Some Pictures from Horseneck

Dang, I missed a good windsurfing opportunity today in a last-minute rush to finish a grant application. Oh, well. I'm still stoked from the memories of Sunday at Horseneck Beach. Below are a few of Lady Notorious' pictures of the event. I've divided them into three sections. The first section is "getting out." These pictures show the drama and danger of getting from the shore to the relative safety beyond the breaking waves. The second section is "riding waves." These pictures show people doing cool, playful turns while riding a wave back towards the beach. The third section is "being a badass." It is mostly dedicated to Josh Angulo, who as a world champion wavesailor is in a whole 'nuther league from the rest of us.

GETTING OUT

This is me with my dorky helmet, watching Matt Allen battle his way through the whitewater and wondering if I'll have better or worse luck than him.


Here, Eric Doremus ventures into the surf for the first time in his life. I admire the man's bravery for trying it on a rough day like this. My own first samplings of ocean waves were in much more benign conditions. Eric made it out successfully on at least one of several tries, though he ended up breaking a mast later in the day. He'll be back.


It's a pileup of sailors heading in and out at the same time. That's me in the upper left with the red and clear sail.


Two young teenage guys, Graham and Manish, both managed to get out. These kids are really good at doing "freestyle" tricks in flatter water, so I reckon it's just a matter of time before they're doing equally impressive tricks in the waves.


One of the toughest things about getting out is that you have to do it all over again after every time you catch and ride a wave towards the beach. Here a veteran sailor makes an effortless looking jibe in the whitewater zone and points his board once more into the onslaught of waves.


Here's the way Josh Angulo gets out through the waves. He does it with POWER.


RIDING WAVES

It's tricky to pick "the right wave" to ride, but I think I got a good one in this picture.


You can't see my board in this one, but you can see my spray. I'm trying to do a bottom turn to head downwind and back up into the wave face.


This is more of a top turn, where I've hit the upper part of the wave and I'm coming back down.


Here i'm not doing anything, but the guy in the foreground is doing a "backside" wave ride. That means his back is to the wave and he is heading upwind. When the wind is blowing roughly parallel to shore like it was this day you can do either frontside (downwind) or backside (upwind) moves on the wave. I illustrate the different terms in this post.


Here I've just turned on a small wave and I'm going backside.


In this one I'm awkwardly going frontside on the wave, and Angulo is looking at me and cringing, probably.


BEING A BADASS

One of the more advanced waveriding moves is "hitting the lip." You build up speed doing a frontside waveride, then at just the right moment you do a sharp S turn into the breaking section of the wave. Angulo had a ton of awesome hits this day, but he probably has ton of awesome hits every day he sails in the waves.










Here's my turn to try to be cool. The first of these pictures is a normal jump, but in the second one I'm trying to do a backloop. I need to try harder because I only got about 2/3 of the way around on this one.