Dorian wins GOLD!

Fellow Texelaar Dorian van Rijsselberge has won the Olympic Gold 2012 in the RS-X class with a crushing and historic lead. Great stuff!

Over the past years I've had the opportunity to enjoy some great sessions with Dorian and his brother Adriaan here on Texel, not much, but still. Dorian is one talented guy and he's not only capable on the RS-X. I remember one  session at The Hors I think 2 years ago, when Dorian, in the middle of his RS-X training program, was up for some freesailing and on his somewhat older waveset pulled out a whole bunch of planning frontloops, dry backloops and goiters with such ease. He's a windsurfer through and through and I really hope RS-X stays Olympic so Dorian can be "presevered" for windsurfing.       

July 24th first ever "Rondje Texel" on SUPS!

Blogauthor and fellow Texel locals René Jager and Richard Koopman were the first to complete the famous "Ronde om Texel" on SUPS on July 24 2012!  One for the history books!

Richard calculated the best starting time in order to avoid strong currents head on. We left at 8.00 am at Paal 9 and arrived back at 17.00 pm: tired, but it was really great. Texel is a beautiful island and on a SUP the perspective is simply spectacular. We don't have much days with such calm weather (usually it's windy..) so this day was perfect. It was hot, sunny with almost no wind. Our peak speed was 14,6 km/h riding the strong current from Oudeschild into the Marsdiep and back to The Northsea. The total distance was 58 kms. We all were all on Starboard Coast Runners which is a great board for such trips. 

Richard, Bart and René at the start at Paal 9

Rene and Bart at the lighthouse on the northern tip op Texel

Our GPS track

 

 

 

At the "IJzeren Kaap" on the Waddenzee side of Texel  

 

 

 

 

A quick rest at the most southern tip of  Texel "The Hors"

Arriving back at Paal 9

          

Blogauthor glad to be back....

 

 

 

 

Paal 33, July 18th 2012

After so many years Texel still manages to surprise me and it's great to be able enjoy some very special sessions with visiting windsurfers. This time Mark van Osch was on the island for a family vacation and he joined us for this session. Allthough this day was a bit rainy, it was warm and we had a great session at the Waddensea side of the island with offshore winds enough for our 6,2 / 100 - 110 liter slalom gear. The water was so flat, it was unreal. The rain dampened the sounds and made the session almost sereen. Joost wasn't able to join us on the water, but he did make some pics, thanks!

Mark's GPS tracks of the session 

 
https://picasaweb.google.com/100546821354566690235/18Juli2012PL33Texel?authuser=0&feat=directlink

May 24th, wind and sun continue......

The north easterly flow has gone into a higher gear and tomorrow the forecast is even better. Today Joost and I enjoyed a mini DEFI WIND of our own with very, very long reaches on blue greenish water under sunny skies without a cloud in sight. First day of the year with a summersuit!

Gruissan, Kihei, Fuerteventura? Nope. TEXEL.

Rigging in the grass between the daffodills, how sweat! 

 

 

 

Joost in the background

 

 

Joost 5 seconds later...speeds were up today!

May 21st 2012, Paal 33, De Cocksdorp

In spring when a north-easterly flow develops we usually get a longer period of goods winds on Texel. It can last up for more than a week. The effect is local with the still cold sea and the very much warmer land. The flow tends to get stronger day by day. Today it set in with a constant 12 - 16 knots making it again a great easy going session  together with Joost on our larger gear (8,5 m2).  After 30 somewhat years of windsurfing, I still just love to just cruise around planing with no fancy stuff whatsoever. 

This is the jetty at Paal 33 for the boat "De Vriendschap" which in summer ferries between Texel and Vlieland

 

 

 

I like this one of Joost: you can feel the "glide"

Joost himself

Blogauthor on his "glide"

    

Miracle Chinook boom!

On March 10th I broke my mast whilst surfing between the islands of Texel and Vlieland. In the water I tried to de-rig and bundle all the rig components on my board and to paddle to the sandbars between the islands. But the very  strong current was pulling the sail under water and me out the channel into the open sea. The water was still very cold, so I was also losing precious warmth trying to de-rig in the water.  So I decided to just let go of the whole rig alltogether and to paddle to the sandbars on only my board. After about 1,5 hours luckily I was spotted and the coastguard rescued me from the sandbar and took me to Texel. Puh! Boy, was I glad to be back. It did cost me a new sail, the new mast (broken), extension and  a new Chinook Pro 1 carbon boom, but it was a wise and best call to just let the whole rig go.

On May 12th Joost and I were surfing the same waters (2 months later)...and I spotted something sticking out of a shallow patch of water near the sandbars between Texel and Vlieland. Could it be? Yep: it was my Chinook Pro 1 boom! The back was attached to the outhaul of the sail and the sail was totally emerged under the sand under water holding the boom down in a vertical position with the boomhead just above the water. I had to dive a couple of times to unscrew the outhaul pulley to free the boom from the sail. With the boom around my neck I surfed back to Texel.

