2009 - a taste of the world

If the first year was more about learning to speed, the second year 2009, was about tuning the sails, finding out more about board design and get some racing-experience. A big advantage was the support from Naish International. The - 2009 range was refiend with cut-outs and small adjustment on the footstrap setting. I also got their gun-needle Naish SP60.

The new sails in X166 felt a lot better then the year before. Still hard to get to know how to trim.

But at the first contest of the year Anders Bringdal showed up. I haven´t raced with Anders since Tylösand 1997. A lot of things to catch up with, but also a great help with tuning gear. Anders helped Robby Naish and Nils Rosenblad with testing and tuning prototypes for the Stealth 2008 and showed me how to tune them and also told me to try to use other type of masts. A difference of about 1 knots extra and I saved a lot of hours of trimming.

But on the second swedish contest I fell and broke my eardrum.  After that day i NEVER sail without my helmet. A few weeks later I broke my rib in a catapult. Why should it be easy?

Anyway, in late July my family and I went to Karpathos in Greece for vacation. The same weeks the World Speed Championship were going to take off. I had applied to start, but due to my low ranking I was not even close. But they decided to let the Greece Speed Championship the week before be a qualification and give the best five wild cards to the Worlds. That week was hardcore with wind-gusts up to 60 knots. Devils Bay was like a cooking boil. But I managed to sail the Greek Speed Championship and be the best "not worldcupsailor". My best run was 37,5 knots on the scoreboard.
I reached my goal to enter the World Championship. When the main contest started, my body was aching and I sailed with small sails on my 80 liter slalomboard all week. I enjoyed life at it most, even if I finished 33:rd it was great to race. Those two weeks at Karpathos were just magic.

I wanted to do some more international events. In early November I went to the European Speed Championship in Dungervan Ireland. I only brought two boards. (And what hazzle it was to get my stuff over to Ireland). Anyway Dungervan turned out to be a big waiting game. But the last day the wind came. I went out with an extrem downhauled Stealth 7.8 in 35 knots of wind. After a few tries I made a very fast run with a peak speed over 40 knots. Unfortunatelly the wind slowly died and I stood and waited for a strong second gust.  It never come anymore wind and my avarage over 2 runs was only 34.5 knots. I finished 6:th in the Europeans and 11:th overall in the worldcup. Compared to 2008 it was 130 places up ;-)

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