January 2010 | Speedsurfing BLOG

I haven't taken any measurements yet, but the new X9 boom looks a lot less wide than previous 160-210. I am talking about the distance between the 2 bars. I don't know if the extreme deep profile fits in this small boom, with the older and wider boom was haning in the boom till the harnasslines. With the new boom the sail hangs even further in the boom, does this not damage anything???

To be sure I chose to order a 180-230 boom next to the 160-220. We will see how this will work out, maybe my favorite boom will be 180-230 from now on.........

27 January 2010

Why are frenchies soo successful in windsurfing?

Sometimes it bothers me a bit that the frenchies are soo succesful in "nautical achievements", for example Antoine Albeau and Hydroptere. I just don't like the fact of not knowing why?? Just to get a bit more understanding I opened a topic on www.windsurfing33.com a french windsurfing forum. Original I hoped to learn a bit more about fins in France, but thanks to all replies I learned a lot more;)

My questions on the forum were:

Why do I find more custom fins in France compared to other countries???
Why do speedsurfers in France use more exclusive (custom) fins?

Some answers that helped a lot:

Albeau does so we do regardless to the uge gap between he and us. Our national leader is far above all the other riders, we figure out it cames from his equipment and we copy it. For instance, the percentage of Slalom JP boards are strongly raising in the market of new boards.
Gasoil and Deboichet are both french or french native speaker making it easier to get the right fin for your board without to much risk in the delivery
those fins are excellents, we have plenty of everyday riders feedback and a strong second hand market making it possible to renew a full set of Deboichet for few box.
Because you're not as "fashion victims" as french people...
plus french people don't follow blindly foreigners

I think now to understand what it is all about, basically most french windsurfers buy the same (windsurfing) gear as the (local) proriders. In the Netherlands this effect is not that big. I believe after the windsurfing topic the french have this "protectionism" because: the language French, strong national market and maybe a better sense for fashion. The disadvantage is (thank you Christophe Waerzeggers) when the french market is not as innovative as an other producer (Kashy is a good example) than immediate most french riders will be slower in competition and it will take a long time to recover 1th position.

Thanks to the "nationalism" I believe the french nautical market has got more budget, more sponsoring, etc. When frenchies invest enough money in R&D + good windsurfers they will keep the leading 1th position for a long time...

Speedsurfing can make a difference, now France has got the lead thanks to the hard work in the past of Pascal Maka, Antoine Albeau, Deboichet and many more. But somehow results are not improving anymore (because lack of investments in French speedsurfing?!?). In the Netherlands speedsurfing is boooming. More and more (mostly privateer) investments in speedsurfing, when nothing changes I predict someday the Netherlands will be THE trendsetter in speedsurfing.

26 January 2010

No more adsense for speedsurfingblog

For 2010 I decided to end all adsense on speedsurfingblog.com because it costs me to much time. I invested lots of time in "earning online some bucks". At the end of 2009 I studied the stats and for a windsurfing/speedsurfing blog advertising via adsense isn't intresting for me. Most important for me is good content and making a difference for windsurfing/ speedsurfing, not advertising.

I prefer to work directly with partners, help each other directly.

24 January 2010

the asymmetrical speed seeker project*

For a week now I have been digging in my own archive of windsurfing magazines, folders, etc. I began searching this stuff because together with Rolf Aalders we are looking for some inspiration for a photoshoot.

the asymmetrical speed seeker project* story I found in the 2005 product folder of NP, this is the story:

One of the things we strive to do at NPDC is gain as much knowledge and experince as possible in order to constantly improve on our sails. One means of gaining this valuable knowledge and experience is through projects and experiments that help us explore the very edge of development, even though they may not necessarily lead into a commercial product. The Asymmetrical Speedseeker Project is one such endeavor that is taking the Double Surface concept one step further by creating an almost full double surface sail that can only be sailed in one direction. The motivation behind this project is to break the sailing speed record and we have taken a no compromise approach. The sail in its' early stages has shown tremendous potential clearly beating our previous speed sail designs. We look forward to witnessing their full potential on the speed course.

*This sail is a development project only and will not be available to the public

23 January 2010

My weight :)

This is a first: I added weight during winterstop. My last session was 5 Decembre 2009, I know for sure my weight was 79-80kg... I tried a few things to add some bodyweight for speedsurfing, but doing physically nothing and a bit stressful job seems to be the key.

Yesterday I thought let's see... And the dail stopped at 84kg, I thought WOW thats +5. That is a weightclass up, near 90kg (that would be perfect).

