Jacques Kint attended the Luderitz Speed event recently, and has written a very entertaining report. Read all about his journey below...

“Ok I’m next up… waiting for a gust to get going.. sand and rocks striking me in the helmet.. here it is, I can barely hold the sail up in this gust..  go go pump.. ok I’m planning, harness go, front foot in, get my back foot sorted… here comes the corner.. GO!..bare away …..wait for the explosion of wind.. the acceleration is extreme.. hold it down and maintain my stance, power up .. right I’m in the course hold it down.. the channel has just vaporised with sand and a huge gust is about to hit me... gee 500m is a long way to hold it!  half way…. still on a good gust….. course still blanketed by sand …hold on, keep it straight.. as the gust eases I’m going to round up a bit, got to keep close to the bank in the smooth water though…. nearly there…. there’s always a good gust to finish.. hold it down… here comes the flag ..hold it …though the finish.. right slow down! slow down!.. man it’s rough in here at the finish ..lay it over.. sweet I’m in…another run down”

About the time it took to read that was about the total time of a run at Luderitz, Namibia.  So much going through your mind in such a short time, going at speeds we thought were impossible 10 years ago.

I think, unbeknown to me, my trip to Luderitz began in 2009 when I started sailing on an old Mistral Flow and some NP wave sails that I bought off EBay.  Within a couple of months I had joined the Connewarre Cremaster’s GPS Team. I learnt a bit about the GPS Team Challenge and quickly went out and bought a GPS, and before I knew it was hooked.  I was pushing myself, crashing and smashing gear whilst trying to reach my first goal of a speed of 30knts. Soon after that came a trip to Sandy Point where I reached 36knots, and I fell in love with the chase of numbers.

I sold all that gear, bought a Slalom board and Speed sails and this is where my sailing started to go ahead in leaps and bounds. More trips to Sandy, and still smashing gear, but finally managed to push my slalom board to 41.12knts, and then of course I had to buy a speed board!  I also got a new set of sails and set my goals higher.

In November of last year I would wake up at 6:30 in the morning and the first thing I would do was get on the internet and check out the results from the Luderitz speed challenge, I remember watching and dreaming about going there, the canal and the water state looked amazing.  It is what speed sailors search for, the urge for me to go was like nothing I have ever had in any sport. Knowing I was not at the level of the top guys, but having the results in a National level worthy of the challenge it was time to see if I had what it takes.

Entries were released in early February of 2013 and entry and fees had to be in shortly after that. The event wasn’t till October, knowing there was heaps of pressure to secure a position there was no time to procrastinate, I was in …. paid and going

This is when my event training started, but how do you train for something you can’t do anywhere else but at Luderitz? My training was based mainly on fitness, strength and cardio and I sailed as much as I could, but sometimes in Victoria that isn’t as much as you would like. Along with this I put together a set of sails, boards and fins I thought would be the best option from what others had used the year before and what I thought the conditions would be like. This was my 4.7, 5.1, and 5.5, Patrik speed 43, 39, 18 19 20 fins.  As time went on and I researched the canal and conditions a little more, I realised I may want to try some different options to better my gear, so in turn I purchased a Severne SV90 400 in the attempt to enhance my current gear. This it did well, and having a soft spot for Severne for some time and given the opportunity to take a Reflex4 5.6 as well I jumped at the opportunity. Thanks to Dave Morehead for donating his personal Reflex at the last minute for the Namibia mission!

With this sorted, myself and 2 other mates were on the plane to Cape Town.  After 23 hours of sardine can style seating we arrived to see our brand new Ford van waiting.  We threw our gear in, drove around a bit and made our way to catch up with Patrick to pick up some boards.  With that out of the way our journey to Luderitz had begun. About 3 hours into the 14 hour drive my body had given into 36 hours of no sleep.  We decided to find a nice place to stay about 500kms from the Namibian boarder.

After a good night sleep we were up at 5:30 and on the road again.   Quickly getting used to the laid back road rules and finding out our van was limited to 162kph, this is where the cruise control was set for the next 11 hrs as we made our way through the amazing landscape of Africa. As we drew close to Luderitz the landscape changed quickly into a wide open mass of huge sand dunes with sand spewing all over the roads as we sped down them. It was already blowing!! We had finally arrived at Luderitz, it was 4:30pm and we went straight down to the canal, we were all eager to see what it was like. The first thing you notice is actually how long the canal is, then you notice actually how narrow it is, there is no room for error or second guessing yourself. On the day we arrived we saw the canal in all its glory, solid 40 knots gusting to 50. I think this accentuated the extremeness of what we were about to do. However, the next day we soon realised Luderitz was just warming up, consistent 45knots gusting to 62, at some points you couldn’t even make out the canal, it was at this point I realised that this is not the place to come if you’re not prepared... Was I?

