Former freestyle world champion Amado Vrieswijk is now focussing on racing, but after the runner-up world title and two event victories on Sylt and in Japan in 2023, last season was rather disappointing for the man from Bonaire. At the beginning of the year, Amado switched from Severne to Point-7. In this interview by the PWA, Vrieswijk talks about his new motivation and how his training went.
Hi Amado, after a long time with Severne Sails, how is it changing to a different brand of sail?
I’d been on Severne for the last 13 years and before that I was on Hot Sails Maui, but to be honest it feels great to change to a new sponsor as it just gives me more motivation and more fire. I was just looking for something new. You know, after 13 years — all respect to Severne, there were no complaints there, the gear and everything was great, but I was just looking for something new, and so far it’s been very good. Different people, different sails, a different type of sail of course, so just getting to know the new gear and learning how to rig it, to tune it and stuff is just very motivating for me.
You got super close to the world title in 2023 - were you disappointed with last year and what is your goal for this season?
In 2023 I wasn’t really sad or disappointed with the result to be honest because I wasn’t even expecting to be in that position. I placed my goals much more on 2024 as I did work very hard for it, but for different reasons, things just didn’t quite work out last year. This year I feel more comfortable - I feel fitter than ever, stronger than ever, and especially when it comes to the gear I feel more comfortable than ever - and in foil racing, being comfortable is basically everything that you need. The only question now is if it’s fast enough… but at least now I can just focus on racing and not having to focus on just staying on the board because last year I wasn’t able to fight at the front.
You attended the TWS winter training in Tenerife - how was it?
Tenerife was great. This was the third year that I’ve been going there. Last year I was there for a month and a half, and this year I was there for a month. To be honest, in El Médano we did not have that much wind and what wind we had was very weird wind from different directions, so training-wise it wasn’t the greatest. But I received all the new gear there - all the new Point-7’s - so I’ve been sailing a lot, and I still spent plenty of time on the water. The month was not great to be able to test everything and figure out everything, as every day was different, and the wind was changing by the hour, so it wasn’t easy. For just sailing by yourself it was easy and fun to get a feeling of the new gear, but until now, basically until this event, I didn’t really have a proper time to test. When you’ve been training alone, it’s also very hard to see/know where you are at. But in general Tenerife is great as you have a professional setup for racing itself. The starts are on point and most of the main guys are there, so training with them is excellent as you can more or less see where you are at - even if everyone isn’t on the latest gear. I think this year I only had 7 or 8 training days in a month, but great training nonetheless.
Although now it isn't windy, how's Guadeloupe?
I think we are just very, very unlucky with the wind at the moment, the last few weeks have been windy here and I’ve been back home [Bonaire] and I was sailing on 5.7m everyday and they more or less have the same wind conditions here. I haven’t seen that much of the island, but everything looks great with the setup here. The airs warm, the waters warm, we’ve got white sand and palm trees and the event site is also really well set out. We are just waiting for the wind at the moment. Tristan [Algret] has done a great job with his team. I think tomorrow probably looks light again, but then hopefully Friday and Saturday we have at least enough to race in some light stuff.
Thanks, Amado. Good luck for the comp once the wind arrives..
Source: PWA