Day number three here at the DAM-X event in Brouwersdam started with high hopes to finish the remaining heats of the double elimination. The south-westerly wind started to fill in around lunchtime and the first ladies heat was sent out to the water. German freestyler Johanna Rümenapp was eager to continue her way up in the double elimination and faced young Slovenian windsurfer Lina Erzen. However, even with a nine minute heat duration and despite being on their biggest gear, it seemed impossible for the girls to get enough moves in and race director Tom Hartmann was left with no choice but to cancel it. The gusts seemed strong enough, yet were too patchy to guarantee a fair competition. The sailors were kept on hold throughout the day. When the wind dropped off more and more, Brouwersdam delivered perfect conditions for the tow-in show.
Yentel Caers in the evening light
Ten riders, who got selected according to their tow-in ranking after the event in Neusiedl earlier this year, got the chance to battle for the 1.000€ prize-money that was up for grabs. Sam Esteve (JP/Neilpryde), Julien Mas (JP), Francesco Cappuzzo (RRD/RRD), Amado Vrieswijk (Severne/JP), Yentel Caers (JP), Max Matissek (North/Fanatic), Antoine Albert (Goya/Goya), Tim Ruyssenaars, Tonky Frans (RRD/RRD) and Riccardo Marca (North/Fanatic) were the sailors to compete in front of the spectators gathering at the beach.
Amado Vrieswijk – winner of the tow-in competition
The riders had three runs each, with the best one counting and were putting on quite a show using the light onshore wind for their advantage. Tonky Frans and Antoine Albert were landing clean skopus, whilst Riccardo Marca and team-mate Max Matissek were showing clean funnell and burner combos, which Matissek topped with a clean skopu in his third attempt. Amado Vrieswijk proved his skills once again by stomping a perfect double culo scoring 54 out of 60 points. Francesco Cappuzzo, who is also known for his safe culo combinations in the freestyle discipline, spun through a double (52 points) himself but couldn’t match Vrieswijks highscore. Yentel Caers, who got an organisers wildcard for this discipline, landed an air-funnell into burner (49,5 points) which put him into third place in the end. Apart from their decent performance in the competition, Mas and Esteve were definitely the most outstanding sailors today, wearing a whole body costume to entertain the audience. Their appearance was honored by the crowd, yet their funnell combinations couldn’t get the two Frenchies to the top.
Tomorrow will be the last chance to finish the freestyle competition and we have our fingers crossed for the southerly wind to properly kick in! Skippers is schedulded for 9.00am.
Tow-in competitors