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2019: Succesvol windsurfjaar Maaike Huvermann
Ondanks fulltime studie in Amsterdam en een ziekenhuis opname heeft Maaike dit jaar niet alleen in de haar vertrouwde discipline Freestyle, maar ook in de discipline Wave en voor commotie gezorgd door een heats te winnen tegen de wereldkampioenen in beide disciplines, uiteindelijk resulterend in een 2e plek overall in de Worldcup Freestyle en een 4e plek overall in de Worldcup Wave discipline.
Worldcup seizoen
In april 2019 begon de eerste wedstrijd van de Professional Windsurf Association (PWA) met een Freestyle wedstrijd in Bonaire. Het vlakke water en de constante wind in Bonaire liggen Maaike heel goed. Na een week trainen begon de wedstrijd. In de eerste ronde voer ze vol overtuiging naar de 2e plaats. In de tweede ronde mocht ze wederom een finale varen tegen Sarah Quita Offringa. Sarah had al 11 jaar op een rij nog geen enkele heat verloren, dus het was een grote sensatie dat Maaike een super finale wist af te dwingen door de heat tegen Sarah te winnen. Deze 3e finale werd door Maaike verloren, maar met een 2e plaats in Bonaire was Maaike heel tevreden.
De dag na haar laatste tentamen is Maaike naar de Canarische eilanden vertrokken, waar van 12 tot 20 juli de Wave worldcup in Pozo (Gran Canaria) plaatsvond. Maaike eindigde op een verrassende 6e plek.
De volgende wedstrijd was haar vertrouwde discipline Freestyle op Fuerteventura. In de finale in de eerste ronde stond ze lang op voorsprong, maar helaas wist ze dit niet tot het einde vol te houden. Deze tweede ronde leverde wederom een 2e plaats op, waarmee ze voor het 4e achtereenvolgende jaar overall Vice World Champion Freestyle is geworden.
De laatste Wave wedstrijd op de Canarische eilanden vond plaats op Tenerife. Hier liet de wind het een beetje afweten en kon alleen de eerste ronde gevaren worden. Dit leverde Maaike een gedeeld 5e plek op.
In oktober ging het PWA wave seizoen weer verder op het Duitse eiland Sylt. Hier wist Maaike in de eerste ronde verrassend te winnen van 10-voudig wereldkampioen Iballa Moreno en stond ze op een 4e plek. In de tweede ronde wist ze die plek succesvol te verdedigen tegen Iballa en daarna wist ze de volgende 2 heats ook nog te winnen. Een heat duurt 14 minuten en met de harde wind, de lastige branding en de kou is dat een uitputtingsslag. In de finale ontbrak het haar daardoor aan energie om er nog vol voor te strijden, maar Maaike is enorm blij met haar 2e plaats en eerste wave podium. De laatste wedstrijd in Maui zal Maaike niet deelnemen i.v.m. studie, dus voor nu is het nog afwachten of ze haar 4e plaats in de overall ranking voor de Wave 2019 kan behouden.
Europese wedstrijd
Maaike had in Sylt een longontsteking opgelopen en heeft daar 2 dagen in het ziekenhuis gelegen, maar was net op tijd terug in Nederland om nog deel te nemen aan de freestyle wedstrijd van de Europese Freestyle Pro Tour. Deze wedstrijd vond plaats bij Surf- en zeilcentrum Brouwersdam, de thuishaven en sponsor van Maaike.
Op woensdag, donderdag en vrijdag stond er een mooie windkracht 5, waardoor zowel de eerste als de tweede ronde gevaren konden worden. Maaike wist beide rondes te winnen en wist voor het 2e achtereenvolgende jaar de titel Europees kampioen freestyle te veroveren.
Een perfecte afsluiting van een heel mooi surfjaar voor Maaike.
Seizoen 2018 Europees kampioen en Vice World champion
https://www.decombinatieridderkerk.nl/nieuws/algemeen/41673/europese-titel-freestyle-voor-maaike-
Fuerteventura: PWA Vice World Champion 2017
With the whole winter being out of the water because of my injury, it knew that my goals from last year’s comments on my Fuerteventura 2016 blog (to learn a few new moves or get some power moves that I can already do more consistent, like the culo, ponch, shove-it spock, burner and toad) were not in my reach. After finishing my High-school exams in May I was lucky that we had good conditions in Holland and I could do 2 training sessions per day. Every day I got more closer to my old form and managed to even learn a few new tricks. But sailing in the stormy conditions of Fuerteventura is a big difference to the conditions in Holland, so I left with no too many expectations about my performance.
In the 5 competition days on the windy island of Fuerteventura we’ve completed 2 double eliminations for the girls. During all days of the event the wind was firing, everybody was overpowered on their smallest kit. I’ve used my 3,6 and 4,0 Severne Freek’s together with my Starboard Flare 93.
A heat is 8 min long and you’re allowed to do 6 moves per tack, of which only 3 count. This means that crashing a move doesn’t matter that much. The first day the ladies had only 1 heat in the first single elimination, which I managed to win. The second day I first had to sail a semi-final. Although I didn’t sail good enough to win the heat, I was pretty happy with my performance and I was ready for the battle for 3rd or 4th place against Arrianne. I started the heat a bit nervous and crashed a few times, but luckily I was able to get my focus back in time and managed to win that heat. Stoked to make it on the podium in this 1st elimination.
