Good, erm, " training" session today on "Long Maui's" North Shore. Meanwhile, on south side of the island the guys and gals were bashing — or being bashed by — overhead surf in side/side-off 5.0/4.7 Noreaster winds ... with sun, flying sand and no rain! (captured in the Flikr photostream of Jeff Schultz at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peconicwindsurfer)
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Stehli sunset. Great to sail with Joe "Elvis" Bayville
and Jeannie, and to see Bruce and Upwind Mike, who paid
a visit. Everyone hanging on to 5.7s/5.8s and 10M kites
-- the wind on the outside was closer to 5.0,
with bigger gusts. Photo P, Gray
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It definitely exposed weaknesses and things I need to work on more, like the age-old entering a jibe assertively on the far outside while overpowered. Even Joe said he was exploding in the outside jibes toward the end of the day. And the 8 kiters who began the day before us, booked it when the wind picked up to the next level, or two.
WHERE, NOT IF ...
The fact that I was recovering from a cold, and still kinda coughing and spluttering a bit, didn't enter into it. This was a classic wind weekend and it had to be engaged if at all possible. It looked like the wind might fade by Sunday; so for guaranteed wind, Saturday was the call.
Inside the house it was a dark and raw 50-60 degrees. I had no idea, but outside, it was a gorgeous warm and sunny 60-70. And besides, I was feeling better; the cold was on its way out, I should be good.
I'm still in neck injury and card fitness "rehab," as it were, and my jibes are nowhere near ocean-ready, My formerly good swimming is also not what it was. So as much I'd have loved to have been back there at Ponquogue, where I SUP'd in May (my first day back on the water after many, many months off) I didn't want to put myself and others in peril by going with the group. The ocean does not take many prisoners.
Folks were scattered all over the island, and Chasbo was hightailing it from a golf tourney in rainy Virginny to get back for a sunset sesh near Pryibil. Others were at Joe's Beach and Tanner, Crab and points East.
As it was, merely stepping outside made the decision for me. Listening to the trees it was clear it was windy, so I figured, "no need to leave wind to find wind," shot off a few texts to Lenny and Chuck, and headed for the nearest workable spot on the Sound.
EXPECTATIONS, PATIENCE
A small swell was rolling in from two days of blow, and things on the inside looked sketchy at best. The wind, however, breached the expectations gap, and filled in strongly like the day before. It took it's time, of course. It took the requisite amount of patience to reap the reward.
The reality out on the water was considerably different than it looked from shore, which is not unusual here. These were challenging, gusty to overpowered conditions with a following tide, steep ramps and rollers. By 5 or 6 p.m. there was even a little shorebreak.
The logistics were a little more complicated, since 8 kiters were already in business. Staying upwind of their lines would be a priority. Not out of obligation, but out of necessity. When those guys go down, their kite lines go down — instinctively, you don't want to be near them. Having seen the damage done to some of my "long-lost" kiter friends, I err on the side of caution.
As it was, I felt like a noob again, even though I'd been sailing this spot for years. There's something about a side/side-off wind that takes you a half mile out in a matter of moments. And out there, you don't want to screw up.
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A small cloudy day back in May
... my last visit to the Bowl. Not today,
though. Still in training for ocean
windsurfing in the logo high stuff,
they had there on Saturday. |
There is a "next stop," before the East River, of course, and I do have friends downwind, but anyway you slice it, you are looking at hours and hours of recovery paddling and walking or driving.
We milked all we could out of it … but the truth is,
it milked all it could out of us. Joe was spent by day's end; he definitely put in a lot of miles on the water.
Jeannie, had done her best to stay on the inside, but it was almost inescapable ... once you got powered, you were off to the races, and it felt like you were halfway to Connecticut in a minute or two.
In retrospect the best way to approach timing the launch was probably to wait until a 5.0 gust filled in to shore and to gut it out. But in the back of my mind I asked "if it gusts to 5.0 here, what's it going to be out there?" The concern was probably unfounded. Each time on the outside, the 5.8 handled it well enough. And as it picked up a notch further, I downhauled and the Goya sail handled it again.
But with a floaty board and big fin underfoot, on some runs I found myself tailwalking. The calf muscles and achilles cramped up trying to hold the windward rail down.
Taking a break, I trudged back to the van for a screwdriver and a smaller and waiver fin, and to finish off the gatorade. That mostly solved the worst of the tailwalking issue. Now the challenge was to keep from getting launched unintentionally as things got progressively crazier. With the sun sinking, re-rigging was not an option.
Adjustments were the way to go, to deal with the strongly building wind. Lower the boom and run the outhaul through the lower clew grommet.
Now however, once back on the water everything felt too low and loose, the lines too long — unhooking unintentionally, and slower to plane. as in most things windsurfing, more than a little adjustment is usually too much. The further away from the sail you are, the more you have use your arms to get on a plane while heading out through the flukey inside, on the way to the windline.
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When we arrived around (3-ish perhaps?) There was a big wind
shadow on the inside thanks to the easterly bias in the wind
direction, and the headland half a mile upwind. The tide was
running in with the wind making things more difficult than they
needed to be. But HT was 6:30 pm so daylight, and the presence of
sailable wind, was the overwhelming issue. But you had to be
over powered whether you liked it or not. The wind holes
on the inside you could drive a double-decker bus through.
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So, the schlog out to the windline was part World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)/part hula/part cruise in the super gustiness. It took every bit of concentration not to get pulled over the handlebars or submarine the nose too far.
But once I'd gotten over the white knuckle aspect and relaxed a bit, it was really good. The board handled well, Frank's repair survived a flat landing from an unintentional air. It pivoted round tightly in a deaddrop jibe/waterstart. And better still, the Goya 5.8 handled well too. A little more springy, softer, flexy feeling than the last one, especially in the waterstart phase, but good in the gusts once underway.
The main issue on the outside was sail recovery. Even if you went down with the sail to leeward, it wanted to twist round to windward — standard business for overpowered and building seas. It took every strength nugget I had left to push and twist it back across the wind. I felt the weakness from the nerve damage in my left arm. The kind of day where if you raised it an inch too high or caught the clew, you were going to get rag-dolled or lose the sail badly to leeward.
But I think I can work up some extra muscle strength there, if I focus on the left side in advance of fall glove sailing season...which right now, seems right around the corner ... somewhere here on Long Maui.
