Long update!

Hi everybody,

It's been a while since the last update, but with no wind at all for about 2 months here in Belgium there wasn't much to update!
In the meanwhile my knee and ankle got a lot better and no problems anymore on the water.
I went to Wissant a couple of days in those 2 months, but the conditions were far from perfect. Small waves and gusty 4.7 wind.
We had some fun and it was just good to be on the water with friends again.
We were getting pretty frustrated as the weeks passed without any wind and waves.

Some nice waves in Wissant but just nog enough wind sometimes.

Fail in Wissant!

Also I was in contact with Jeroen Aerts who wanted to do an article about Belgian windsurfers who go to better places in wintertime. We all had to write a little section about our stay in South Africa.
To bad the names got a little mixed up, with my picture is a line of Robin Caris, and the other way round.

A picture I took

Sketchy backloop-pic

For the first time I decided to compete in the Belgian Championship Wave, never did any wave-contest before so I was quite nervous for my first heats.

Friday 10th of May was the first day of competition for the single elimination, my first heat was against Annelies Brak which I won with a nice Tabletop Forward.

Next heat was against Jonas Handekyn  ( Last Belgian Champion) which I knew I couldn't win on forehand.
I tried my best and until the last 2 minutes it was very close but then Jonas did a nice Taka and a one-handed  backloop and that was it for me.
Note to myself: Get on those Takas!

Jonas Handekyn with a Taka in our heat. Congrats Joñas!!

Backside

Almost 'till the end one-handed

Me, Jonas and Dieter (Congrats to Dieter for winning the event!!!)

So my day of competing was over but there was still another day for the doubles.
Saturday the wind picked up very late, around 15.45. First start at 16.15 with the new guys.
My first heat was in the 4th round against Stijn De Pauw.
I didn't know a lot about Stijn and vice versa so it was a guess how I would do.
I decided to trim my sail with a little bit to much power to make sure I could do enough jumps and have enough power to wave-ride.
That was a good guess and it payed of, I did a high stalled forward, a tabletopforward, a good one-handed forward and a very clean cheeseroll. I don't know what the judges scored for but I won this heat.

Getting pumped up!

Matthias and me going out at the beginning of the heat

Incoming!

Next time I'm tailgrabbing it!

Next heat was against Tom scheirlinck and too bad for me but the wind died a little and I didn't manage to plane for the half of the heat so couldn't give my all. I lost this heat and that settled me for 7th place.

My goal was to be in top 10 so I'm quite happy with 7th place result.
Now I'm even more motivated to learn some new moves to hopefully get a better result  next year!

Check my facebook for full sequences of pictures. https://www.facebook.com/maxim.debuck

Special thanks to Sam Dekeyser for the nice pics and Twinsclub photographer Patrick Kindt.


So let's cross fingers for awesome conditions here in Belgium. A hardcore 4.0 session would be very welcome!

See you next update !!!

Back in winterwonderland!

 So I'm back in Belgium after 3 weeks in Cape Town! 
I didn't update anymore when I was in Cape Town since I had some uploadlimits with Vodacom.
It's very cold and takes some getting used to again. I'm missing the sun and the friends that are still there having a blast!
It were probably the best 3 weeks of my life in South Africa, had so much fun on and off the water and enjoyed every second of it.
I'll definitely go back there for a longer time.

Some bad news too: in the last week I twisted my leg in Big Bay, my foot, ankle and knee were pretty swollen but on the x-rays there was nothing to see luckily. Just sprained my ankle and got a tear in the medial band of my knee. That's not so bad so I guess I'll be out for about 4 weeks. By then the water will be a little warmer here I hope.
Only missed out on one good session in the last few days so got lucky in the first 2 weeks.

Hating the crutches at Cape Good Hope hahaha

Katrien, Filip, Wout and Robin also arrived, so it was a good group to hang out with.

On a windless day I also went skydiving with Michiel and Sarah, that was very exciting. The freefall was something I had never experienced before and would definetely like to do again. 

Too bad no pictures or clips of the fall because no gopro's were allowed. 

Robben Island was also on our to do list. Very small Island with lots of history. 

Had a fun time there with Michiel and Sarah, good memories.

With Abe Opperman, our tourguide

Ex-con of Robben Island, now tourguide with a funny accent and intonation

Michiel and his Canon

Now some windsurfing!!!

We didn't do a lot of spots because the wind and waves were mostly good for Sunset and Bigbay. 

However we went one day to Witsands and it was huge on that day! 

Was stacked with 4.0 and over mast-high waves, so that was a pretty rough day. 

Had some high jumps but wind was to much to really do anything. 

Checking the conditions at Witsands

Nice size waves, Pierre Antoine

Shore Break Witsands

Nick on a shore break wave with his antenna

Cutback

Landing a backloop with Witsands view

We went to Melkbos on a day without waves too, but that wasn't a big succes. A lot of double and triple waves in the shore break so not much to waveride. Had some good frontloops and tabletopfwd's that day, and some spocks but not much more.

Tablefwd

Little tweaked aerial at Melkbos

Melkbos view

For the rest we had a lot of good sessions on Sunset and Big Bay.

Got a few very nice pictures taken by Michiel De Vogeleer and Sarah Bachgada, Filip De Meester, Joñas Handekyn and Nick De Wannemaeker.

I had some days where backloops were going very bad, and other days where better but I really need to get more consistent on those backies. Jonas gave me good advice so I'm confident for the future! 

The best sessions I had were the ones Joñas and me were alone on Big Bay, we surfed until we couldn't properly see the waves anymore. Those days were perfect and we were so happy to have the waves for ourselves for one time, because we had some days that were just to crowded on the water.

Big Bay with 4.0 evening session

Joñas ripping, like always!

Together with Jesse and Joñas we climbed up to Lion's head which I told already in the previous post. But here are some pictures now.

It was a pretty exhausting climb with a few sketchy climbs but the view was worth it! 

Jesse and Joñas

Another session on Big Bay 12 January by Joñas:

Sarah took some good photos and clips too on Sunset, thanks for that!:

These are taken by Nick on Sunset:

In the meantime we went to Monkey Town in Somerset West. Had lots of fun there and saw some weird monkeystuff there. 

Showing its business to Sarah

This bird made me instantly think about the Saw doll !

This one was crazy for Sarah and got really mad when Michiel hugged her, hilarious!

My last session was in Big Bay with 4.7 and 4.0 on 17 January.

In the beginning of the afternoon I took pictures of Michiel on his 5.0, and then Michiel took pictures of me on 4.7. 

Got a really good tabletopfwd on photo, a small backloop and a nice turn: 

Sail and boom taking it hard!

As is the gopro!

Nice backloop view

The last evening we had a nice sunset diner at Doodles. We had to rush things a bit but still enjoyed it with Michiel and Sarah. Thank you to them and the rest of the group for taking care of me when I couldn't do everything on my own with the crutches. 

Last look at the magic mountain!

Had a great time!

So for now I'll be taking it easy with the knee for about 3-4 weeks and then back on the water again I hope.

It's difficult to get Cape Town out of my head at the moment to be honest. 

Also I want to say thank you to Naish for the great gear they make! I didn't have a single problem with my Boxers during the trip and they endured all the punishments with great ease! 

Still love the feeling of the 4 battens, suites me perfect! 

I'll keep you updated about how the knee is healing and when my first 2013 session in Belgium will be! 

Keep on ripping! 

Max