Take a deep breath...

Last week Wednesday Jaws was pumping....

Take a deep breath... It's like an avalanche coming at him...

Eames fiberglass chairs

First you search for some classic old/broken original Eames chairs on E-bay. Than you work with some epoxy and fiberglass. After the sanding you put yourself in the polishing mode...
After some time you get that shine that the chair got new in the 50's/60's

result: "new" chairs in the house
Time to sit down and relax ;-)

weather info

Yup it was cold (made this pic in the car, ...then the battery died), 5 degrees.
And yup it was windy. No wonder we had to rig 3 times...
from windforce 6 to a steady 9

13.9 - 17.1 m/s	7	schuimkoppen in windrichting
17.2 - 20.7 m/s	8	vrij hoge golven met afwaaiende koppen
20.8 - 24.4 m/s	9	hoge golven (7m), zware schuimstrepen, lopende rollers
24.5 - 28.4 m/s	10	zeer hoge golven met lange overstortende kammen en zware rollers

Early 'Sinterklaas' present....

In the car on the way to Wijk aan Zee, I was wondering about the wind and the weather. It had been raining all the way, and trees weren't really moving. But the forecast was good, so things should improve.

As if it was planned, the rain stopped just when I parked the car. With David arriving a few minutes later, we headed over the dune and saw a light wind, but perfect offshore conditions. So we grabbed our 100lts boards, our bigger sails and went for it. Out on the water, we quickly noticed that conditions were changing. After catching a few nice waves, the wind had turned to sideshore and increased a lot. Time to change sail and board.

Back out there, it was perfect. Sideshore and nice waves. I caught a few really nice ones. But again conditions changed. The wind picked up even more and turned side-onshore. Bringing bigger and bigger waves. We changed our sails ones more to have some control in the air. After that we enjoyed a nice and sunny afternoon. Up to mast high waves in the back with football fields in between and impressive hollow breakers in the front. Sailing slightly overpowered with 4.7. A perfect recipe for big airtime and some waveriding. All in all, a perfect 'Sinterklaas' present....

Off course we didn't get our camera's to take some pictures, but I found some pictures by Jepe again. And this time I'm in one of them!!!!

Off course, I like to remain in the background ;-) But I had first row view off Lampie's action.

About half way out, things got bigger. But not close to what it was even further out.

Rainbow @ hookipa

Glenn is looking for the basket full of gold at the end of the rainbow..

First time....

Yesterday I went for a short session in the afternoon with Bart Jan. We went to a place we had never been before. We have been just around the corner with west wind, but never to this particular place. When we arrived there was no wind. It had just rained quite heavily, what usualy makes the wind drop. So we waited. In the back we could see what we came here for. A sandbar, with smooth waves curling around the point of the sandbar.


After about 15 minutes the air cleared and the wind picked up again. So I rigged my 5.3 Superfreak, grabbed my SOS Classic 88 and went for it. Arriving near the sandbar made it all clear. Small, but almost perfect waves with slightly offshore wind. At first it was difficult to see where to pick up the waves, because there are almost no reference points out there. But after a while I got the hang of it and had several rides with up to 6 or 7 bottomturns. Bart Jan obviously had a lot of fun as well, screaming to me how good it was. Then a big rain cloud made the wind pick up before completely dropping to practically zero. With the current and no wind it was quite 'entertaining' to get back to the beach. An unsatisfying end to a perfect session. Despite the long walk, and I mean LONG (almost 1km, about twice the distance at Wijk aan Zee), from the car to the water, we will definitely come back here many times in the future.

As the sand bar is at least 1km from the beach, taking pictures without a waterproof camera is difficult. Although I am expecting my GoPro camera right about now, I don't have it yet. So no footage from us, but I spotted some pictures from the guys sailing at Wijk aan Zee. Here are 2 pictures (thanks Jepe) of Torben.

Sneak preview.....

Because David kept asking.... Here are some sneak pics of the project....

Windy

The nice pics above are made by Jepe (www.jepe.nl)

60 knots....

Today was a brutal day, with winds from 45 to 60 knots and a handfull of windsurfers at Wijk aan Zee. When we arrived the wind was already pumping. We rigged our 4.2's and went for it. After about 30 minutes, with windspeeds still increasing, it became obvious: too strong, no control..!! As my quiver is not suited for these kinds of nuclear winds (86 liters and 4.2 is my smallest set) I decided to try and shoot some pictures of David. He rigged his 3.7, grabbed his SOS rocket fish 82 and put up quite a show....

