Boardseeker heard that Dutch freestyle talent Arrianne Aukes was going to compete in the upcoming PWA Tenerife, so whilst we still have our reporter on the scene in Fuerteventura, where Arrianne is still training, we jumped at the opportunity to catch up with her. We sat down with Arrianne just this evening to find out why she plans to attack the waves and to see what her aims are for the competition. Could Arrianne Aukes be the next Karin Jaggi? Read on to find out more.

Date of birth: 01/10/1986
Homespot: Ijsselmeer, Holland
Favourite kit setup: 4.0 Whitetip, 90l Twintip, 17cm Maui Ultra Fin, 28cm harness lines
Favourite discipline: Freestyle
Highest PWA result: 2nd PWA Fuerteventura, 3rd overall 2012 PWA Rankings.
Disciplines competed in: Freestyle and Slalom
Favourite move: Funnel
Currently training: Burner, toad, shaka, tacking on port.
Any other disciplines you would like to try: Waves and super-x (would be cool if they bring it back).

So you are already well known for your freestyle and you’ve touched upon a bit of slalom in 2012 at Alacati, what’s next? PWA Tenerife, the waves. I haven’t really trained in waves to be honest and we are in the area so I thought it would be good experience to give it a go. Maybe one year I’ll do the full wave tour… I’m just keen to see if I like it and it is really cool to see 20 girls signed up.

Back to the freestyle, you came 2nd in Fuerte, your best result to date, do you think you can hold this for the rest of 2013 to go one up from last year? Well I hope so, it would be great to do one better than last year but the competition is as hard as ever. The top girls have been training a lot over the winter so we  will see…

What do you think it will take to beat Sarah-Quita Offringa? A lot of training, no one is unbeatable just her level is pretty up there for the girls. I think in terms of the moves I will need to train the power moves the most and perhaps some moves on both sides for the diversity points.

Will you compete in slalom this year as well as freestyle and waves? No, but I would love to, I just haven’t had the time to train it and I don’t have all the kit required for it.

So you enjoy racing? Yeah I really like it, I don’t enjoy the training so much but the competition is so much fun. Mainly because you are really against each other, you can see exactly how you place from the start to the end of each race.

So super-x is the perfect combo for you? Yeah I think it would be amazing, to be honest I have only ever seen one video but it is combining freestyle with racing. How great is that!

Back to PWA Tenerife, what are your aims/targets for the event, do you have any already? (Arrianne jokingly asks her caddy/coach – what’s my aim? Coach (boyfriend) James responds – to get out past the shorebreak..) I really don’t know, I’m not sure what to expect, I don’t really dare to put an aim but if I really had to… (editor: yes you have to). I would like to win a heat, land my loops, maybe try a new move for me in a heat. (editor: like what?) Well maybe just some freestyley based moves on the way out, we shall see…

How has training been going for the waves and what moves do you hope to land? Hahaha… Well we (editor: Arrianne and her boyfriend have been on a bit of an epic roadtrip starting in Holland last April) were actually in Tenerife for a month but I mainly trained freestyle ready for PWA Fuerteventura. I think we sailed a total of about 10 days in the waves but I really enjoyed it.

As for the moves, hmmmm, I’ve never really tried the real core wave moves like backies and pushloops but I really want to so I hope the competition will motivate me to go for them. I can do forwards so will happily go for them in each heat then maybe tabletops and just try and get some solid rides in.

What kit will you have rigged on the beach and how are you feeling about competing in the waves? Umm caddy… haha… 3.4, 3.7, 4.0, 4.2 Blacktips with the 68l Hardcore Wave single fin and 75l Thruster. As for the competition, I’m feeling less nervous than I was with the slalom and even with the freestyle. Actually I feel most nervous with freestyle because it is what I train the most and what I personally want to do best in. Although this is often a god thing, I seem to get more focused when I’m more nervous. I think knowing a bit about heats helps me be less nervous than I was in slalom, where I knew almost nothing about it the first time.

So in a couple of weeks you would have competed in all three of the PWA disciplines, do you aim to do this all in one year? Yeah it would be great, I would really like that, I hope one year to do it all for sure.

Photos: PWA World Tour/John Carter