Sunday, November 8, 2009

A rare righthander

Until now the danish autumn has been rather strange. The prevailing wind direction has been from a easterly direction and it has been unusually cold. Normally the wind is westerly to north westerly during autumn and winter and more diverse with the incoming lows giving more surf.

The good thing about all this easterly wind is that the Baltic sea spots has been firing more frequent than normally.

Tubebowl

This early Thursday morning me and a few buddies skipped work in the morning to catch a nice east swell.

Freight train

Offshore

Look close, the two small dots aren't ducks

Around Denmark it's often hard to come by a good solid righthander like this one. Most spots are lefthanders and as being a goofy footer it not that big an issue :) But still it nice to do some backside surfing at times.

uncrowded

Down the line
Rider: Vincent Bakker

Another day of clean headhigh surf with no crowd. We where only 4 buddies in the water :)

Lines

Cheers

Saturday, October 17, 2009

11.22m

The Baltic sea has awakened after a long period without any noticeable waves. A low pressure has stabilized to the east of the Baltic sea producing strong N-NE winds over large parts of the Baltic sea. During Wednesday night a offshore bouye measured 11.22m waves in the south of the Baltic sea. That's big!!! and for a small sea as the Baltic sea, it's HUGE.

Monsters

Thursday morning there where some big sets rolling in at one of our favorite spots for this wind and swell direction. It was some of the biggest I have seen on this spot and it was on the edge of maxing out.

Classic Lineup

The water level and a strong rip made it challenging surf. Due to the high water level the waves was kind of flat and lacked some hollowness. For the longboarders it was paradise. Big flat waves that could be surfed all the way in from the outside reef.

Outside reef

Of cause there where exceptions, like this nice double overhead wave

Double overhead

During the day the size was dropping a bit and both the water level and current was falling a bit.

Why hesitate?

There where some nice steep takeoffs in between.

Takeoff

And some Dutch action

Bottom turn
Rider: Roelf Hans

Backside cutback
Rider: Roelf Hans

Hadn't it been for the high water level and strong current it would have been an epic day. There was a good size ground swell with a long period and the wind was offshore. Even though it was well worth a day off work and we ended up surfing for a good 5 hours.

I heard from a friend that conditions became better later on the evening just before dark. As usual "just before dark", such a shame, we really need to setup some light out there.

We never saw any 11.22m waves :(

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Weekend with Danny

As hungry dogs we always end up with the leftovers. This time it was the once tropical storm Danny that gave us a windy weekend. At Friday the 4. of August it started with a nasty hauling southerly wind with gusts of up to 25-28 m/s.

NASA tracking of Danny

DMI - Rain, Wind and Flooding

Vilshärrad

Vilshärrad was going nuts, people was windsurfing overpowered with 3.5 while the wind was extremely gusty. None of us had that small sails and the wind was more westerly than expected making it side onshore.

We went searching for alternatives

Surf check

Rough sea

And ended up in a mixed session further south, I was windsurfing while the others were paddlesurfing. It was a new discovery, a pointbreak that delivered clean shoulder to headhigh waves. The wind was 90 degree offshore thus a bit difficult to windsurf but the spot seems to have a lot of potential. Didn't get any photos as is was getting dark :( Gotta be next time.

Saturday also delivered strong westerly winds, I didn't get out but heard that people was windsurfing havstokken with 4.2. Should have been good.

Sunday the wind had turned into W-NW and the scene was set for a decent paddle session.

Thanks Danny

My buddies abandoned me to checkout a new spot which didn't work (tsktsk). I ended up surfing sealpoint all by myself in headhigh conditions.

Peelers

I didn't try to count the number of waves that I got, but it was properly more than I can count to :)

Break

Cheers

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Hornbæk Classic

It has been ages since my last windsurf post. That will changed now, this summer I have been windsurfing on most of the good days. And now that we have moved up near Helsingør it only a 5-10 min. drive to the north shore.

Tuesday the 18. of August was a classic Hornbæk day. The wind was 11-13 m/s from W-NW, there was headhigh waves and the sun was shining. Hard to ask for more.

Here is a few pics

Hornb
Rider: Lars C. Pedersen

Hornb
Rider: Fjælle

Jibing
Rider: Jesper Jensen

Headhigh wave
Rider: Jesper Jensen

After 2 hours on the water my harness broke and sure enough it happened as I was way out in the back. When I got in my arms was nearly 10 cm longer and aching. So if the pics seems a bit shaken that's why.

Hoping for a nice autumn :)

Monday, July 13, 2009

Summer swell

It has been three weeks without waves at the northsea due to a prevailing high pressure above Denmark. Now things are back to normal with continuous incoming front systems from the west and we got a reminder of how good the northsea can get.

Lineup

This was one of the bigger waves, not too bad huh?

Peeling left
Rider: Unidentified

The sandbar both delivered good lefts and rights

A hollow right
Rider: Unidentified

The rights was really good, fast and super hollow. Some of the guys got some tube time :)

Takeoff
Rider: Unidentified

The Crowd

All photos are shot before we went in and I think it's mostly Germans in the lineup.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Early Mornings

It has been a long time since my last posting which isn’t because of bad surf but more a result of me being busy being a daddy. There have been some fun surf during the winter but most sessions have been either short and intense or in poor lighting due to the short winter days. Now things are lighting up and the days are becoming longer and there is light early in the morning again, making it possible to go surf before work :)

Last Friday there was a small NE swell in the Baltic Sea, it wasn’t much but enough to get up at 04 am and get 2 hours of surf.

Sunrise over the Baltic Sea

When we arrived the conditions was doubtful but a few reasonable sets sneaked through. We went in and within a quarter the wind dropped totally and the current shifted cleaning up the small swell. Most sets were in the waist to shoulder high range and an occasional headhigh set came in.

Empty Glassy Lineup

It was a session that without doubt was worth getting up in the middle of the night for.

At Monday it happed again, this time just in Kattegat. During Sunday night the wind had been hauling from NV and the forecast was predicting a fast drop during Monday morning as a low pressure was passing close by.

Lineup

Conditions were Ok but not as good as we had expected. The forecast had predicted 2-3 m waves but it was more like headhigh and a few sets over headhigh due to the wind had dropped earlier than expected.

Almost there
Rider: Anders Ekstedt

View Large On Black

During our session the wind dropped and turned offshore which improved conditions considerably. Sadly the waves faded quickly and lasted for only 2 hours, though it was enough to get stoked and without doubt the best way to spent Moday morning.

Bottomturn
Rider: Matthew Baxter

View Large On Black


All photos are from early morning when the wind still was messing up the lineup.

More photos here (diasshow)