PLUS: according to all lightweight surfers I should be faster (yeah right.....)
MIN: it makes it harder to compare last years testresults with the 2010 sessions

When my weight stays above 81kg after the first few sessions I have to change my gps-speedsurfing profile before the real speedsurfing session in 2010.

It would mean I have to compare against other competitors in weightclass:

Dirk Doppenberg
Serge Beumer
Peter Volwater
Dylan de Jong
Chris Lockwood
Farrel O'Shea

20 January 2010

Nominated for blogger's choice awards

Speedsurfingblog.com can win an international award, soo I submitted the website to this contest. I hope the website content, design and structure will be good enough to get some votes. With at this moment 6 votes we are getting near top 10 ranking worldwide, that's high for a windsurfing oriented blog. I hope to get some windsurfing PR out of this one.

Thank you,

-Erik

17 January 2010

Promotion with Social Media

This article is not really about speedsurfing, it is an idea maybe out of reach, maybe interesting but most likely it will not happen. I had some doubts for this one to click on the publish button. But would like to share my thoughts, maybe I forgot something in my argumentation..

I read sometimes sharp comments (windsurfing.nl: "do you want visitors again?") about speedsurfingblog, I guess windsurfers don't really understand/believe the most important goal of speedsurfingblog.com itself. To be honest, I would like to see windsurfing on television nowadays.

Goal in a few words:
"Promote windsurfing/ speedsurfing"

Is the goal achieved??? Not even close.

The problem:
Windsurfing is barely on TV, radio, newspaper and even in online readers you don't see much. Speedsurfingblog visitors are for 99% known in windsurfing. Speedsurfingblog is found by search words like "Neilpryde Matrix etc." or links on other windsurfing sites.

The speedsurfingblog idea:
My last vacation (christmas 2009) I was thinking, what can I do to promote windsurfing a bit during these cold days??? It shouldn't cost me money, invest some time is OK, maybe 5min per day. And it should be easy, don't want another pain in the head. I went on google looking for all sort of things, at one point I found a few sites that submit stories... for free. Digg.com, Delicious.com and many more. It is called social media.

You know how many visitors these sites have each year? Over 100 milion unique visitors EACH

When 1 person submits a windsurfing article it will never appear between other sports, its a number thing... I believe the windsurfing community is for a large part online, windsurfing forums are used worldwide to share all kind of information. We (online) windsurfers can make windsurfing populair! For example when 50% of the speedsurfingblog visitors would social bookmark the articles it would appear in front of milions of readers. (calculation: 60 clicks/day*3days= 180 clicks= enough) At one point this "online interest" should be taken serious!!!! Conclusion: We windsurfers should social bookmark all high quality windsurfing articles we like to the world.

Now I did my part, making speedsurfingblog articles easy to social bookmark. And this article to explain how it works, the possibilities, the reason etc. Let me know what you think about it, or a better idea??

Social media on your windsurfing website articles with this blogger html code

14 January 2010

Speedteam Wad1team members

The alphabetic list of riders:

Harro Bakker
Marco Bakker
Serge Beumer
Marcel Braas
Tim Joosten
Chris Kluiters
Jeroen Labots
Erik Loots
Rene Mienis
Erik Schram
John Tuin
Peter Volwater
Gauke de Vries
Peter de Wit
Jan Wolters

A great team and we are ready for action, today 6 degrees celsius maybe the ice will melt on our spots... I believe in Januari it will not be possible to do a competitive speed windsurfingsession in the Netherlands. Time will tell...

11 January 2010

Neilpryde RS:Slalom MKIII Limited Edition 2010

Neilpryde RS:Racing EVOII Limited Edition 2010

07 January 2010

Snow, ice and more bad news in North-West europe

The latest speedsurfing sessions in my neighborhood was 31-12-2009. Now 7 Januari 2010 is the 7th day without speedsurfing in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and UK. Predictions (as far as I can evaluate) show this cold period to last a few more weeks.

Actually it is plausible we will not be able to do a january session on our own ground! Maybe 2010 will be the year down-under to be unbeatable in the evaluated ranking or gps-teamchallenge.

About the gps-teamchallenge there will be a team formed with Amstelmeer riders. I will be team captain for at least 2010 and so far 12 riders have registered (email). We will meet on short term and share thoughts etc. As soon as possible I will publish the team, first we have to confirm a lot of things. The teamsize is unlimited according to the rulebook, if you are also windsurfing with GPS around the Amstelmeer AND willing to join our team please contact me. I believe it will be a lot of fun and the team is various soo we should be able to perform in the teamchallenge at more things beside AVG and 2sec.

