Mini roadtrip to Texel

A group of  "mainland" windsurfers were planning a short trip and the forecasts led them not to Wissant (France), but to Texel.....So Pablo, Aad, Bart, Dennis (came in by ferry) and Nelis (came in on a windsurfer with camelpack from the mainland) got two fairly good days in. Sunday the wind was very constant, but nearly onshore, making it quite choppy with messy waves. At the end of my session on Sunday I managed to take some pics of Dennis. René of Strandpaviljoen Paal 9 offered them the Royal Seaside Suite at the beachfront for the night. Monday started with rain, but soon the sun was back and the wind had turned sideshore to the north, with good seize waves, but with the wind being a bit light on the inside it was challenging to get through the surf. One mast ceased to be. I had a blast with my SUP having heaps of fun just slogging out and catching some good waves coming in. Pablo certainly is top-contender for a cool set of wheels (and it fits 5 complete windsurfing sets).

Pablo's ride:

 

Dennis' ride:  

Looking back on good things and things to come.....

We're having quite of a winter here in Holland. This time in 2008 we were up and running at the great Drivenbywind Speedevent in Southend, UK, organized and hosted by the speeding legend Dave White. It actually seems (too) long ago.....The follow-up of my speedseason of 2008 was flucked by injury and in 2009 I just didn't get enough time spent speeding. So in 2010 I'll try to revive myself. During Drivenbywind (my first ever competition)  I entered the 40+ knots club and as a rookie came in 4th at the January 31st 2008 Drivenbywind.com speedevent just after such big guns as Martin van Meurs, Dave White and Dirk Doppenberg. So great things to look back upon in the speeding department and hopefully also great things ahead. Together with mates Mike and René we've been searching for some new speedspots on Texel and just maybe, just maybe, we've hit gold. First of all I'll post some nostalgia (blogauthor and Dave White on the banks of The Ray, January Southend 2008.). And then I'll post the picture of our possible pot of gold here on Texel. It's in the top right-hand corner, somewhat northeast of Texel. The speedstrip is offshore and lies almost in the same direction as the famed "The Brace", also in Holland. The windfetch is I think even better, the mudbank is somewhat higher with a bigger drop, and you can actually get their windsurfing. We've been out there on freeride gear at the end of 2009, but I think we need lower tides to get really smooth water just of the bank. So you're all invited in this quest!

Somewhere out there there's a great speedstrip.....

           

The bravest one

Bart-Jan and his family enjoyed a vacation on Texel, but the weather for windsurfing wasn't that good. Winter has set in early, but Bart-Jan just had to get on the water.....So with a Mistral Pacifico SUP on Wednesday December 16th he hit the water at Paal 9, with 6 degrees water and 2-3 degrees air temp. That's bravery right there!

 

Two days later we had the first serious snow of this year which made up for some nice shots. Nice of course, but whish it could be spring soon.......

Coverage in the Dutch Surf Magazine November 2009 issue

The Dutch Surf Magazine (issue November 2009) published a great picture of the blog author in mid-air over Texel. The picture was taken on October 16th at Paal 9, Texel, by Paul Koster. The wind was north and was ranging between 6 and a solid 8 bft.

That weekend a whole bunch of windsurfers visited Texel on their yearly "Texel Roadtrip". It was great fun and we had good winds and some heavy surf. That day I was on the Sailworks Hucker 4,8 for the first time. I'm always in search of new and special gear and I'd gotten intrigued by the concept of the Hucker. A modern twisting sail, but with far less leech tension than usual nowadays, resulting in a full profile thoughout the sail to the top, really making it into a powerhouse sail with a slightly higher centre of gravity. For bigger and taller guys like me it's great to have that higher and more powerful leverage on the sail. Most guys were on 3.7's, I was on the Hucker 4,8 and it was sweet. Very stable, fast, heaps of power, and very confident and stable when jumping. It even got me around some very tight corners on the waves, but needed some musclepower to do so, so it's no on-off wavesail.  I think it's very fast too, I'll put it on my speedboard and see what's there in GPS-speed department. 

Jelle Posthumus visiting Texel

Blog reader Jelle Posthumus sent some great pics of his visit to Texel this month. Nice to receive them! Thanx. The spot on the picture is Dijkmanshuizen on the Waddenzee side of Texel. You can rig at the  waterfront on the gras and the spot is in fact a little inlet or bay, which at low tide gets very smooth, so great for freestyle. The spot works with winds from northeast, east, southeast, south and southwest.

