JV69 Monthly Magazine - November
Jordy Vonk (Fanatic/ Duotone) finished the 2021 Men’s Slalom PWA World Tour in 10th place, which is the 3rd season in a row that the flying Dutchman has earned a place in the top 10 - 4th in both 2018 & ’19. The 28-year-old now produces a monthly magazine and recently released his November edition which sees him taking a look back at the Defi Wind Superstars edition and also the recent event in Marignane.
Defi Wind Superstars
The Defi wind is one of the biggest windsurfing event in the world, usually there's 1300+ people on the starting line battling on a 40km course to finish first. In 2016 I participated one time, but sadly that year there was no wind to actually do any races. So I was stoked to finally compete in this famous race in 2021.
The format was actually a bit different, due to covid restrictions the event couldn't take place in the normal set-up. So instead of 1300+ competitors, we were with a selected group of 200 people doing a 'superstars' edition.
Instead of doing a downwind slalom with 300 meter reaches, this race was definitely something different. Also the tramontana, the famous strong wind blowing in the south of France, is something you have to get used to.
All together it was an amazing experience, the wind wasn't as strong as expected, but during the 4 days of the event we managed to do 7 races.
In those races I've been on the foil 4 times and fin 3 times. It was so tricky picking the right gear for the races as the conditions were changing all the time. During the first race I gambled on the fin, which after the first mark really turned out to be a bad decision dropping all the way till 19th.
The last two races of the event were definitely the highlights, the wind picked up a lot and we were racing on 6.2 with the fin with plenty of power. The first strong race was also my best result of the week: 3rd.
On a starting line with 200 people it was really easy to make mistakes and together with the changing wind conditions it was really a matter of being stable throughout the event. It didn't matter how many races we would do, we would discard maximum one race. So making a mistake in the first race made me extra sharp for the other 6 races!
Luckily I managed to keep steady results on those other 6 races finishing in a 7th place for the event. Looking at my race pace on both fin and foil I think that was a fair ranking!
A bit shout out to the organisation of defi wind for making this event happen, it was a pleasure competing and made me hungry for more
Do you want to get an idea of how the event looked like? Check out the video @
PWA Marignane
For a long time it looked like we ended up 2021 with only one 5star PWA world cup, but in this autumn we received the news that the PWA had the opportunity to organise an event, again in south of France, with all three discipline: Wave, Freestyle & Slalom. Great news as at that time only the PWA in Israel took place.
We all thought that with the current wind limit of slalom being 5 knots as we can fly really early with our foils, it would not be able to leave a place without a result, but we managed.....
It was a 10 day event to make sure there's enough time to go through all disciplines, as due to competitors doing more disciplines and crew limitations it's not possible to run them at the same time.
During the first two days the water was absolutely glassy with not a single sign for any action, on forecast it was pretty clear that there were two days were action could happen. As in the last two years not a single freestyle event took place, they had priority to go on the water. Obviously this makes a lot of sense, although still a shame for the slalom guys of course.
I'm happy they managed to finish the freestyle single elimination with my buddy Amado Vrieswijk (Future Fly / Severne) taking the title. After the freestyle action the forecast showed no sign for action to come and so we left the event without doing a slalom result.
What a shame as I was ready to fight back from my 10th place in Israel which is now the final result of 2021.
After finishing 4th in the PWA world tour in 2018 and 2019, I'm surely not happy with the result. On the other hand considering the discipline changing to fin + foil, I should also be realistic saying that being another year top 10 in the world is no bad result at all.
I learned a lot of things again this year and I'm motivated to bring myself back on the podium in 2022.
What's next?
That's it for the 2021 season!
It's time to go back home, analyse and prepare for 2022. Beside that of course also time for a little holiday with my family, as even with less world cups due to covid, it was a busy year.
In two weeks I'll be handing over my monthly magazine for December with a little preview of what's to come for 2022.
For now a big shout out for all my sponsors/supporters for making this season happen. being DUTCH CHAMPION slalom men, IFCA VICE-WORLD CHAMPION slalom and decent results in the other event it was definitely a successful c year to me.
Best regards,
Jordy Vonk