PWA DAM 7: 9th place

Hello everybody

It’s been a week since the PWA at Brouwersdam has ended after a great week of sailing, relaxing and partying at the DAM 7 festival! Having a world cup at your homespot the place you learned so much is always something special and seeing the amazing setup of the event made it all look unreal. There wasn’t a long travel to the competition but just a one-hour drive, it wasn’t a new place and instead of asking all the locals what the wind was going to do you where the guy they came to instead of the other way around.

During the week we got some really good wind from the NW that makes it quite flat for the wind there is. In the single elimination I was straight up against Julien Mas who is one of the top sailors in France and would made me go straight full on from of the start. I had a pretty good heat and advanced against Max Mattisek who made the big upset of the day by defeating Davy Scheffers in round 2. After winning against Max who was really sailing well I was up against Steven. The wind got super strong and I was fully powered up on 4.0 and even a bit overpowered in the gusts. I didn’t sail a really good heat and couldn’t really put on a fight against Steven who was sailing amazing in the strong wind conditions.

The next day it was time for the double elimination, the chance for wind was pretty big but it kept us waiting the whole time as it only kicked in around 1 or 2. By the time I had to sail it was already 7 in the evening and I was up against Davy Scheffers who was having a great comeback in the double elimination with some amazing sailing. I knew it would be a close heat but I gave it my best, I missed my big moves I was training on after Fuerte like no handed burner and flaka shaka but still managed to sail a really good heat with moves like spockculo, skopu both sides burner 900°, really big kono etc. In the end the heat came down to the last move of Davy which was a no-handed burner 900° jumped 3-4 seconds after the horn of the end of the heat as you can see in the link below. It was a super impressive move which made the heat turn into his favour, although he only had his front foot standing in the foot strap 1 second before the end and putting his second one in as the heat ended still having to duck and jump the actual move after the end of the heat it still counted which in my opinion is a wrong call as like this you give an advantage to the people who do their moves switch compared to people who do their move normal stance.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202280722484449&set=vb.74455677070&type=3&theater (copy the link and watch yourself)

As I saw the footage only the next day so I couldn’t do anything anymore and had to go on with my 9th place.. I’m not the best loser I admit that but when I know it was fair I can put myself over it pretty fast and be happy with the result but now I can’t. I lost the chance to defend and assure my top 5 ranking for 2013 and to get a good result on my home spot all-in 4 seconds. But of course this is all my opinion, I would say that if you agree the move of Davy should count I lose on a fair way and I deserved to be 9th, if you think the move of Davy shouldn’t have counted you agree I should have got a better place than 9th. I had an amazing week at the DAM 7 and can’t wait till next year to improve my result and look back with no mixed feelings. In a few days I leave to Sylt for the last PWA of the year let’s hope I can get a good result and get back into the top 5, which is still my goal of the year!

Just have to keep on smiling and keep enjoying every second on the water!

See you there!

Cheers Dieter

The Last minute trip to Egypt

Hello everybody

the only windy day at home

It’s been a long time since I wrote something on this blog but Augustus has kind of been busy and hectic, a pretty good reason for that was a last minute trip to Egypt. The wind at home didn’t show up since I got back from Lanzarote besides one day and the forecast for Egypt simply looked amazing. After checking the tickets I was on the airplane one day later and caught literally the last flight to Egypt after the conflict in Cairo which if you belive the media was spread all over the country and made Egypt unsafe.

When I landed in Egypt there wasn’t to much difference with other times, no burning cars, no tanks driving true the streets only less people and no taxis driving to Dahab after 7 p.m. as this wasn’t allowed by the government. This made me stay one night in Sharm for the first time ever as normally I go straight to dahab, which is a one-hour drive. Although I was there on one of the worst nights of the “revolution” there was nothing to notice in Sharm and pretty much whole the Sinai (which is the touristic and windy part of Egypt). After I arrived the next morning in Dahab with just a few more police officers at the checkpoints, Dahab was still the same as it always had been, windy, sunny and warm!

Like always I was staying at club Vass who where exceptionally calm because of the revolution and all the bad news in the media, just like all other windsurfing clubs actually which gave more place on the water which for me was pretty nice! Anyway just as the forecast promised the wind was there every day for the whole week, with 5 out of the 7 days even wind in the afternoon that allowed me to sail 4 hours every single day at least and was great training for the upcoming event in Brouwersdam which starts Sunday! Besides the great sailing where I came for of course I had great days and evenings with friends and the local boys from Dahab to relax after all the sailing with a BBQ on the beach during moonrise as my absolute favorite!

When I came back home after a week everybody told me how bad it looked on the news which made me just amazed with how good the media is with turning things there way and make it look like whole Egypt is in war while the conflict was still only in Cairo, the media made the biggest disaster in Egypt out my point of view by turning the facts and killing the tourism to Egypt which still is perfectly safe! With a lot of flights cancelled to Egypt it’s hard to still get to Dahab but if you can I only can say that is as safe as it always has been before! However for upcoming week I wouldn’t go to Egypt as you can much better come to the DAM7 and PWA worldcup at my homespot Brouwersdam! Next update will be from there! If you want to keep more up to date be sure to like and check my fan page on Facebook!

B.t.w.: one more question to think about concerning the Egyptian “revolution”, after all flights where cancelled how many things did you still read in the news about this ‘unsafe’ country?

Cheers Dieter