     

  

Dorian's 2nd session of the day

This morning it was rainy and gray, in the afternoon the clouds cleared, the sun came through, the wind increased even more and the second session of the day was at Paal 17. Olympic RSX surfer Dorian van Rijsselberghe again having fun on his 77 liter twinfin and 4,2 Fly. Dorian picked up waving seriously I think in the spring of last year, when his sponsors decided at last he should get some fun gear for waving. Considering the fact that he spends nearly all of his time on the water on the RSX olympic board, it's actually quite amazing the level that he has reached in waves in such a short time. I even guess he's already a serious match for the top wave guys in Holland. His bottom turns are fast and fluid (shoud feel a bit different than his RSX) and when cutting back, he nearly never misses the critical section of the wave. He's up for the 2012 Olympics and should he go PWA Pro afterwards, he'll stir up things there for sure.          

   

Paal 9 today

Dutch RSX olympic racer Dorian van Rijsselberghe got a good session in at his homespot Texel in between international RSX regatta's. In the morning the weather was gnarly with little light, so my pics are a bit dark.

 

in the pit......

Promising forecast!

The forecast for the upcoming 5 to 6 days looks very good with a very strong (at times gale force) southwesterly flow bringing also high temperatures for this time of year. Forecasts for tomorrow even show a peak of some 40 knots hitting Texel. Busy getting all the gear ready: speed & wave stuff. If the wind swings more to the southwest speeding at The Brace is the number one choice. If the winds kicks in more from the south we'll go for some wave sessions. Hope to get some pics in.  

Speedspots on Texel

Speedsurfing has catched on big time in Holland (and worldwide) due to the great appeal and succes of the GPS-speedsurfing format. This worldwide community exists of over 3300 members from 47 countries. It’s actually a Dutch idea. Over 2000 members are posting their GPS speeds on a regular base and 3000 boards, 4500 sails and 5100 fins have been listed op GPS-speedsurfing.com. The site was founded in 2004. In that year 800 sessions were posted on GPS-speedsurfing.com. In 2008 this number has grown substantially to12.941 sessions.

In Holland top speedstrips like The Brace work with southwesterly winds, which are pretty predominant in Holland. On Texel our speedspot De Hors only works with offshore northwesterly winds (and northeasterly winds). Being an open water venue, wind and tides should fall right into sync to get the magic carpet going ......

(illustration made bij Jeroen de Wever)

The first real outing to check out the speedpontential of De Hors was in the fall of 2007 when I invited Martin van Meurs to come over. The wind wasn't that strong and we could only play around with a 6,6 sail and 100 liter board. Later that fall Dirk Doppenberg joined us with better winds and Martin just missed the alltime GPS 500 meter record on Dutch waters.........Northwesterly winds can be very very strong in Holland so the potential is there and it's just a matter of time when De Hors gets propelled  into the top op the GPS-speedsurfing rankings. Hope it will be me to do so. I don't have good pictures yet recent speedsurfing at The Hors, only of the lowind session in 2007 with Martin and myself. The ship on the horizon seems to to be stuck on the beach, but it actual shows the great wind fetch from the northwest over De Hors to the speedstrip. De Hors is essentialy a large sandplate attached to the southtip of Texel.

 

De Hors also works with northeasterly winds. These winds often bring beautiful weather, but they seldom get stronger than 30 knots (rider below: Wouter Verhulst).

   

It can get very windy on De Hors....

The stars and their own hero(es)

Even the biggest stars of our sport, like Robby, Björn, Dave and Keith, have their own hero. But who? Finally we know.....

This is Texel

latitude: 52.220818 longitude: 6.891140

Inhabitants:

15.000 (sheep)

14.500 (people)

Almost one each.

What else? For starters we've got our own beer brewery. And the biggest whisk(e)y bar in the world. And it's windy. The records show that Texel is the most sunny place in Holland and we've got a lot of great  spots for freeriding, wave, speed and freestyle. 

Landmarks that make windsurfers happy

We've got a lot of these landmarks here on Texel and it's not bad to have the wind around if you're a windsurfer..... 

Bart rotating at Paal 9, Den Hoorn (pic Paul Koster)

some guys chasing each other around, Paal 17 De Koog