Maaike Huverman reports from windy Fuerteventura, where she trained before the PWA World Tour event. Maaike is looking to improve on her result from last year when she finished in third place behind Sarah-Quita and Oda Johanne. Will this year be the year? Read her report here.

With it being the beginning of June, I was starting to get really nervous. The wind had been really bad this year and I had to put lots of time in schoolwork, so a lot of training was not quite possible. I had my hopes up that it was going to be windy at home and I could step up my level, but unfortunately it was far from windy. I searched for hours to find a windy place in Europe, but it just wasn’t there. At that point there were two options, either go to the Caribbean or pray for wind in Holland. As making a fool out of myself by crashing ‘easy’ moves in my heats in Fuerte didn't seem like an option for me, I packed my bags and headed for Bonaire. I’ve had 2 weeks of non-stop sailing, in which I ticked all the boxes of moves I wanted to learn and had a great time. At the end it was a good decision since I missed out on about, let me think… 0 windy sessions at home.

Just one and a half weeks later I jumped onto a plane to Fuerteventura. I arrived on the 7th of July and have been sailing ever since. The conditions are extremely challenging with winds up to 40 knots, chop all over the place and some swell as well. It’s by far the most difficult conditions I’ve ever sailed in, but I like the challenge.

On my way here I prepared a list of moves that I want to do during the competition. Since the conditions are really hard I made a big list of moves at first and tried every single one of the moves to see if I was able to land them. In the first few days I narrowed down the list to just a few moves on both tacks, which moves I’m actually going to go for depends on the conditions and the person I’m competing against.

The way I’m training right now is by going out twice a day. First in the morning from 10:30 AM until noon and than in the afternoon from about 16:00 till 18:00. By doing this you have the optimum time spent on the water. After about 1.5-2 hours of sailing you are not 100% focused anymore and your body looses its strength. By sailing longer than 2 hours you will hardly learn anything and the chance of crashing and hurting yourself is way bigger than before, that’s why it’s important not to sail too long, especially before a competition. However, I do want to sail longer than 2 hours a day, so I give my body some rest and go out for another 2 hours later during the day. After 3 days I take a complete day off to rest, to stay active I go to the gym, do some running or go swimming in the evening when the sun is gone.

The positive thing for this year is that the competition area is a little more downwind than it normally is, this means the wind is a little less gusty, the water is a little flatter and the ramps are steeper so it’s actually possible to use them to do an air move. The level of the girls is higher than ever before and everybody is pushing each other. It’s been great to sail with all pros again and it gives even more motivation to try even harder to land some sick moves. I’m super excited for the competition and can’t wait to see what it will bring me! I’m ready!

- Maaike Huverman

- Pictures by John Carter / PWA World Tour -