Davidoff Cool Water Sylt PWA World Cup

Registration was held for all three fleets — slalom, freestyle and wave — on the opening day of the 2015 Davidoff Cool Water Sylt PWA World Cup between 11:30am until 1:30pm. On a beautiful sunny day several sailors from each of fleet ventured out on to the water to tune up ahead of the start of the event.

The official opening ceremony was held at 4pm, before which we caught up with the two sailors involved in the freestyle world title race:

Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard / Severne), who currently leads the PWA Freestyle World Tour: “I had a freestyle session on my way to here from Denmark, which was nice. I was sailing with Amado [Vrieswijk] and that forced me to go for my first shifties as he was landing them all over the place — that went alright and I sailed away from a couple of wet ones. The rotation is pretty mental, I didn’t know where I was in the rotation, so had some pretty painful crashes as well.”

On the title race Van der Eyken added: “I feel fine, it looks as though we are going to have a bit of a wait with the off-shores not looking certain, but I feel like a learnt a lot in Fuerte when it comes to dealing with pressure… I just need to win every heat haha! I’d have possibly preferred the wind to be onshore and the sea messy, rather than the offshore direction again — which isn’t my favourite — but Jaeger [Stone] has said he will caddy for me, which will make things a bit easier at least.”

Kiri Thode (Starboard / GA Sails): “I’m feeling really comfortable at the moment, I’m ready to sail and just hoping we get some wind, so then we can get it done. I’m excited.”

PWA: How’s your preparation been before the event? 

Kiri Thode: “Actually Bonaire hasn’t been quite windy enough so I’ve only sailed a couple of times, but mentally I’m feeling calm and ready, which is good.”

The forecast for tomorrow predicts moderate northwesterly winds, which should strengthen slightly as the day progresses. The skippers’ meetings for tomorrow have been scheduled as so:

— Slalom 10am — 1st possible start 11am

— Freestyle 10:30am — 1st possible start 11am

— Wave 12pm — 1st possible start 12:30pm

As always you’ll be able to stay up to date with all of the action by tuning into www.pwaworldtour.com — here you’ll find the PWA live stream and live ticker.