Great day at Makkum and fantastic to meet again with some old windsurfing friends while sharing good times on and off the water. Dylan, Carmen, Sanne, Mauro, thanks for the nice evening and great to see the kids doubled in length since I last saw them. How time flies....
Lately some of the youngsters like in this case Stijn de Bruiin, but for instance also Jens Salomons or Björn Rozendaal are clearly catching up with us "oldies". It's great to see their enthusiasm for the sport. Obviosuly the new generation of speedmonsters -this time Twan Verseput- is showing me age is starting to work against me :-) and this is only good. Still I am having a blast on days like this and it's so good to feel the vibe on water between people sharing the same passion for the elements.
As known I am racing S2 but I am also 100% in support of Peter Weitenberg who is doing a great job setting up one of the world's leading carbon and G-10 factories of the windsurfing world. Peter requested me to test his latest efforts on the KA sails and I must say I am positively surprised. Obviously I need some trimming but that's logical.
It's fun to see and feel the differences between sails like S2, Black Point, NP etc. which are all "bow and arrow" sails and sails like KA and Severne, which I like to refer too as "whip" sail. Both concepts work and in near future I aim to test more brands and explain a little on the differences in feel.
No windsurfer is the same and unlike a car we don't have a throttle you just push down in order to go faster. Our throttle is our whole body and the connection of that given body through your hands, feet, core and ultimately brain that needs to connect all dots and find the perfect settings for you at your personal spot. Speedsurfing is one of the most technical sports with three -or better four, with the last one not being realised as important to most- leading components we need to go fast: board, fin, sail, mast.
In the past I trained many world wide to go faster. In the now I am focussing more on having fun but I aim to help out a little more for those interested.
Anyhow...to cut a (as usual) very long story short, on days like this one realises just how great our sport truly is. Thanks again for the hospitality guys and Twan: good luck in Luderitz. Your sailing is impressive.
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