Yesterday, the first day of The Mission was held at Kabbelaarsbank, Brouwersdam. Consisting of slalom races with over 300 participants divided into several.
Several pro's had been invited to join the event. See below a small photo report.
The slalom races started with the pro-fleet at 13h00. Followed by all the other fleets. At 15h00 the Freestyle demo started. Unfortunately, the wind dropped and the freestylers needed to be towed in with jetski's and speed boats. Still the show was good.
2010 Costa Brava didn't do wath it normally does. This usually nice windy spot provided not much wind at all. Luckely for everybody there were one and a half day of nice racing conditions. The other days the wind didn't show up.
On Saturday afternoon it looked very promossing when the wind slowly kicked in. The race commitee decided to lay out the course. And a few riders did some gear tunin g for these light conditions. In the end the wind was never constant above the 7 knots lower wind limit and racing was cancelled for Saturday.
Sunday wasn't promising at all until it started to blow late afternoon again. And when everbody was ready on the beach, the wind decided to call it a day.
Bjorn Dunckerbeck was able to win this event whcih will make this years tour much more interesting. Lets see if Antoine finds an answer in the next event.
Karin Jaggi was the best lady windsurfer and said to be very happy with here new gear (Patrik 110 and Severne).
See full report for some more pictures of Saturday and Sunday.
High lights of the second race day At the Costa Brava PWA event.
Current standings Men:
1. Bjorn Dunkerbeck, SUI11
2. Antoine Albeau, FRA192
3. Cyril Moussilmani, F71
4. Micah Buzianis, USA34
5. Ross Williams, GBR83
Best Dutchy, 16. Ben van der Steen NED57
Current standings Women:
1. Valerie Arrighetti, FRA444
2. Karin Jaggi, SUI14
3. Sarah Quitta Offringa, ARU91
4. Alice Arutkin, FRA111
5. Lise Vidal, F19
Best Dutchy, 15 Lilian de Geus, NED171
Click on for a small report and some action pic.s
The early arrivals, rigged their light wind gear in the morning and when the wind kicked in early in the nice sunny afternoon here at the Costa Brava, they went out to tune their equipment. Most of them were trying different kinds of fins in combination with the larger volume boards 130-140L. Sail sizes mainly between 9,5 and 8,6.
One of them was trying 3 different boards of the same type to see which felt or preformed better, guess who? Tried the combination out, changed it again, and sailed 2 legs again.
First of the Dutch Nationals Formula series at Grevelingendam. See some photo's of yesterday. 2 races completed the 3rd race was cancelled due to a lack of wind.
Click further for a photo impression of the first day
More pictures of this event in the Gallery!!
North Sea Cup; 4 races in 4 countries starting with the first races in the Netherlands.
Classes involved are; Techno 293, RS:X, Race board and Formula. The wind was a very unstable Easterly one, between 5 - 11 knots. Later the sea breeze came in but not too strong. For the spectators it was not very exiting. However, light wind racing is one of the most difficult things there is and the fleet is large.
Below an impression:
Everybody is gearing up!! Tuning and tweaking their gear. Training the bodies and muscles after a long cold winter. Last easter I shot quite some pictures of Jordi Vonk Ned 600, Ingmar daldorf and his brother with Ned 191, Nikaj Droop Ned 647, Kay van Berlo Ned 212, Andre Hartmann GER 1313 and others. All preparing for the 2010 race season.
After a year of following the local races I wanted to make a final photo summary and give a brief personal impression of the races.
The Regio Cup South, a Formula / Slalom windsurf series, had been organized last year by Surfclub ZW7 and took place at two different venue's: Kabbelaarsbank, Grevelingen meer and Schotsman, Veerse meer in the Netherlands.
I tried to show the group actions here by these photo's. Please check the gallery there is a lot of individual jibe and race action.
I will be there to make pictures and hopefully you will all be coming to do the final races for the year.
SEE YOU THERE!
These photo's are definitely the best I took that day. Especially the jibe action above is really spectacular.
I tried to make pictures of everybody so please have a look in the web-album (link below in this message) And hope you enjoy it.
Grevelingenmeer Kabbelaarsbank, Sunday afternoon, time for one of the Regiocup Zuid series. The weather was excellent with a south westerly wind with an average of 15 knots and gusts of 18 knots. The sun was most of the time shining and the air temperature was around 17 degr. Celscius.
The race comittee decided for a down wind slalom series of four heats first. Three jibe marks before the finish.
Jacob our localdijksurfer from the high North ahead of 181. His first race ever and 2 bullets in the silverfleet!! This says something of the level of windsurfing at the Zeedijk Haringvliet doesn't it?
All the bold and grey haired oldies.
Pretty spectacular sight; the head of the goldfleet powering down to the jibe mark in the gusty Northerly wind. More then 25 windsurfers in the fleet. Looks like the fleet is growing which is a good thing for windsurfing here in the South part of Holland.