All I wanted to do was get the monkey off my back and do my first run down the canal, but this was not happening in 55 knots... The next day dawned and it was still windy but not the extreme of the day before, 25-30 knots is normally plenty of wind to have a decent speed session, but at Luderitz because the course is so broad I could only just get going.  Once you turned the corner you just ran through the wind, over sheeted and fell off the plane halfway down the course, there just wasn’t enough wind to get a full comfortable run on the course.  This was so frustrating knowing that there was no wind for 4 days and the next forecast was for 45 knots again. I hadn’t done a full run, the monkey was still there and the next forecast was 45 knots.

Having 4 days off gave me time to tune my sails and get them right and ready to go. Our first real day of competition had arrived.  I got down there early in the morning before the comp had started as I wanted to get that run off my back... it was done - nothing to write home about but done. I did two or three more runs to get a bit more settled and then waited for the wind to kick in and the competition to begin. That it did, I managed 7 timed runs and my best 500m was 44.09 with a peak of 48.9 knots.  I was stoked the gamble of changing sails so close to the event had payed off, the Reflex felt great in the gusty conditions and I was right at home. At the end of this day the 3 off us had broken the old Australian record several times and I had the 7th fastest 500m time of the day, with one of the best peak speeds.

Day 3 had arrived and again so had the wind.  Very early on in the day and it was already up in the forties.  By lunch time it increased rapidly and they didn’t open the course until noon.  Only being my second real wind day I was still slightly respectful of the course and cautious so I decided to go out on my 5.1 to play it safe. Feeling a bit tentative in this wind I did a few runs and managed to set the new Australian record of 45.76, 500m and a max speed of 46.1, but these runs felt right on the edge.  It was a solid 50 knots gusting higher and after three runs I was slightly reserved about going down, not quite having the canal set in my mind right. I was not the only one. The only other person heading down was Sebastian Cattalan the kite boarding world champion, but even though the wind was so strong the direction was slightly too broad and even he was struggling to get close to the record speeds. As the day went on and the afternoon set in the wind began to ease slightly, the only catch with this is as it dies it becomes very gusty, so getting a good powered up run was hard. At the end of this day I had ended up with the 6th fastest run of the day and Tony had set the current Australian record of 47.23 knots. A tough day, but a lot learnt.

Day 4 saw me on the reflex 4 again and I had it dialled, conditions were 35-45knots, these are my perfect conditions.  I managed to get a few more runs than the previous days and also better my 500m results which at the end of the day were 48.596 max and a ten second of 46.959 and 500m of 45.918. I was starting to really find the groove of this sail and getting very comfortable, even in the gusty conditions I still felt like I had complete control of the sail on the run, being comfortable is the key to achieving speed.

Day 5 was a good day in terms of results but looking back it was a mistake to get off the 5.6 and hop down to the 5.1, yes I was faster than the previous day and yes there was slightly more wind but not enough to step down in sail size. Luderitz is a very different place to sail than any other I have sailed before.  The first thing you notice is your stance is completely different to Lake George, Sandy Point and even my home spot, this is because the course is so broad, and when the course becomes this broad your sail size is so important. You need to hold that next size up to be fast, my results were still good - 48.905 peak with a 47.822 Ten second and a 46.545 500m, but if I had of held the 5.6, and I’m pretty sure I could have, maybe that elusive 50 knots mightn’t have slipped away. The thing I struggled with was the fact that if I was sailing at home and it was gusting to 55 knots and most of the time 40 knots I probably wouldn’t consider getting off my 5.1 and at times wishing I had something smaller. But at Luderitz it can’t be that way if you want to go fast, you need to hold that sail down in conditions you probably will never experience at home. The catch is holding this rig steady and controlling it until you’re up to speed, because the wind is so strong you don’t really start making enough apparent wind to free the rig up until your speeds are in the mid-forties.  Until then it takes a huge amount of control to stay in the canal, towards the leeward bank and the middle of the canal it was quite rough, so you had to try and stay close to the windward bank, this was hard because it was so gusty, after a big gust you had the slight tendency to round up a little however, this was out of the question in terms of safety.

Day 6 was a bit of a fizzer as we had good wind up into the high forties again but the wind angle was way too broad.  The course was just sailable but very rough and I had 2 spinouts and 2 people got carted off to hospital, so no real runs were put down.
With all this learnt and a smaller custom board and fins hopefully this is a place I can get back to and challenge the Australian record. After Luderitz and time I have spent at home I couldn’t be happier to have made the move to Severne and I look forward to pushing myself and the sails to their limits and maintaining the honour of being Australia’s fastest Severne Representative.