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....
