Just a quick word from France. I’m here at Gruissan for the Belgian Speed Week. We had 2 heats yesterday in quite strong & gusty off shore tramontane (northern) wind, on a fairly square 500m speed course. I used the Carbon Art SP44, with a TR5xt 5.9 and a 26cm C3 Venom fin.
In the first heat I was a bit overpowered, despite the extra weight I carried on my back… In the second heat the wind eased off a little bit and I was more confident to push hard for speed. When the official results came in this morning I was quite surprised to find I’m 7th overall and 2nd Belgian, right behind Pat Van Hoof, our national record holder who does the WC speed tour. Amazing! I’m really stoked. Jacques van der Hout was untouchable on his SP44 and heads the overall ranking in front of Anders Bringdal and Pat Van Hoof in third. (The results are not online yet.) Today there was no wind, and looking at the forecast it doesn’t look good for the rest of the week. Maybe some ‘marin’ wind (on shore), so no speed competition but maybe some slalom training. I’ll send some pictures and the official results as soon as I have them.
Cheers from Gruissan, Christophe Waerzeggers
