Sunday 13 March 2011

Back Home

Hello everybody

After the competition the wind totally dropped till the day I left. So there was no more windsurf action for me anymore in Vietnam for me but still great days. As the wind was still further out on see we got some waves/shore break which made it possible to do some normal surfing and for the first time ever for me doing some SUP, which was really so much fun. You even still could make something out of the pretty crap conditions for normal surfing in Vietnam which was great fun. For the last day we decided to rent a scooter and go to Jibe’s to for a morning SUP before we would leave home.

After the SUP it was time to rush back home, get all the gear in the taxi and leave for our way home again. My longest way home ever, it took me 44 hours to get from Mui Ne to home again. With a lot of problems with the Air Asia airlines who wanted to charge 480 dollars for my surf luggage to Bangkok, which I eventually could reduce back to 250 dollars after repacking almost everything. First and last Time I flew with Air Asia! After having to wait for 14 hours, sleeping on my boardbag in Bangkok I finally could fly home with Airberlin which didn’t make any problems for the surf gear.

Back home the forecast looked good for 2 days of nice wind at Brouwersdam with temperatures around 7°C it would become a big difference to 28°C Vietnam. The first day we arrived a bit to late at Brouwersdam but still had a good sail on my 4.7 for about 2 hours before the wind dropped. But it wasn’t too cold and was even possible to sail without head cap so that made it pretty nice for me, till I fell as the water is only 4-5°C warm it is pretty shocking.


The next day was a whole other story, wind around 35-40 knts getting stronger each hour, and feeling ice cold and it was feeling like a much colder day than the day before. But what a nice session it was. My 3.7 fully powered up actually overpowered and mirror flat water it was a day of lots of Skopus and high wind freestyle until I was getting too cold and had to stop after 2 hours of sailing. Afterwards my father took my 3.7 and was even a bit overpowered on it so you can imagine how windy it was.



Now wind is gone for the moment and books are back in front of my face as I have to catch up a lot of work of being away for a whole month from school!
Cheers Dieter

Wednesday 2 March 2011

4day PWA Mui Ne

Hello everybody

Sorry for the late update from the last day of the competition but as it turned out it still were busy evenings the day after the competition, with the closing ceremony yesterday evening I didn't find the time to update yet.

My last day started with much lighter wind than the days before which put everybody on there biggest sails which for me was the 4.7 as in the gusts it was strong enough and was a good setup on my Flare 88 as my 5.3 is a bit big on that board. With Steven being out of the race through injury the fight for 5th place was totally open again which was my biggest goal in this double with my biggest opponants Phil Soltysiak and Anthony Ruenes as they ended up 7th in the last double elimination.


But first I had to make it past Yegor to end up against Phil. I had a pretty good heat although I was really underpowered in the beginning of the heat which made it a bit getting used to after been sailing fully powered up the past few days during the competition but all by all it worked out well landing my usual repertoir with Kono's, Culo's, Airflaka and Shaka both ways to make it trough my heat end get the deciding heat against Phil for who would end up 5th in this competition as Davy Sheffers who was on a role today kicked out Anthony Ruenes.


Against Phil I had a pretty good heat again although it wasn't my best performance of the competition not really feeling well in this lighter wind conditions but still ended up putting on a good show which was enough to secure my victory against Phil and my 5th place in the competition which was my main goal of the day but not anymore with the big heat like the days before. But 5th is 5th so I was already super happy when I won against Phil!!


Next up was Davy whom I already sailed against very much and was a well know opponent for me. That heat I sailed terribly bad with quite a lot of crashes and only a few good light points like a nice Kono and Burner on the way in but that was about it. I was more busy with the fact that I became 5th in the competition than with the fact I was still sailing a heat against a very good sailing Davy Sheffers which resulted in a well deserved win for Davy.


I was already really happy with my 5th place in the competition and got even more happy after Taty ended up 3rd and Kiri finally won his first PWA event!! With doing the sickest Culo OH pirouet I ever saw and made everyone on the beach going crazy!!


Now slalom has started and the wind died which results in very long days with no action to check out and hoping for wind the next 2 days so I still can have a surf before I sadly have to leave Vietnam again on my way home again to cold Europe!


Cheers Dieter