What a fun day, sunshine, waves, breeze and good competition all to race sixty kilometers on the North sea. Got our black boat ready to race with new diamant wires. Made Bastiaan happy with a new mainsheet block which made his day easy. We had joy sailing the boat in these conditions and while we had to fix some things during the race. We still managed a nice second place in the race after two hours fifty six minutes and some seconds. First was Darren & Jeroen, third Willem & Rico. After prizegiving there was a party dinner and DJ playing.

Tomorrow short course races for the F18 event! Start at elevens.

Carrie Howe & I won the event for the 3rd time now as a team. Thursday turned out to be a bad day on the water a lot of fog and no wind. At half three they called it for the day. Our supporter for the event Harken invited us to the factory for a tour which was great to see. The latest technology in hardware plastic compounds are developed tested and produced right there.

Thursday evening was raffle night! Many sponsors had donated goods which were raffled during the night as well as some live auctions. I donated a clinic day which was won by doctor Chris Blake. A wonderful person and a great doctor so I am excited to spent a day with him. The organizers made it a big success and entertaining evening.

Friday last day of sailing. The race committee had set the latest starting time to three o'clock to get more races in on Friday. Again was the on shore breeze light and fog. We waited on the water for four hours and kept our focus to follow the system. We took several land-sights for the starting line, sailed test upwind and recorded high and low numbers on the compass. At one o'clock the race committee decided no more racing this event.

De-rigging was a warm job and we were happy to have the boats on the trailer before prize giving. Big thanks to our sponsors and the organizers for a wonderful event. The weather was not cooperating but the social side of the event was running full force and made it wonderful experience.

We are now on to day four of the North Americans. The forecast for today shows wind filling around one o'clock. Day one the breeze was minimal with think fog fog. Day two made for a WII tournament in the airco, reading and lot's of talking about sailing. The breeze would not fill in so no racing. At 7 Tuesday evening, I gave a Hobie Hot Shot seminar talk about the key points of going fast followed by comments of race one with the tracking system. It was a big success with eighty people attending the seminar and the group remained silent (not sleeping) and entertained for two and a half hours.
Day three (yesterday) there was nice off shore breeze which made the course puffy and shifty and a lot of fun. It was a day where anything could happen as long as you kept working your own plan. We were happy with our scores. We did not finish worse than a fifth place and won one race. We are still leading the overall followed by Macca and Fergie.

Sailing is only a small part of this regatta, these people know how to throw parties! Last night was the Magic Marine party, where the best band played great music surrounded by a carnival with black lights and tshirts with glow in the dark markers. The best costume was a lightning bug!! Chris Blake carried a 35 pound car batterie in his backpack to light the whole thing. Followed by his daughter with a fire extinguisher. He looked fantastic and was dancing on the music of a good band. It was rocking. I will post pictures tomorrow, pretty amazing event. The organizers really know what they are doing!

So we just woke up for day four, one more day after this one.

Results

Live Feed Sailing Anarchy

The weather was tough. We woke up with rain and thunderstorms blowing 16kn of breeze. Arriving at the boat park there was a lot of fog on the water. So we got postponed on land. When there was some visibility racing started and we could not see the windward mark. Only 200meters away we found the mark. Race one was light and shifty race but we managed well and got first in the race followed by Argentina racers who did really well in this race. Today more racing! Keep following us on the live trackers.

Hello supporters, friends;

It has been a while, but it is because I’ve been busy. What have I been up to . . .

The true F-18 season started in March with the new Bulthaup Hobie Wildcat in France for Carnac. It is now August, the Worlds are behind us, finishing a solid 4^th at a tricky venue with 180 boats full of great competition, and now we are off to the US where Carrie and I will try to win a third North American championship and hopefully beinvited back to the Championship of Champions event for all NA winners of 2011.

Throughout the season I have been helping to share the sport of sailing, catamarans mostly, to all different age groups. We spent a few days at the Magic Marine Easter Regatta where we took 200+ optimist sailors on the monster Extreme 40 as well as days teaching new owners about their Wildcats. This season I have spent every free day helping owners and crews of all boats to be able to have more fun on the water (safer or faster whatever is the request!!)

A quick recap on the busy season-

Carnac

Decent races brought us to a killer final. The title was between Bastiaan and I versus Darren Bundock & Will Howden in the last race. They tried to match race us but quickly we took over the game and won the race. Winning 2010 edition of Carnac.

Tybee 500

This was an incredible 500 miles battling with our competition John Casey. Eduard Zanen loves the distance racing and we were successful defending our title.

North Sea Regatta

During the Tybee I caught a nasty ear infection. I can tell you it is strange to sail without your ear open. I had difficulty focusing with my patched ear, but still finished second which was excellent considering my health in such a strong fleet.

Texel Dutch Open

Finally an event with big breeze again!! Big smiles while we are racing the 20+ knots of breeze. We sailed a solid event in strong competition. It was incredible to race in big breeze again. Bastiaan and I as a team enjoyed beating the elements and the competition.

