IJmuiden....

The forecast was good, really good. On wednesday I called David and we realised this was a day we couldn't miss. The wind would be straight from the north and at least 25 knots. The waves would build up during the day. This kind of forecast could mean awesome conditions at IJmuiden. The wind would be side-offshore and with some swell, it could mean clean lines, which are rare along the dutch coast.

We arrived at 10:30am. Looked over the dunes. It was still quite flat, but there was enough wind. We rigged our 4.7 sails and went out. Walking over the beach we allready noticed the wind had picked up. But let's try it anyway. Fully overpowered we went for it. The waves were small where we entered the water, but they were clean. I headed for one full speed and took off. It felt like I was in the air forever. And although this was the perfect recipe for insane jumping, we noticed that our sails were way too big for some decent waveriding. So after 15 minutes we decided to change our sails to 4.2.
In the beginning the conditions were ridiculously good for dutch standards. A little more downwind the waves were clean, up to shoulder height and long enough to do up to 5 or 6 bottomturns. The 30 - 45 knots of wind still made jumping lots of fun as well ;-)

During the afternoon the waves, but also the crowds picked up. It got quite choppy. A little downwind from the main crowds it was still good enough to have loads of fun. Every now and then we would go way out into the big swell behind the pier. And although the swell doesn't break like the waves near the beach, they sometimes did break. With one and a half time mast high, this was quite a thrill ;-P

At 5:30pm we called it a day. We had an awesome day sailing with lots of friends showing up during the day. After eating some fries and a hamburger in the harbour, we went for our trip back home. Although we both had to go in different directions, due to traffic it took us about twice as long as normal to get home. But after a day like this nothing can ruin the smile on your face.

Because we had too much fun sailing, we didn't take any pictures. But luckily Torben, Axel and JePeVePe took some pictures. Click on the pictures to see some more.


In a few weeks we will get a GoPro HD camera. This will finally solve our problem of taking footage, when everyone wants to stay sailing. Also, it will finally give us some footage of the conditions way out in the big swells.