Hello everybody
I’m 2 weeks at home again and I have to say
I did quite a lot of sailing as it has been pretty windy at home! The main
thing in the past 2 weeks was probably the Belgium Wave Championships , first
possible weekend we could run the competition conditions looked perfect on the
forecast for a competition on real Belgian grounds, Bredene! Instead of
standing a whole weekend long on a Freestyle board I was now concentrating on
getting my wave sailing up again as I didn’t sail too much in the waves this
winter, but felt still really comfortable and I think I was never so consistent
in my Takas as this weekend.
On Friday we did the single of the
competition, which first looked like an amazing day turned out to be not the
best conditions. Waves where not too high with max 1m and the wind was lighter
than I thought it would be, still 4.4 full power but let’s say it’s not what we
all hoped for! After making it through the semi final against Fabrice de Vos
(4x Belgian Wave champion) with my best heat of the event probably I was up
against Jonas Handekyn the last Belgian Wave Champion. Me and Jonas are one of
the only ones who land Takas and backside 360 consistently enough to do them in
the heat so I knew it was going to be a close heat. On jumps we’re pretty
equally also but luckily for me I can jump back loops on smaller waves and
could make the difference here especially as the wind just dropped before the
heat to 4.8 weather! So super stoked after winning the single it was time to
defend my first place in the double the next day.
Again it weren’t the conditions we hoped
for but guess that’s how competition always goes, pretty similar to the day
before the wind decided to drop just for the finals making us extend the heats
by 3 min to give us more time to find our 2 jumps. On wave riding it wasn’t to
bad actually I found in this heat, the wind turned a bit offshore = super gusty
because of all the buildings at the Belgian coastline but instead we got a bit
cleaner waves with more than 1 or 2 turns possible sometimes. I did 2 good wave
rides with one a taka inside and another one where I did 4 turns with the
smallest aerial of my life. On the jumps I did my cleanest forward with wind
from the left in my life I think, and finally could land a backloop OH in the
contest as during the last 3 min the wind picked up big time to get me pretty
powered up on my 4.8 . In the end I won the heat and can call myself Belgian
Wave Champion for now as in Autumn there is still a chance to run another
competition if the conditions are good, hope I will be in the country than to
defend my first place.. But anyway super stoked I was able to win my first Wave
contest ever!
Next update will be about some session at
home or maybe even about the EFPT in Russia which starts Monday!
Cheers Dieter