Round Texel was cancelled because of an angry ocean. The entire pit lane of the pros had to be evacuated with the rising water. The cool thing was the Netherlands futbol match where we beat Brasil that afternoon. There was a great party afterwards and I did my first crowd surfing at the awards!

Kustzeil evenement.

Local event with super strong attendance from many countries. The last event for the Worlds had to be an easy relaxed one. The atmosphere on the beach made it a pleasure to be there. We scored a nice second place behind Darren Bundock.

Worlds F18.

4 solid training days at the event location in Erquy, France to learn about the surroundings. It was not an easy race track as it had specific land effects and interesting geography. We sailed clean and had good speed overall. In the we did not have enough to beat the rest of the world. We finished in fourth position overall which is quite ok in this incredibly deep fleet. Next year!! Worlds in Hungary.

EK Hobie 16

Straight after the worlds I drove to Germany Travemunde with a different boat behind my for the Hobie 16 Europeans. I coached the Dutch Youth Team hard for 5 days of training. My teams finished in their respective fleets with a gold and 2 bronze medals, this makes a coach very proud! I sailed alongside my training group in the event to race the Hobie 16 Europeans myself as well. It was twenty two years ago that I sailed the 16. My crew was Enrico van de Laar, a thirteen year old kite boarding rockstar. He had never sailed before and after one day of training we had to begin the qualifiers. We did two qualifying races before the gold fleet racing started. Every race we improved which brought us to a fifth place overall in the Europeans. My top team behind me finished 16th.

North Americans F18

I am just back from the Hobie 16 Europeans and Friday we have a flight to the United States. I am looking forward to sail with my rockstar, Carrie Howe. We have a title to claim, looking good in our Magic Marine gear and also representing Hobie Cat and Harken at the event. The sailing takes place on Lake Michigan across the lake from the state where Carrie is from. The event is close to the World Headquarters of Harken. I look forward to catching up with Harken and or course all my US buddies.

Follow us in the North Americans Championship

The Island of St Barth was not known to me yet, as Eduard Zanen and myself signed up for the regatta. It had all the potential being in the Caribien and close to Sint Maarten. Water temp of 28 degrees, Crystal clear almost scary to look into the deep ocean, facing turtles and lots of sealife.

 The event was under excellent french organisation and Thursday we started with a prologue. Three hours sailing in the bay around many rocky islands in an almost random order. We were leading and were far ahead when we rounded the wrong mark and met up with the fleet not realizing we missed the right mark. So after sailing ourself to the back of the fleet we understood the prologue idea of the race and got eye for the magnificent surroundings. Sun was just under when we hit the beach where the sound of tropical music made us swing. A splashing jump in the pool, washing the salt of our faces. Day 1 was a big succes.

Boat is in the container, I got a bit sunburned of the long hours on the water but will be cooled since I am on my way to stormy Holland!

Life as a full time sailor is for sure different than a desk job. I shouldn’t say a desk or “normal” 9-5 because that is similar to someone saying that I only sail.

It is hard for me to remember a desk job because it has been 8 years since working on Smart Card applications at an IT company. For all interested though, I do use my mechanical engineering degree every day … but on what . . .

Since I last wrote I haven’t taken any days off.  What do I do every day? Sponsor fulfillment, corporate sailing, clinics, design, winning the local racing series, coaching, meetings to make the world go round, and I spend many late nights and a few days here and there to rebuild my new house!

Why is it always so busy? We have an incredible sport that is not appreciated by the outside world. Every time I coach or give tips on the beach I can feel the impact. I am helping others to do something that will make them smile, laugh or give the satisfaction of improvement. We all have hectic lives and sailing is one of the best medicines. (Which is why I will try to do it full time for the rest of my life)

So what has Bastiaan been doing? Bastiaan is a student pursuing a degree as a civil engineer. He is in an important part of his life. He has been delicately balancing his studies while maintaining the focus to prepare and win the majority of the races we have sailed this year. He has learned how to focus

What is in our upcoming plans?

A few weeks ago we received an invitation to race in St. Barths on our F-18s. At first thought this is only possible if our sponsors are interested or if we can swallow the idea to ship our boats to St. Barths (just for a sailboat race). The idea seems ridiculous at first but to be honest, every opportunity does at first. But then we put our heads together and there we are . . . looking at a trip to Nikki Beach in two weeks. The organization covered the shipping of the boats, inscription covers housing and food and all we need now is flights.

Who is making this possible? One of those people who I explained earlier. Someone who smiles every time we pass a boat, cheering when we are going fast, and has improved on his focus and skills on every day when we sail. When Eduard Zanen is on the F-18 with me, I can honestly say that it is his medicine for his hectic (yet successful) life.

I’ll let you know how Nikki Beach is! We have all heard the stories.

So . . .  Carrie is off to race Farr-40’s off South Beach in Miami, and then we meet up to race each other in St. Barths. Another fight – Eduard/ Mischa vs. Carrie/ John (from the Tybee) and a whole bunch of other Frenchman, Belgians and . . .

Hopefully I can get a bunch more of the house done before the snow comes!