The next day we completed the double elimination. I succesfully defeated my 3rd place and went into the battle for 2nd against Oda with more confidence. I sailed my best heat so far on the PWA tour, so I won that heat and got myself a place in the final. I was happy to be sailing again in the final against Sarah and I managed to land a Flaka, Forward Loop, Shaka and Shovit on Port tack and a Spock, Shovit Spock and A Kono on Starboard tack. Super stoked with both my sailing and my 2nd place in the first elimination.
On day 4 we started a new single elimination, in which I made it again to the 2nd place. Everyday my sailing is feeling better, the moves are performed more stylish and I even managed to land my first culo in a heat.
The last day of the competion I managed to succesfully defend my 2nd place against Oda. I was happy to make in it the final again and ready to give all my best. With 4 moves counting on 7 attempst each tack, I knew I had to go big. And that is what I did! With 10 seconds on the clock I had a Forward loop, Airflaka, Shaka, Switch Kono, Shovit on Port tack, and a Kono, Spock, Culo, Shovit Spock and a Forward loop on Starboard tack on my score sheet, and only 5 points behind on Sarah. In those last seconds of the heat I landed a Puneta on Port tack, which is a higher scoring move. Would it be enough to win this heat and to see a superfinal? Back on the beach we had to wait a long time for the points given to my puneta and the jury checking the points on the score sheets for the whole heat. At the end it was still Sarah who came out as the winner of this final and this event, but losing with only 1,2 points made me proud of my performance this week and walk away from the beach with a big smile.
Now it’s time to go back home; working at Zeil- en surfcentrum Brouwersdam and training for/competing at the EPFT Brouwersdam.
Injury update
During the Dam-X event last October I’ve unfortunately injured myself trying a kabikuchi. I went to the hospital, got an X-ray done but it all seemed fine. So for the next few days I walked on crutches until the pain faded away. It was still pretty painful so I went to a physiotherapist, did 2 months of training to get it all fixed. There was quite some progress at first, but at some point it just stopped. The pain was less, but it was still there.
So I went to the hospital again around Christmas, they decided I would need to get an MRI. The waiting period to get this is pretty long, so I only got the MRI in february. The results just came in and well… it turns out I’ve torn two Lisfranc ligaments. I’ll have to walk around like in a cast for about 4 weeks, after those 4 weeks and get it checked out again.
March 6th I went to the hospital again to get my foot checked out. The cast was removed and it all seemed to be perfectly fine.. so thats cool. Now I’ll have a ‘walker’ (basically a massive removable plastic cast around my foot that helps to get used to walking) for 2 weeks and then I can start to train and get back in shape. It looks like I’ll be back on the water in 6 weeks!!
EFPT Brouwersdam 2016
This year my sponsor Zeil- en surfcenter Brouwersdam was organising the EFPT again. The first competion day I managed to land most of my tricks like the sliding moves funnells, flakas on both tacks, e-slider and the powermoves Switch Kono, regular Kono, and Shaka’s on both tacks. I ended up with a 2nd place in the first single.
The double elimination started the same day. I sailed again a good heat, but at the end I lost the heat for the 2nd place on just a few points. Super stoked with my 3rd place at the damxevent!
Thanks to Brouwersdam for organizing the event!
Also thanks to starboardwindsurfing, severnesails, prolimit, mauiultrafins, ubclothing for the support!
ONK Wave 2016: Dutch women’s Wave champion
I’m glad that the first possible weekend provided good conditions for the ONK Wave in Zandvoort.
It was a cold day, but we had a nice competition. I ended this first stop of the ONK Wave on the 1st place.
All of the next weekends in the waiting period did not provide good competion conditions for the Dutch Nationals Wave, but that makes me the 2016 Dutch women’s wave champion! Pretty stoked about that!
Vice World Champion PWA Fuerteventura 2016
After 5 competition days on the windy island of Fuerteventura we’ve completed a double and second single elimination for the girls! During the first three days of the event the wind was firing, everybody was overpowered on their smallest kit. I’ve mostly used my 3,6 and 4,0 Freek’s together with my Flare 93. The days after there was Calima, which resulted in a lot less wind, we’ve tried a few times to start the second double but the conditions were not suitable.
Going into the event I felt really confident and ready, however dealing with the pressure seemed an issue for me on the first day. In my first heat I crashed my first two moves, that’s when I started to stress out and things went wrong.
A heat is 8 min long and you’re allowed to do 6 moves per tack, of which only 3 count. This means that crashing a move doesn’t matter at all and besides there’s time enough to do moves, so it’s important to keep breathing and stay relaxed. This of course is easier said than done. For me it works best to stay on the beach until the countdown of my heat, if I go out to test the conditions and for example crash 3 moves I loose confidence and am more likely to feel stressed. Whenever it does happen that you start to feel stressed, you should try and forget about the whole heat, take a few deep breaths and start a new heat in your heat with the remaining time, whether it’s 7 min or 2 min that’s left doesn’t matter since you will always improve on your sailing when you feel more comfortable.
