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.

      

Blogging again (with some delay)...De Hors, October 2011

Beautiful scenery on The Razende Bol:

This year again in October 2011 a group of mainland windsurfing friends visited our beautiful island for their yearly "Texel Road Trip". It's becoming a great tradition and also this year the three days were filled with wind, sun, great laughs and overall just a great time. Texel offered three days with steady winds, at times big surf, big swells, off-shore flat water blasting and jump and bump conditions. This year I guided the group on a windsurfing safari over the Northsea from Texel to "De Razende Bol": a large sandplate in the Northsea about 5 km's from Paal 9. We formed couples of two windsurfers for safety and to look out after each other: in big swell it is easy to lose sight of each other and of land all together. Once on De Razende Bol is was magic: pure, sunny, seals watching and a stunning scenery! I think all the guys were somewhat in awe to set foot on this beautiful piece of land in the middle of nowhere after a sometimes demanding crossing over the Northsea. After the stop, we crossed back to Texel and spent the afternoon on the southern tip of Texel (De Hors) with nice side-off winds. The last guys standing were picked up in a Land Rover and brought back to Paal 9. Too bad Taucha and Niels were injured and Niels even broke his ankel.....Hope to see you all next year in good health!

Posing on De Razende Bol:

Back to Texel: De Hors

First Youtube film of the Texel Roadtrip 2011:   

The guys picked up from De Hors in the back of the Laro....back to Paal 9....

The second Youtube film: 

 

        

Long distance fun!

May 14th we had sun and a very steady nice breeze, albeit straight onshore. I took my good old 100 liter freerace board and my new Sailworks NX 6,2 and took off for some long distance fun along the western Texel coast. Actually quite good training for the upcoming Defi Wind 2011 in Gruissan, France. I made my reaches about 15 km on each tack, which will be the distance we'll race in Gruissan too. I had up to 2,5 meters of swell and windchop crossing the swell making it a very bumpy ride as I was going flat out fully powered up. Open ocean racing is I think one of the best things in windsurfing. In the picture you can hardly spot me, but the picture (taken by Caren) shows the beauty of the coastline of Texel under classic Dutch skies.

    

The quest for a speedstrip

For speed De Hors can be good with NW, but in this blog I've mentioned our quest for a good speedstrip for SW/W winds. We sometimes surf this spot near De Cocksdorp in the north and it's fun because you can make very long reaches and just have flatwater fun on freeride stuff. The scenery is unspoilt and vast. I love it. You can park your car right at the waterfront and jump on your board, so no long muddy walks etc. The windfetch is great and the winds are very laminar.  But the current here is quite strong and usually it spoils the true magic carpet you need for hard core speed. But we've noticed that there is a very, very small window between tides when it can get very, very, very smooth. So hopefully one great day it will all come together here!     

Arjen and Marco having fun at The Hors

In the last post I wrote about a great session at The Hors. Arjen, Marco and Bart (who made all the pics) were on a mini roadtrip (and slept in 1 Van!) and visited Texel. They left after thi ssession to France to catch the swell there as the wind would ease off at Texel. I think they had a blast: Arjen's in the air and Marco's coming up from behind. I'll post some more pics later of them.