I'm doing seaweed research this week up at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center near Damariscotta. The work involves getting up early to catch the low tide, weeding and surveying frantically for four hours, then taking it relatively easy in the afternoon. In the evenings we've had some time to hike, jog, play cards, swim, browse around the town, etc. Yesterday I even managed to get a windsurfing session in the Damariscotta River, which is more of a saltwater fjord than a river. It was oddly reminiscent of Eld Inlet in Washington State where my dad first taught me how to windsurf. The fact that I was riding an old-school longboard like the one I learned on made it even more of a deja-vu moment. (The board was the Mistral Equipe longboard that I picked up for free the other day in New Hampshire.) I made a video of the session with my GoPro camera, but the humid weather and cold water caused some serious lens fogging problems. Oh, well. The song is by David Bowie.
Thursday 10 31 24 morning call
15 hours ago
6 comments:
Great video of you in action! The weather looks absolutely gorgeous, and since I know you shot this while I was sitting at my desk in my office, I kind of hate you right now....
Fogging and water dropplets aside, the camera worked well.
Wow, does look familiar. Water must not be too cold; I don't see you in a wet suit.
how the heck does someone get a free Equipe ? when you get back to your other boards - can i have the Equipe ? :-)
Lady Notorious- Thanks! I'll try to work the kinks out of this camera mount because it seems to be pretty popular. :)
Dad- The water is about Eld Inlet temperature, i.e. frigid. But it's ok if you don't fall in.
Joe- Contact the Dartmouth sailing club. I think they are trying to get rid of some more old raceboards if you don't mind driving to NH to pick them up.
Great vid, James. Sailing a longboard is so much fun. What size sail were you on? Also, you have experience with so many kinds of boards, how would you describe the handling of an "old school" board like the Equipe with the more modern boards you sail?
Mahalo!
Hey Brian-
I was on an 8.0 Aerotech FreeSpeed. One major difference I notice between the narrow Equipe and newer wide boards is the shape of the acceleration curve. The Equipe smoothly transitions from displacement mode to planing mode, but it takes quite a bit of wind before you can get all the way back and into the rear footstraps. On a wider board your acceleration in displacement mode is sluggish, but you get an obvious burst of speed as soon as you cross the threshold to planing, and you want to immediately get in the straps when that happens.
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