On hearing that the first of 3 events for Dutch ONKWave Sailing Tour took place this weekend past we decided to catch up with the event winner, Rick Jendrusch. With two more events to go there is still plenty to do to remain on top but for now the Dutch wave sailors can look back on a successful event.

Over to Rick…

The first event of the year for me was in Zandvoort, it was the first stop of the Dutch wave championships. This year they try to run 3 events.

The forecast looked nice and on Friday they gave us the call that Sunday it will be on. It looked good, some waves and a nice breeze with 25 knots. I brought all my gear, everything between 3.6 and 5.0, small boards and big boards.

There was a total of 26 riders who where competing in the first event. There were some big names competing such as Martin ten Hoeve, Pim van der Borgt and Matthijs van Dijk and more. In the women’s the big name was Maaike Huvermann who also took the win. There were unfortunately only 3 women but I have to say that Maaike was throwing some big forwards.

I started the event with 4.4 and a 73 litre board with some good conditions. I stayed on this gear for 3 heats and I was sailing quit consistent with 2 waves and 2 jumps to count I did what I had to do, 2 waves and a stalled forward and a pushloop, sometimes throwing in a backloop. Then the wind got a bit more gusty so I took the 80l Nuevo for a spin with 4.4 and had my best heat of the day with a good taka of the lip, a dry pushloop and a good forward. Waves were about 1m to 1.50m high so quite nice but nothing special.

I was sailing without pressure as wave is not really my discipline, so it was just fun and I was totally enjoying it. Just sailing and having fun on the water. So time goes fast and then I was in the semi finals. The heat was with; Martin ten Hoeve, Pim van der Borgt, Collin Ansink and myself. The wind dropped a bit so I was on 4.7 and the 80l board but still good to go. Pim and me passed to the final and Martin and Collin where in the losers final. Unfortunately Martin sustained a minor injury so he didn’t want to take too many risks and he then chose not to sail the losers final so Collin was automatically in 3rd position.

I had to sail the final against Pim, I know him long already and sailed heats against him back when he was still freestyling. But as you guys know now he is a wave ripper and throws crazy doubles. But the wind was light I was on a 5.0 and 86l wave board and pim on 5.3, they counted 1 jump and 2 waves. I just got everything nailed and made a pushloop and got 2 waves. I won, it was not a big difference but I won 😉

In the end it was a super fun day and we had a good competition, of course im super happy to win this first event and I hope I can stay on the podium the next events!

RESULTS

Men
1 Rick Jendrusch
2 Pim van der Borgt
3 Collin Ansink

Women
1 Maaike Huvermann
2 Diane Geldof
3 Josine Schmitz