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Photos: John Carter / PWA

Mateus Isaac BRA-767 finishes 10th in slalom !

This year it was a good week in Hvide Sande for Mateus: For the second time now he managed to finish amongst the top-10 at a PWA event – congratulations Mateus ! The young Brasilian reports:

“The ‘Windguru’ leading up to the event was looking scary, with gusts hitting over 50 knots and a lot of rain being forecasted through the whole week.

After a long flight from Brazil, I arrived in Hvide Sande one day before the contest started. I managed to squeeze in an afternoon session just before the comp started, which made me remember the good times I had last year, when I finished 8th place.

The first day of racing was tricky – the wind was side off shore, with some strong gusts, but also some big holes on the course. In the first elimination I had a good start which helped me to finish in 5th place. The second elimination I ended up 5th on the quarters which gave me 18.5 points. My gear of choice was the NP Evo9 8.6 and JP Slalom 85.

The second day of racing, I managed to finish 10th on the third elimination and made it to the quarter finals in the fourth elimination. The wind direction was like the first day, but a little stronger which made me choose my 7.8 sail and 71 board.

The fifth elimination was the craziest one:We started that race on the second day of racing, but it got late and we had to leave the semis and the finals to the following day.The forecast showed about 25 knots and dropping, but on the water it was much more than that. The wind direction turned side onshore, and there were even some little waves breaking on the outside. Since the forecast was not showing so much wind, I risked using my NP evo9 7.0 and JP Slalom 62, when all the other guys were using 6.4 and 5.6, I was way too overpowered on the gybes, but comfortable on the straight lines. After hitting a wave and almost crashing into Antoine, I managed to finish 6th in the quarter finals.

The last day of racing did not look promising at all, but despite the forecast the wind came just before the contest finished and we managed to run the 7th elimination. I had a good quarter final but with an over early in the semis and a bad start on the losers, I finished 16th on this race.

At the end of the event, I was happy with the way I sailed during the week. I could hit the finals using the big, medium and small board, which shows that my gear works in all kinds of conditions and which put me in the top-10 in this event.”

Follow me on Instagram @mateusisaac

Mateus carving into another gybe..Amado Vrieswijk NB-20really enjoyed the high winds of this event in Denmark. He performed great to finish 1st in the Youth Class. Read the full report in Amado’s blogAmado enjoyed jumping over the finish line..Esther De Geus NED-16was waving the flag for JP in the woman’s fleet. She had some pretty good heats in this event but missed some consistency.Esther at the event.