It was difficult to take pictures. Try not to shake the camera with 60 knots of wind, even with the monopod it seemed impossible. But Some pictures came out quite nice..... Jepe has made a lot of very nice pictures. We just need to wait till they are online.......


Some free sandblasting at the beach....;-)


Our conclusion of the day was: I need a 3.7 and we both need smaller boards ;-) A 3.7 would be the right size, but controlling the 80+ liters under your feet is quite a challenge.....

Classic autumn pics

Pics of 3 weeks ago. Now almost all leafs are gone..

Strange mushrooms.... or maybe aliens that landed


Heathland lost his color. From purple it turned into brown


Above: nice forrest fruits
Below: Don't try to eat these...

Foggy garden. Somehow it reminds me of a small house somewhere in a wet jungle...

Comming wednesday..

Will be windy!!

Beachbumb & Viana pictures....

A few days ago I received some pictures from Rob, a friend that usually goes to Viana as well. This year he was there just after I left and had some nice summer conditions as well.


He also told me about his new project. He makes art objects inspired by and often made with stuff he finds on the beach. He has some nice examples on his website. From the end of Februari or the beginning of March he will start selling objects through Yordy's surfshop in Scheveningen.

Summerly november "stormy" day

The forecast was: very strong winds, maybe storm... (warnings on radio + tv)

When we arrived on the spot, there was almost no wind. A easy side/sideoff breeze.
No wind and a little rain didn't make us happy. The only one who was in it's elements was the dog. A whole beach+ dunes for him alone.

After a hour the sky opened. We got an unreal (for holland,november) total blue sky and a gusty 5/6 bft side/sideoff.
Rigged my biggest sail I brought with me (5.3, cause I expected to sail the 4.2 today), and the 85 liter board.

Allthough the waves weren't that high, some amazing long lines came in. Together with the wind direction, the temperature and the sun is became sometimes "undutch" perfect!

Glenn goes quad....

While waiting for the pictures from yesterdays sweet session in Wijk aan Zee, I stumbled across some pictures by Mystery Bob. One of them was a picture showing the bottom of Glenn's board. The board David allready posted a few days ago.

No Glenn, you can't hide.....

Hot Lightning Bolt

As we all know now, Hotsails is comming for the 2010 season with a new sail: the Bolt.

Besides it's superb performance it also pays a tribute to a legendary surfbrand, Lightning Bolt.
Tom worked out it's legendary logo into the sail.

During the late 60’s there was a rapid transition from longboards to shortboards. Since the shortboard was evolving so quickly, you couldn’t build boards 6 months in advance. The big companies were producing and stockpiling boards that were already obsolete when they came to market so they took a dive. The Hobie shop in Honolulu withered.
The shortboard revolution gave local shapers an opportunity.

“Hey, why don’t we open our own shop?”
Gerry Lopez and Jack Shipley started Lightning Bolt Surfboards in the summer of 1972 in Honolulu. According to Gerry it was just a stupid name they came up with but it made a nice symbol on the deck of a surfboard. A lot more than a nice symbol: this was when Gerry Lopez and Rory Russell were ruling Pipeline on Lightning Bolt surfboards.

Also in the Summer of 1972, Jack’s friend Nino Baltar went to Maui and started the Lightning Bolt Maui store. In 1974 Gerry Lopez moved over from Oahu and took over Lightning Bolt Maui. He ran the shop and shaped the surfboards and had all the kids from the area hanging out. Being the only surf shop on Maui, it was a convenient hangout.

In the meantime the Australians showed up on the North Shore to prove themselves. Rabbit Bartholomew, Peter Townend, Shawn Tomson, Mark Richards, Ian Cairns and others received free boards built for the big surf of the North Shore.

Why do something like that? It’s called advertising. It became one of the biggest underground ad campaigns in surfing history. Lightning Bolt surfboards were being ridden by most of the best surfers in the world when they came to Hawaii for the winter and the pictures and footage were all over the surf magazines and surf movies. The Lightning Bolt became the most widely known icon in surfing up till then.