Friday, 12 October 2012

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

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