New Is Nice ... Worn, Used and Appreciated—Even Better

Bright, shiny and new; sure that's nice. But few things give me the satisfaction of a piece of clothing, a tool or some device that got worn and used over many years doing its appointed job, bringing value in the process, and coming out the end looking like they did.

I've got a few pieces of clothes like that. They fit perfectly, they were worn often, they lasted years—or were coaxed into lasting longer than they should, and they show the story of their lives to those who can read the threads.

Few photos exist of my old Axxis 260 LTD, this is one
from the secret spot that used to be, at the end of
Ariel Ct. in Sands Point, NY ... now developed into a
cul-de-sac of exclusive beachfront homes.

It's even better if you took a gamble on them, paid a few bucks (or quid, or euros) more, and they delivered what you'd hoped and more.

I guess a few photos would be in order. And a few stories. Maybe one at a time.

Since many who stop by these pages are windsurfers, I'll start with one of those items.

I've been through scads of sails by now, and upwards of a dozen boards, easily.

I stopped buying new windsurf boards years ago.

At some point some windsurfers find the quest for elusive perfection in a board for a set of conditions is sometimes met in one board, but often times it's an exercise in futility when seeking a board for a different set of conditions.

It's bittersweet when one of those rare "perfect" or almost perfect boards dies of old age.

One such that I owned was the F2 Axxis 260 LTD Xenon Edition. I bought it on one of my first trips to Cape Cod in a guy called Steve's windsurf shop near the Barnstable Road/route 28 outside of Hyannis. Back in its day it was seen as the last of the retro shapes. A wide nose, volume and mast track forward.  Slightly thinned tail.

Second board from the left. Translation: "Here then, is what a nautical Ferrari looks like."
OK, slightly overstating it maybe, but a very fun board all the same..

No board I ever owned jibed better than this 94L number. I was/am a shitty jiber, but somehow this board made it feel easy, with the width and the volume just where you needed them as you were in that trickiest stage of the transition.

Some days it planed easy. Other days it didn't want to budge. "Something's wrong with that board," said Charlie Kim, one day at ITB, when I just could not get it going. Other times, it bailed me in the impact zone of my first hairy sideshore hurricane (offshore) 7' swell off Cedar.

I rode it so much I pulled out every footstrap insert in the board.

Once I accidentally dragged it behind the car, by its nose along the road after a the 100-lb loaded  triple gorge rack flipped over the rear trunk — and the board hardly complained. The skin was like toughest rawhide...or polywhatever. Almost indestructible except for the footstrap inserts.

I beyotched about it's sometimes quirky performance in the chop — bouncy in too much wind/sail. But other times it seemed perfect even with a 4.2.

Surely must have been rider error, bad fin choice perhaps. Frank and I would say, "a little too wide in the hips," maybe but other times that was a godsend. Mostly you just had to get fin, mast track position and sail size right.

It liked to jump, though. And with an extreme amount of V in the hull, it had no issues with Hecksher chop, boat wakes and cross-chop. For a "heavy" 18lb board it was pretty fast too, for its day.

STRAPPED
I also bemoaned its lack of a center strap for waves. I tried offsetting across a bunch of inserts, but that was dangerous and very uncomfortable as the angle was "naff" on one side.

One day I will drill some fresh inserts I think.

Next ... the OO by Brian Hynde

Amazingly the board had crazy range. 6.2 wave sail to 4.2 high wind sail.  Light wind wave to Tropical Storm Bertha and every bit of Heckscher chop in between. That is until I got the other "almost perfect board", the Open Ocean ... but that's another story. In the mean time "Nice job Werner Gnigler."

East Coast Windsurfing Festival, June 2010

With Mike Jameson's (left, in Hibiscus pattern boardshorts) stone Buddha in place, facing SW, the skies were clear and blue at 9:30 a.m., with whitecaps clipping the tops of the chop forming on Long Island, N.Y.'s Great South Bay.

The first registrants began to arrive and Mike Burns (seated, second from right) and Chrissy Burns, Jill Marr (carrying sponsor giveaways in photo below, left), the event committee, race officials and the judges, including volunteers from Hampton Water Sports, were ready for them. Huge credit to them all for really putting on a truly "festive" East Coast Windsurfing Festival (ECWF) 3.0., Spring 2010.



By all accounts last spring-summer's ECWF had been a raving success. For 2010 multiple sponsors were in place and a snazzy event T-shirt bore all their logos:

Top-to bottom, left to right, the event sponsors were a who's who of classic and familiar industry names and local windsurfing businesses: Mistral, F2, North Sails, Nolimitz, Windsport.com, ION, OceanAirSports, Ezzy Sails, New England Windsurfing Journal, Hampton Water Sports, and Tricktionary – "the Ultimate Windsurfing Bible."



Sponsor-donated raffles, topped by Nolimitz grand prize Skinny mast, and multiple giveaways including Windsport beanies and baseball caps, issues of Windsport and New England Windsurfing Journal, added to the controlled frenzy of the racing fun. Some came with the mantra "Beat Pete!" burned in their synapses. Pete Roesch (right) arrived early to begin his mental preparations, while his son Devon (photo left, right inflating buoy) prepared the racing mark buoys.


Fleetloads of racing and a full backwinding of freestyle, and alligator-tossing team relay races, that were perhaps the biggest blast of all, were tops on the menu for the competitors. Maybe. Most would probably say the gathering of more friends and faces old and new, and the sight of sails all over the water as the racing fleet spread out, were the "real deal."



Prize for the first equipment malfunction goes to Jeannie Baumann. Here are Maryanne, Jeannie and Joe Rocco (hope your foot gets better soon! that was a nasty gash! Howmany stitches?) preparing to fix Jeannie's stuck boom with the ritual rubber mallet bashing.

Jeannie bashed it so hard, well, she bashed the end cleat system right off! Then she got on the water and beat the heck out of the competition. That's Jeannie! She rocks.



Racing is different from cruising around. Jibes you normally make, go ploof! Racing on gear that you haven't sailed in 10-15 years, well, can leave you at the startline while the fleet sails off walking back to your van for cord, pliers, and inventing new ways to jerry-rig a new uphaul.

I hadn't used an uphaul in years, don't even have the things on my booms. But the one I dug up in the garage must have been so rotted it blew out on the first uphaul. Glad that was in shallow water. Now I remember why that big-arse sail stayed in the garage for the last decade or more. It's like wrestling a bear.




The course was more or less a classic triangle with a healthy tack upwind to start. A good clean fast launch and strategy were the two keys. And a healthy sense of humor of you went down in a jibe or tack at the mark. Collisions were few, but the Kurt Navy's top-secret Starboard longboard was rumored to have been sunk by a Yanuk-class submarine, proving that sailing and battles at sea have more than a little in common.



... GTG ... much more to come....