Crazy cold session with some other lunatics.

koud maar toch te doen, alleen de echte mannen waren er brrrrrrr. mooi compliment van de jongens over mijn houding . vandaag veel geexperimenteerd met giekhoogte en koordjes. merkte wel al gauw dat ik gisteren ook de kou om de oren heb gehad. onderarmen liepen direct vol.nu hopenlijk omzetten in snelheid. tijd valt een beetje tegen 

Helaas toch nog last vn mn pootje , helaas bleek varen toch niet te gaan, was koud maar gezellig ;-)

This is what I call a WINTER session !! On the way to Herkingen we passed Krammersluizen and half of the water surface was frozen. Luckily the water at Herkingen was still liquid.

Rigging in the snow, speeding (or at least trying to) down the wall in wind chill temperatures of around -10°C. Nice scenery with white frozen rocks. When you hit the water with your hands, they froze up instantly, even with dish washing gloves and neoprene gloves on top. So I tried to be above the water surface as much as possible with my hands. 

Wind was fully square and there were some nice gusts as well with the potential to go way over 70 if you had the balls to go deep downwind. It was a classic seperate-the-boys-from-the-men day... I was definetely one of the boys today !! Didn't had the balls to go deep downwind, especially not in the outbound leg resulting in going upwind in the chop after the end of the wall. Big respect for Wouter and Hans going all the way in the chop !!

Did most of my runs inbound but never went far enough for descent 10s runs. Went 8 times over 65 km/hr on topspeed, but runs were too short except for one. My goal for today was finally going over 70 (max) again after my accident, but I failed big. The conditions were there, only my condition wasn't there... My energy level was dropping very fast and I even ignored 3 nice gusts because I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it till the end.

But after all, I enjoyed it and it's nice to know that it's possible to sail in such a conditions. As long as there is wind and liquid water, it's possible to have fun on the water.

Used 8mm neoprene wetsuit (2x), hood and 6mm boots. Only issue were the hands (as usual). Should be nice to have a very small diameter carbon boom (22-24) so you can use full neoprene gloves without having cramps in the forearms after 5 minutes... A winter boom ;-)

Enjoyed a well deserved beer with Hans, Wouter DV, Edwin, Wouter L and my teammate Pat D.

Hopefully the last cold session !! It was even so cold that I needed 15 minutes of warming up before i could see that i was still a man ;-P

"Crazy cold session with some other lunatics."... you can say that again !!!

By far my worst session in the last 2 years! Started with my gloves on and with one run my arms were fucked up. The last time that I will use gloves. When I saw Edwin leaving the water I follewed him into the harbour club for a fun meal with some other windsurfing lunatics!!

To cold - no confidence at all! Surfing in 'safe' mode!!!