As my last PWA competition was a year ago it makes competition sailing harder, you have to learn those tricks over and over again. As I couldn’t get it together in the heat I lost and was on a shared 5th place for the first single. I was pretty upset for a while, but since the double counts over the single I got my head back in the game and found motivation to fight back in the double. I went out for a sunset session as things couldn’t really get much worse than it was, it turned out to be a really good move since I had my best session since arriving in Fuerte. I woke up fulfilled from the evening session and full of confidence for the day to come. I had an awesome heat and got into a flow. I sailed 6 heats in total to work my way up the ranking. The heat against Oda for 2nd place was extremely close and won the heat in the last second by doing a loop. The heat after I was up against the queen Sarah-Quita, it’s really awesome and super motivating sailing against her! I tried my very best but unfortunately it was not enough yet. I was super stoked with my second place in the double, especially after the bad start of the event.
As it was still early and very windy, the second single elimination was started. I worked my way up to the semi-finals, there I was up against Oda again for a place in the winners or losers final. It again was a very close heat again, I had a planing kono coming in which made the difference in the end and qualified for the winners final. In the winners final I was up against Sarah again, I knew I had to up my game to have a chance against her. At this time the wind dropped a little, which is definitely in my favour. I was having quite a good heat, and hearing I was leading 7 min into the heat got me really stoked. Sarah than showed why she is the queen and landed some sick moves in the last 2 min of the heats. She won, but the difference was less than before!
For next year I want to learn a few new moves or get some power moves that I can already do more consistent, like the culo, ponch, shove-it spock, burner and toad. If I could land those moves in a heat I’m quite sure I would have a good chance against Sarah. To achieve this I’m planning to sail in more kind of conditions, this helps to get moves really consistent. Also I want to get more time on the water in general as I haven’t been able to spent a lot of time in the water the past year. Right now I’m super stoked about the result, but I’m even more motivated to train fullpower and try to win next year!!
Preparing for competition PWA Fuerteventura 2016
Fuerteventura
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 1,5 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 to 12.00 and than in the afternoon from about 16.00 till 18.00. By doing this you have the optimum time spend on the water. After about 1,5-2 hours of sailing you are not 100% focused anymore and your body looses it’s 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 to 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 flater 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 pro’s 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!
EFPT Brouwersdam 2015
The first EFPT womens competition took place at my homespot Brouwersdam.
I sailed my best heat ever in the final of the European Freestyle Pro tour against the queen of freestyle Sarah Quita Offringa ARU91 yesterday!
Quote from EFPT report: “Huvermann was putting together a great heat with flakas and shakas both sides as well as regular konos, funnells and punetas. It was a very close decision between the routined sailor from Aruba and the young talented Dutch freestyler, however it favored Offringa in the end which makes her the first ever EFPT women freestyle champion.”
I’m Super stoked with my 2nd place! Congrats to Sarah Quita Offringa, Oda Johanna and Arianne Aukes! A big thank you to Zeil- en surfcentrum Brouwersdam for organising the event and to the most amazing teammates Dieter van der Eyken and Rick Jendrush H-120 for letting me borrow some gear! Super motivated to push even harder next year!
PWA slalom Alacati
After my 3rd place during the PWA Freestyle in Fuerteventura I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the last 3 weeks of my summer holiday. I couldn’t quite find a place suitable for freestyle in which in it would be windy, could stay alone and wouldn’t need a car. As I heard some of the freestyle girls were going to Alacati to compete in the PWA Slalom, I though why not give it a try as well. It turned out to be an awesome experience, I’m super happy that I went to Alacati, had lots of fun and definitely a finishing touch to an already awesome summer!
When I went to Alacati was traveling with just 1 slalom board and my freestyle gear. I had never used a camber sail before and as there was no wind before the competition, I knew that when the wind would kick in, I had about forty minutes to train and get used to the equipment. After some days playing the waiting game, the wind finally kicked in. During those forty minutes I improved every single minute. At some point I even got so much confidence I was in it to win it… Probably I was to exited and wanted to push it too much, because I had an over-early in the first heat. Well at least I learned a lot from it and I definitely know what I should train for the upcoming winter. As for the rest of the starts I didn’t want to be over-early again so I took it a little bit more easy. In the second elimination I was in the hardest heat possible, so I knew the chance of qualifying for the next round was really small. I was the last to cross the start line but by the time I arrived at the first mark I was in fifth position. I was fifth all the way from off that point of the race, I came very close to 4th but just couldn’t get it. In both the third and fourth elimination I qualified into the semifinals and subsequently into the losers final! Which I’m really happy about. 🙂
I’m very happy with the eighteenth place overall for the event, especially as there were so many girls competing. I learned a lot, met a lot of new people and I’m really motivated to do some serious slalom training this winter! Thanks a lot to Active Surf Center Alacati and Severne Sails for helping me out with the gear in such a short period of time! Also a big thanks to my other sponsors for the support: Starboard, Prolimit, Maui Ultra Fins, Zeil- en Surfcentrum Brouwersdam, Urban beach and Continentseven.