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