Summer?? weekend wet n' cold..

One solution to bring the summer vibe/heat in the house. Spicy thai food + thai beer.

Great wind forecasts(but also alot of rain..) They're not sure about the direction.. southwest? west? northwest?.. , so I didn't go to the coast. A long drive and arrive in onshore conditions? No way, so I went to Stavoren. A nice place at the ijsselmeer (big lake)

A nice drive along some small roads. Some obstacles on the dyke roads..

Yes we still have august (summer!!).... this temperature is not normal!! never seen these low temperatures around this time of the year.

Sailed some hours in nice 5.3/4.7 conditions. Dry, sun, some short showers but steady strong winds. At the end of the day the rain became to strong (you simply couldn't keep your eyes open) so time to get the clothes on and jump in the car


The harbour in Stavoren


After the rain comes the sun

Bought some fishes (raw haring) at the local fishshop and had a fine meal at home

Free surfboard cores

For the most people this is just trash..

I see it as a bonus... free core's for boards ;-)

Working on the bike

Fankylove in the air


Superb weather during the day. Wind, open skies etc..... unfortunately I had to work. So we did our thing and looked forward to the afternoon/evening. You can imagine what happened. Thunderstorms and nonstop rain. So we went for some tooltime in the house. Bike repair hours...
(+ beers)


The supervisor...


The heathlands in bloom




The chinese around the corner brought us some fine food..

Sometimes you loose....

Yesterday I headed to Ouddorp in the morning. The wind direction was perfect, but the waves were probably not that good. When I arrived it was clear. Good winds, but almost flat. Damn.... So Bas and I went out for some high wind flatwater sailing :-(

We could clearly see the potential of the sandbar. But sadly the waves were too small to really enjoy them. So we headed further out for a bit of bump and jump. And then, suddenly SNAP!!! I knew right away. I had snapped my boom. DAMN.... We were at least about 2km out, so it was up to the remaining half of my boom to take me back to shore. It was quite exciting in a steady 30kts wind. Some tense moments and strange noises, but it survived the trip back.

weather map

Nice lines above Holland.. a big active Low. Typical for the summer?? nop, but really windy!

Pics of some old home made boards

My first windsurf picture. think it's 1985. Surfing on a home made surfboard. Made out of foam that they used for big freezers. Every year we made the board shorter. It started around 350 cm + sword, and it ended at around 290 cm.

1987, hollow wood board

I once mentioned that my latest board (the black fish) wasn't my first I made at home..
I had to dig deep in my old pics to come with some evidence.. I made enough boards to fill the house ;-)

I started surfing on home made/custom boards. My dad started to make them and once you get used to them a factory board was always a big step back. Had tons of magic boards... and seriously they were far ahead of their time. Advanced bottom shapes, super strong constructions, exotic materials etc..

At the garage with winfried. Adding extra stringers.




The time on the no nose boards



We also worked on sails. Sometimes we reshaped them, made them smaller etc..



This was in the time that Robby Naish ruled (He still does;-) Graphic inspired from his board.
Left board was lo wind waveboard, with deep concaves bottom, 4 stringers and a finbox construction that you could trust..

First sandwich board. My jumpmachine.. 4 stringers, beefy boxes...yup trifin!!. And sandwich deck. Added extra layer of ultra hard foam on deck. Saw it on a custom SailboardsMaui in a magazine.. so we had to try. The ricepaper decals I got by post from the Simmer brothers on Hawaii.

Winfried on the left. On the right the garage shaping bay.

First full sandwich kevlar/carbon boards.

Today Winfried drove by. He was on his way home after he visited his parents. In the back of his car I spotted the old "shape box" from back in the days... Tools, fins, kevlar and even the vacuum pump... wonder what he's going to show us ...

Sunset windsurf session Dutch summer.

"JePeVePe" made these nice pictures of Torben during his sunset session at Wijk aan Zee

Sneak preview on new Sean Ordonez 2011 boards

bamboo carbon sup 9'2" proto..

Check out the new SOS 2011 board line... From a 5'7 Procket to an 11'2" stand up, and everything in between, including Paige's 6'0" 18" 1/4", Albee's 6'2" 18 1/2" 2 5/16", and Matt's 5'10" 18" 2 1/8... And all the procket and guppys you could need....

talking about fish boards....

Mark Healey beats us all!! ;-) What a nice quiver of boards. Amazing "fishes"...

His passions: charging big waves and fishing.. Think if you combine both to one dicipline he would be worldchamp, and way,way ahead of the rest ;-)


What a superb picture.. (It made the cover of the Surfers Journal)