I wish the coldness to disappear ASAP, yesterday from work to home (Amsterdam-Alkmaar) we drove 45km in 3 hours and 15 minutes, that's 13,84km/h average or 7.5kn average speed. The Netherlands is not build for this weather......

03 January 2010

[review] 2010 Naish Grandprix 7.0

I was asked to test the new Naish freerace model for Kater Funsports. It is a reasonable prized sail. From the shop I also got the required 2010 Naish 75% mast, just the combo they would like to sell.

It was the end of the season when I tried the sail, quite cold and windy for the 7.0. I just wanted to know if the Grandprix compared to a RS:Slalom or V8 from Neilpryde. Compared to my totally tuned-up RS:Slalom MK3 6.2 the difference was 5km/h, it was not really fair compare since against all my expectations this Naish is designed to be sailed small.

The sail has lots of bottom-end, I overdownhauled slightly with 2-3mm. Still the sail got massive power above the boom. I would definitly compare this sail with the Neilpryde V8 (or H2) class. TO go fast with this grandprix I would suggest to sail it small and not overpowered.

The Grandprix could be updated to a higher performance level sail (by yourself?!?). I felt like a flextop (unifiber??) mast would help giving control in all winds (I also sailed a flextop mast for a long time in my gaastra vapors it worked very good). The bottom battens were a bit to shore to really tension them good. Last but not least adding a tackstrap would be usefull.

The quality of the sail was outstanding, also the lighter materials are nice, eventhough the 75% mast is not able to give these light materials an added value. If you are a recreational windsurfer, speed between 45 and 65km/h this Grandprix sailrange would be a good value for money solution, especially on longer term (lets say you would like to sail more than 1 season).

For real speedsurfing performance I don't believe it will be easy to make the Grandprix as competitive as a Neilpryde RS:Slalom MK3. It is hard to equal the MK3 in performance.

Other gear used for this test: Fanatic Falcon 91, Sonntag GPS_3 340

01 January 2010

Learn Speedsurfing Online

Speedsurfingblog offers a few guides (in the How To menu). These guides are written to learn a few things about speedsurfing. One of the Speedsurfingblog.com goals is to put all information together in a useable package for beginners but also some stuff for pro speedsurfers.

Learning speedsurfing online is not only practical lessons about how to rig or stand on the board. GPS-Speedsurfing.com is a good source for information. Try to find out what brands suits your style best, after this I would suggest to check out GPS-speedsurfing.com for the right sizes (should you take the 100 or the 112 liter board, which one is faster??) Lots of sponsored riders show what combination work out great, making it easier for you to choose the right equipment! Goldmembership is highly recommended, this actually can safe a lot of experimenting/money.

To start I would advice these Guides:

When you would like to buy (new or used) gear for speedsurfing I advice this article:

Equipment Overview

Equipment Overview

We have many brands producing gear suitable for speedsurfing. My advice would be go with the brands you feel best, find something that suits your style. Not everything works the same for everyone, keep this in mind.

Used gear can be very good, or totally not. There is no windsurfing gear that lasts forever, keep this in mind before making a big investment!!!

This is the list with the newest speedsurfing gear of today. Anything missing or incorrect please contact Erik Loots for adjustments.

Speedboards
Starboard Isonic Speed Special W44/W49/W53/W58
Tabou Manta Speed 49
Carbon Art Speed 40/44/47/50/53

Fanatic Falcon Speed

F2 Missile XS/S

JP Speed 45/49/54
Thommen SR
AHD SL1 68/80

Sails For Speed
Severne Reflex
Neilpryde RS:Racing Evo2
Gaastra Vapor
Loft Sails Blade
North Sails Warp F2010
KA Koncept
Maui Sails TR-6
Gun Sails Mega XS
Point-7 AC-1
Simmer SCR
Severne Overdrive
Neilpryde RS:Slalom MK3
North Sails Ram F10

Fins for Speed
Sonntag Fins GPS_2
Sonntag Fins SL-S
Select Caspar Speed
Select S07
Caspar Speed (contact me for more info)
Tectonics Talon
Tectonics Falcon F1
C3 Venom
C3 Strike
C3 Sting
Deboichet Upwind
Black Diamond Fins
KA Lockwood fins
Choco Mach2
Choco Fireblade

Speedsurfingblog Goal

Speedsurfingblog.com has one main goal, promote windsurfing and speedsurfing by quality articles. The site is non-profit and thanks to a large amount of returning visitors, we are able to get more worldwide attention for this beautiful sport.

