This was the 2nd year we decided to travel to Texel, The Netherlands to race the Texel Dutch Open and to try to sail Round Texel, a classic big long distance race around the Isle of Texel. Unfortunately this year this race was sheduled very early in the month of June and therefore none of our Youth Teams could participate. Their school results are ofcourse equally important (altough they sometimes don't think so ;-)).
To reduce the costs and to have more fun we decided to travel together with one other Belgian team, Wim Deca, one of our loyal readers (hello Wim!!!) and Gilles Tas, sailing a Nacra Infusion. We rented a holiday house (with a jacuzzi!! (never used it)) and more importantly, free WIFI.
When we arrived on Monday it was really blowing hard, again. What is it with this season and alot of wind? We rigged our boats and watched some boats trying to get out. One of our friends also went out, but had bad luck, a wave caught them on the side, they capsized in the breakers, they tried to right their boat quickly, but the force of the waves was just too much and their mast broke :-(. This was really painfull to watch from ashore. Our hearts broke in sympathy with our friends, not a good start of the week. We all rushed to help them and with joined efforts the boat was quickly out of the water, the crew shaken but OK, and we all helped them back to their trailer. And then they got some well deserved beers, to recuperate a bit...
The next day Gill and I went out together with Wim & Gilles to have a short training session out on the Texel water. A great day, sun, not too much wind (yeah) and great practicing tacks and gybes. I did get a bit sea sick of constantly looking at my watch to tack every 2 minutes :-)
Wednesday was the first day of the Texel Dutch Open. There were 2 starts, one separate start for the Nacra Infusion Worlds and then one start 5 minutes later for the C1 class. So a bit a devided field, but nevertheless great racing. Last year we did very well during the TDO, this year tough we felt a bit dissappointed with our result. Our upwind speed was very good, but downwind we lost places. I didn't feel too comfortable with the waves, it was really a skill to surf of the waves and gain speed. We got 3 races in that day, with varying conditions, not so easy sailing!
Surfing down the waves
That evening we went out with some of the other Falcon sailors (Geert & Raymond from The Netherlands, Andi & Katrin from Switzerland and Sandro & Johannes also from Switzerland/Germany). A very fun night, that reminded us of the good times we had last year at the F16 Worlds in Bordeaux!
On Thursday it was immediately very clear that there would be no racing that day. Very high winds, stormy weather. We had to tighten everything very well and some sailors forgot to do that, so there was some carnage...
Instead we wanted to go Carting, but unlike in Carnac, there was no decent Carting Track. So instead we did some site seeing (big tractors!) and we went back to our house and had a nice elaborate barbeque :-)
Gill, Gilles and Wim enjoying the barbeque!
Friday, 3rd and last day of racing and we got an awesome day of sailing. Sun, wind, flat water, tight racing, we felt great. A bit too great in fact, because our 2nd start of that day got us a Black Flag Disqualification, ouch, we pushed it a bit too hard.
Awesome!
Yiha :-)
By Friday night we already knew that there would be no Round Texel Race on Saturday because - again - of the predictions of too much wind. That night there was a party in the big tent and we had a "dance off" with Chris & Georgina and Raphael & Marcela, Sandro & Katrin,... We really laughed alot, great fun!
So on Saturday indeed no Round Texel and a one-of, for the first time in it's 35 year history the Round was postponed untill Sunday. Unfortunately we did not foresee this in our agenda and we had to be back on Monday for work, so we decided to travel back to Belgium on Saturday, meaning we missed Round Texel again. Gill immediately told me: "this only means we will be back next year, because one day I definately want to sail the Round!" :-D
Round Texel: see you next year!
