Here's the deal: Every year in late April, a bunch of windsurfers from all over the Eastern US and Canada pack up their vans and trailers and migrate to Frisco Woods Campground for an epic, 4 day gathering. Equipment manufacturers like Starboard send representatives to the event with giant u-haul trailers full of the lastest model-year windsurfing toys, which they let you SAIL FOR FREE! They even have lessons for kids, significant others, etc. Note- pictures swiped from someone else.
They also have a sports video company come and shoot pictures and video of everybody from a little boat, then they play the video on a big screen at night so you can stoke your ego by watching yourself whiz by the camera again and again, all while warming your buns around a campfire and drinking free budweiser.
Last year I had a blast riding the Starboard Serenity and Apollo and the Exocet Kona and I actually bought a Kona on the way home. Score!
If you're an East-Coast windsurfer and you haven't made windfest plans yet, get on the ball! It's a ridiculous deal because you get all the windsurfing toys and beer for free and you only have to pay for the camping. As an added bonus, all the east-coast windsurfing bloggers are going to be there this year for an in-real-life sailing and bullshitting session. Sweet!
7 comments:
I hope to make it! Have never been, and am currently tweaked/dinged/damaged, but I'm going to do my best to be healthy and to keep the weekend open.
Looks like fun. However, coming from west central Florida, it would be too long to drive for just a four day weekend. If my wife and small kids and I flew up with no equipment, would we be able to keep busy the whole time windsurfing and/or learning to kitesurf? Or would that be a little too much demo time?
-DB
PP- Hope you can make it, too. I'd love to see your blog analysis of it. :) In the meantime, go easy on the that ankle!
DB- Yeah, I think you could get plenty of sailing in there even if you didn't bring any gear. Most of the demo-operators let you ride the gear for a good hour, so if you just try out 3 rigs in an afternoon, that's 3 hours of sailing and no rigging hassles. There are also several kiteboarding shops around that do lessons; you can look them up on the internet and see what type of lessons they offer if you're interested in that. For the family there's the beach, restaurants, the famous Cape Hatteras lighthouse tour, etc. The cabins are a good, dry, cozy option for housing.
James,
Thanks for the synopsis! This will be my 1st windfest ever and I'm really stoked to go. No offense to the webmaster, but the Frisco Woods description is a little unconvincing, and there aren't that many pictures or descriptions of how it goes down.
I wonder if there are any tent sites still open?
Aaron- Though their lackluster online advertising of windfest might suggest cluelessness, the Frisco Woods Campground is actually very professional with reservations and such. Call them and they will hook you up. :)
Windfest is fun....looking forward to seeing you all there. DB, we'd love to see you there however as an FYI, there is a Florida Windfest scheduled that same weekend thats closer to you....at Merritt Island I think. Check out:
http://www.calema.com/calendar.php
Thanks for the info guys. Unfortunately it looks like my kids' spring break falls a week before the Windfest. We may drive over to the Florida one, though that doesn't look as fun. I'm not into the seriousnous of racing, and yours seems to be more about various kinds of good times. We've also been looking for a good excuse to come to Hatteras some time and justify the long trip.
-DB
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