(5 minutes of your time) Would you like to help? (1) Click on the article title (2) Link articles with 1 of the big icons below the articles (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) . This way speed(wind)surfing articles will show up inbetween other sports, share our sport worldwide!!

Read more about the effect of social media (which shouldn't be underestimated!)

Goals for 2010

This year I thought my goals should be fun to achieve, just to prevent frustrations (waiting for the perfect day).

Totally not catagorized my goals:

Keep on blogging
Try to improve Speedsurfingblog quality
Search Engine Optimalisation of speedsurfingblog
Try to make a speedsurfing lifestyle video (need a lot of help with this one).
Do at least 1 speedsurfing photoshoot, I need much more pictures. so far I have done 1 photoshoot which was ssooo much fun :)
Dare to invest in a recordsession
Setup a GPS teamchallenge team
Research and Development for Sonntag fins, try to make new fins work like a dream
Break my hour-record BIGTIME
Improve 5x 10seconds average, I think to need a few shots to achieve this. Let it be windy!
Surf at new places/events
Get some more 1th places in the gps-speedsurfing ranking

Compared to my 2009 goals you could conclude WAY less numbers in my goals. This because I believe having fun is most important in life, but also to be a good speedsurfer. Also numbers are just numbers, I don't have special feelings with numbers. The numbers are just means to achieve a goal, not something to aim for.

How To: Break 35kn

This article is written for speedsurfers with some experience but wanting to go even faster. The 35kn (= 65km/h) barrier is really fast, especially when you don't have really flat water. I have experienced many 35kn which felt like worldrecord runs ;). But how to do it?

What do we need?

When reaching for 35kn (free)race equipment is adviced, freeride equipment is possible to do 35kn but the unstablity makes it MUCH harder. I would advice to reach 35kn boardspeed in 26-30kn wind. Look to the How To: Do Basic Tuning to get a fast setup for all conditions.

Steps

Search for some flatter water, with possibility to go downwind
Go crosswind as fast as you can
Wait for a gust and go downwind, DO NOT hang harder into the sail in the gust. By keeping the sail in normal stance you will be faster.
Try to go really deep downwind, find the deepest angle possible vs chop. When you reached the deep-downwind course try to keep the sail a bit open (not close-the-gap)

Good :Luck, and please respond when you succeeded

How To: Break 30kn

This article is written for starting speedsurfers, the first nice goal would be to reach 30kn (= 55km/h) on your GPS. 30kn Is some kind of barrier, skilled speedsurfers can reach 30kn quite fast. But how to do it?

What do we need?
Normal windsurfgear is OK, just don't rig way to big or small. With freeride gear 30kn is possible but you need some more wind. I would advice to reach 30kn boardspeed in 20kn wind. Look to the How To: Do Basic Tuning to get a fast setup for all conditions.

Steps

Search for some flatter water, with possibility to go downwind
Go crosswind as fast as you can
Wait for a gust and go downwind, DO NOT hang harder into the sail in the gust. By keeping the sail in normal stance you will be faster.

Good Luck and please respond when you succeeded

Partners & Sponsors: Erik Loots

I have been sponsored since 2007, here you can find a short history. Here all my current sponsors I am happy they support me.

Kater Funsports BV
The shop that has sponsored me since the beginning. This partnership has been very important since Kater helped me a lot. Always a good place to share some thoughts about the future or tough decisions.

Starboard
Starboard is my first boardsponsor ever, my dream was always to ride one day for starboard, since I owned an hypersonic 105. The Isonic speedspecial W44 will help me improve personal records, now some wind please!

Severne Sails
The severne reflex is a great sail for speedsurfing, together with starboard this was a dream deal. Just had the first experience with 7.0 and it just has an amazing downwind boost!

Sonntag Fins
This very new brand produces carbon fins finetuned for the customer. Since 2009 I am helping with development for the fins, by using my large amount of time on water and using all experience from that.

Sportzeker

Here you can insure your windsurfing gear, for a good price. After some very good experiences myself I spoke the owner and we concluded we could help each other.

Special Portait
Rolf Aalders sended me an email after a blog post with my idea's for 2010. I wrote about some photoshoot which I really wanted to do, Rolf was very kind to offer to do this together. The first shoot is done: results (in not much wind)

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30 January 2010

The ultimate windsurfing blogs List

28 January 2010

New X9 160-220 looks small