Chinook Pro 1 carbon boom after 2 months in seawater 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

I cleaned it and on May 21st I gave the boom a go again! The boom had been in the water for 2 months, continiously held down at the backend by the sail in the sand and pounded by currents and waves....! And it's still fine. How about that?

May12th, Paal 33, De Cocksdorp

This saturday Joost and I had a great day at the most northern tip of Texel at Paal 33, De Cocksdorp. We had sunshine and a very consistent wind of about 20 knots from the west / northwest. The Eilander Catamaran School has started their season, so that makes for a more lively scene. Joost and I were on our large slalomboards with 7,2 and 7,5 sails. We made longs runs to the sandbars between Texel and the adjacent  island of Vlieland. Sticking out of the sandbars was something I lost there on March 10th......I'll make a seperate post of that. First back to some pics of this session. It was a great day of free sailing and fun.

Our playground for the day

In sync! 

Joost 

Bart, visible in the background is the island of Vlieland

Joost 

Joost

Bart (the surf on the horizon are the waves breaking on the the sandbars between Texel and Vlieland) 

SUP Safari May 5th 2012

Between Paal 15 and Paal 9 the beaches are replenished with sand. The sand is dregded far out at sea and pumped onto the beach by pipelines. This means shifting sandbars and it's always worthwhile checking out where new line-ups in the surf might occur. René Jager and I checked out the beach north of Paal 12 and saw a great new belt of surf a bit further out into the sea. The waves looked to be breaking very clean with long waves. When we got there on our SUP's however, the wind picked up to about 20 knots actually spoiling the waves with way too much chop...Oh well, we'll be back soon.

René doesn't waste time closing doors

      

April 26 and 27 2012

We're enjoying a spell of great days with sunny skies and steady S/SW winds here on Texel. Temps are up too. These last two days were great and starting tommorow a strong NE flow will develop. This is always great on Texel: it can last for days with strong "heavy" high pressure winds. Spring is in the air, all the colours on Texel are crisp and clean and René and I had a blast at Paal 9. The pictures give a great impression of our sessions. René is on the Goya sail, I'm on the yellow Sailworks Revo 4,6 m2. We had steady S/SW winds that were strong enough for my 4,6m2. It was however really choppy, but just in front of the first break it was very smooth. You can see that smooth patch when René comes over a wave (first pic) and you can also see it when I'm bottomturning (4th pic). After the actions pictures, there will be some body pictures with some further explanation. All pictures were taken by Jeroen Bakker, thanks!
 

René over the top

The sunlight makes this breaking wave a gem

I mean, look at these colours, and how crowded our beaches are!

Bart bottomturning on the smoother patches

 

Still love to just powerjibe

Bart & René

OK, now back to the body. Exactly the same wetsuit, same body, different era's. The first picture is from yesterday, the other is from 2008 taken on the banks of The Ray of Southend (UK) during the Drivenbywind Speedevent (courtesy pic: John Carter). I didn't and don't speedsurf with leadjackets, I just start eating months ahead. Works fine building up weight. It is easier however to put off a leadjacket. 2012: my Spartan 2XL sits a bit loose around the corpus. 

2012

2008: same 2XL wetsuit, but easiliy could have had a 3XL back then...

Two more of René having fun at Paal 9 yesterday:

           

Paal 9, Saturday March 31st 2012

A group of mainland windsurfers visited Texel for a weekend roadtrip, but this time Texel just didn't want to play.....We had an extraordinary strong current that just pulled you off your feet when you tried to launch! It was quite dazzling. The combination of springtide and strong N/NW winds were the culprits. It was also a bit colder than previous days, but all things said, I still enjoyed my session. To counter the current I took a larger board (105) and for power my Hucker 5,6 m2. It was really nice that some pictures were made (thanks Arno!).

    

Picking up on some speedsurfing again

December 2011 and January 2012 have been quite warm (relatively) and windy so far. Last year during the winter we had some cold spells with snow and ice. January 2012 has showed some great speedsailing across Europe (West Kirby, UK and Vollerwiek, Germany) with some big GPS-speeds. It's triggered me to get back on the speedboard again. January 3rd 2012 I gave my new Starboard Speed 2012 49 cm it's shakedown at Strand Horst. During winter Strand Horst is a safer place for speed than offshore speeding at sea back home on Texel,  because the water is not deep at Strand Horst and there are more people around on the water. This session I worked on trim and fin setting and used the 2009 Sailworks Hucker 4,8 for the first time on a speedboard just to see how that works. Well, just fine! Not only does the Hucker offer big airtime in the waves , but it's a great stable platform for going fast on flatwater. On Texel in the meantime I've trimmed out the combo Starboard Speed 49 and NX Sailworks 5,4 and I'm waiting for the next big day in Europe....The pictures are taken by Jeffrey Leeflang on January 3rd on Strand Horst.