Good Ridin, & Dead Man's Toe

Sand was flying sideways.

The day after ...  looking SW from Lighthouse Rd.
Manhattan in the distance. A sharp west wind kicking up. 

Seagulls were flying sideways,
boards were sliding sideways.

It was mostly all good.

Cold, but brutally good.

"I got two dead man's toes" said Dr. Phil the dentist (well at least I think Phil's a dentist when he's not teaching race car driving.) "That's what Joe Rocco called 'em," Dr. Phil explained.

And the reasons for the condition? Damn cold water, no booties and numb feet.

"I'll see you next year, I think that's it for me for the year," said Dr. Phil. But he's gotten his money's worth and gotten blown up on a 5.0, only to find it was really solid 4.2, for him, by the close of business.

The wind had been sketchy to start. And Terminator Bruce went with a 5.4. I'm glad he sailed, but and a grand overpowered time, but it was the final downwind run that unfortunately ended with a bad spill, spraining his ankle. Painful; looked like he was growing a tennis ball on the side of it. Ouch.

There was no shortage of wipeouts. The big, loud splashes were the punctuation to a day "going off" on the wind scale.

But it was a small crowd, maybe 15 all day, at all different parts of the day coming and going.

Arty, Marty, Leonardo (the canine 'cat' sailor), Terminator Bruce, lil' Frank (another of Chuck's friends), Jill, Pasha, a couple of other guys from Eastern europe who I don't know, Dr. Phil, Upwind Mike, Jeannie, Chris, Eugene, (who I hadn't seen in a decade, I reckon), the pilot chappie, another few of peeps I don't know, and a bloke wearing not much more than a rashguard and boardshorts (brrr.) who was getting blown off his 5.8 and wished for a smaller sail.

I loaned him a Zeta 4.5, that I had packed just in case Lenny needed a rideshare. The rashguard man wound up sliding several beaches downwind.

With binoculars we spotted him flapping his way back to shore. We've (mostly) all been there done and that, but a 55F day in late October in cold water is not the best time to try it. "El camino del conquistador vanquista" the walk of the vanquished hero, I think Ely called it, back in the day.

I had put the 4.7 on a big (99L) F2Style 255 board and a 9.5" wave fin to go investigate his situation.

But it turned out there was no need. I went with the setup anyway. Sail too flat, fin too small for anything but the gusts (but man did that fin loosen up the board nicely and give it a silky feel in the gusts.) Will have to try that again sometime.

But to stay powered, I switched to a 10.5" Fox wave fin, until the wind kicked up a few more notches.

Leonardo the Shep's dogwagon, giving shelter to
a vintage F2 Sunset Slalom. The boards on top could go
inside, but Leonardo has bragging rights
 for interior dog bed space.

Finally, making some jibes. It's amazing how you lose that skill if it's not hardwired. The last two sessions had been overpowered or underpowered, and not a whole lot of effective jibing got done. This day however, delivered ramps for a few jumps, and small waves for hard carving. And those are key ingredients for a real fun session. 

Another boost in the wind arrived as forecasted, and it was time for some more downhaul (had to doggone undo the whole shooting match to get another 2 cm of mast base of adjustment) ... and some more outhaul. Oops too much of the latter. It's killing the power. I undid the clew, shortened the boom a notch, and put almost the right amount of shape back in the pocket Good to go for another rack of runs.

But there was plenty more wind where that came from. Tailwalking time. I had the Open Ocean 8'4" 82 liter bump and jump board dug into the beach, so it was a simple matter to switch. It had been years, but the old Brian Hynde creation worked it's magic. It was hard to stop, except the wind was pushing the 4.2 end of the spectrum by now, and there was not a lot of grip left in the left paw.

I injured the neck a while ago and that arm has been 15% off ever since.

How many times do you hear your arms and a hand saying "that's it we're finished," you say "Ok that's it; last run."

It's now a "must" to hook in right away and take the load off, or you're looking at a dumping, and a couple more wrestling matches.

But you make it back, you rest a little in the shallows, and you're good for another one, and another one, and another one.

Turn the heater up full blast. Chilled to the core. That was not a warm experience, not easy, but the same thing next weekend would work just fine. I feel a jibe coming on.

Come Sunday, it was riding time.

Sunday bike ride: Looking back up the Sound to the
Northeast. Still a few sailboats who will no doubt
keep their sails flying all winter's fair windy days. 

No way was I getting another wind session in.

But a quick hour and 15 minute (13 mile or so) bike ride was on the menu for fitness catchup.

It had just had one of those weeks where getting out of work and getting to the gym was not happening, and there was ground to be made up.

As a neighbor said, great day for riding, and aside from the building west wind, and Sunday afternoon traffic, she was absolutely right.

Didn't have a lot of juice left in the legs after yesterday, but the endurance was better, and managed some solid pedaling and hill work all the same. The 9/29 "Ride with the Squid" in oyster bay was paying dividends.

It took a while to find a tailwind but the ride home delivered along shore road for an easy 17 mph on the flat. Like all fun rides they start out with pain in the knees and sore legs, and they usually leave you feeling as energized as a fine fall day.

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."