events before the season is really over and the training starts for next year, I’m extremely motivated to get into that top 5 next year as I’m sure it’s possible, just have to get it together on the moments that it counts!!

 JC/PWA

Cheers Dieter