The 2nd tour stop of the Dutch championships started already on Thursday at the Grevelingen with quite some wind. Also a lot of Belgium people came over because this event was also on their calendar for their national championships. Also some people from Germany competed in this weekend.

Earlier this week I received some MauiSails production booms and i tried them for the first time. They are really easy to rig a sail with because the measurement on the outhaul boom extension tells you how long the boom gets if you pull the extension in or out. So you are done in a second. Also the head piece makes me happy since this construction makes it possible to create enough rope length to put the rope over the head piece flaps.

Anyway, in the end we did 9 formula races and 2 slalom races, read my report below:

Day one, Thursday 25 may - 4 formula races

This day we did 4 formula races, and i managed to win the first 2 races back to back. I was out with the 12.0, and the speed i managed was really fast. There was a lot of weed in the water so that made it a little bit hard sometimes. After a pause we did another 2 races back to back and this time i had to let go Roy(NED 97) and Adri(NED 34) go in front of me. This brought me to the 3rd place and a 4th. Anyway i did some good business this day and it made me happy that everything was working perfect.

• FW Race 1 - 1st
• FW Race 2 - 1st
• FW Race 3 - 3th
• FW Race 4 - 4th
  

Day two, Friday 26 may - 1 formula race and 5 slalom heats

What a day! First when we arrived there was no wind but after a while the wind picked up little by little. When they decided to go racing the wind still wasn't to strong so i went out with the 12.0 again. When we got the starting signal the wind picked up to 18+ knots! During the first round i could still handle it and i was fighting together with Ron(NED1111) for the 1st place. This time we needed to do 3 rounds and the wind was only getting stronger by the minute. When Ron and i were in the last downwind we both felt in the water because of the very strong gust. I managed to get out the water quick and fought my way to the finish. Another bullet, but a really hard one. In the end there were only 8 fighters who managed to finish the race! It was quite funny to hear all the stories on the beach from all the survivers. The race committee decided to go slalom sailing now because the wind was far above 20 knots. This was really fantastic! I think we haven't had slalom races since lots of years, so everyone was stoked to do this. We were spited up into 6 groups(A,B,C,D,E,F) and every group had to race once against the other groups so all competitors had to race 5 heats. I was in group A so i had to begin in the first heat. I rigged up the TR-2 6.6 together with the F2 SX M. This was my favorite setup in Maui, and i trained a lot with this gear so i was curious. The wind was sometimes very close to 30 knots(maybe over). I was flying from every start and after 15 heats it was all done, and i managed to win all my 5 heats so i was the winner of the day. This day took a lot of energy but it made me really happy that i did so well in strong winds in formula and specially in the slalom.

• FW Race 5 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 1 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 2 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 3 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 4 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 5 - 1st

Day three, Saturday 27 may - 4 formula races

I almost missed the first race because i had a traffic jam on my way to the water. I rigged the sail in 5 minutes and just made it in time for the start. The wind was quite strong again and i was out with the TR-2 12.0 again. I was fighting together with Stefan Gideonse for the first place, but he managed to keep in front of me, so he was first and i followed in 2nd. I went back to the beach to take my 11.0 because the wind was a little bit to strong for my 12.0. The 2nd race this day it went almost the same as the first, only this time i finished 1st in front of Stefan who became 2nd. So again i did good business for the overall ranking. After a break of 1,5 hour we went back onto the water to do 2 more races. The weather was terrible. Rain, cold and very miserable. The wind dropped a little bit so i took the 12.0 again. I made a port tack start with some other guys, but we had to let go a couple guys on starboard tack. Anyway i rounded the upwind mark in 1st and continued this till the finish line. So another bullet on my list. During the last race, i made a mistake by starting on port tack again, i lost a lot because of this, and while i was trying to catch up with the guys i took to much risk and sailed into a lot of weed. I was somewhere in 10th position and very tired so i took this one as a discard, because there was still a chance for a 5th race that day. But after another break they decided to call it the day because the weather was so terrible. Again a good day for me in the overall ranking.

• FW race 6 - 2nd
• FW race 7 - 1st
• FW race 8 - 1st
• FW race 9 - DNF

Day four, Sunday 28 may - 5 slalom heats

Today the wind was quite strong again, but i still have my doubts about why we didn't do any formula race because in some heats the wind was very low. I rigged my 6.6 again together with the F2 SX M. It didn't go as good as the other slalom day, because i was quite tired of everything i guess. All these days took a lot of energy. I still managed to win 3 heats and 1 time i was 3th and an over early. This brought me the 3th place overall for this day.

• Slalom Heat 1 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 2 - 3st
• Slalom Heat 3 - BFD
• Slalom Heat 4 - 1st
• Slalom Heat 5 - 1st

Current overall ranking Formula after 9 races:

• 1st - (10 points)
  Dennis Littel NED13
  MauiSails, F2, Denmar Design, Oxbow, Ion
• 2nd - (22 points)
  Ron Ruiter NED1111
  NP, F2
• 3th - (23 points)
  Adri Keet NED34
  North Sails, F2

Overall ranking slalom:

• 1st - Ron Ruiter NED1111
• 2nd - Dennis Littel NED13
• 3th - Roy van Koolwijk NED97

Cheers, Dennis Littel NED-13