Unequivocal Windy Season Opener

After work today at the Fort Pierce South Jetty I saw a bunch of kiteboarders I hadn't seen since April, and one other windsurfer. I guess that means the windy season has begun. The breeze was NE and STRONG, but kind of up and down. The kiters were mostly on 8s and 9s. My 5.5 sail and 83 liter Starboard Evo worked pretty well, except I kept catching weeds on my fin. I need to find a good US Box weedfin for sails 5.5 and smaller.

Anyway, here's the video. It's kinda long, but I tried to actually pick good songs this time, and put a little more into the editing. There's some surprises in it, too. Hope you like it.

Every good session deserves a bad techno song

I had a good time this weekend using my smaller windsurfing boards in the W / NW winds from a cold front.

Saturday was sort-of the "warm up", with just a dying-light flat water session with 6.6 / 106 liter board. I was proud of my one completed duck jibe until I watched it on this video and realized it was the weirdest, wrongest duck jibe ever. Oh, well. My friend Marc was messing with his new kite and got a 10 second ride. Woo hoo!



Sunday was the glory day, with fun ocean sailing at the Fort Pierce Jetty. The wind was about 30 degrees offshore, and very gusty and shifty, which made it challenging. Yet, when a gust coincided with a jumpable or rideable wave, it was perfect. There were some clean swells coming through occasionally, and because of the wind angle, it was easy to do "front side" turns on the wave. That's where instead of just sliding down the face of the wave, you turn downwind and ride partway back up the face before redirecting and skootching down again. You can feel the "Gs" when you do it, and it's really fun. I started out on my smallest board, the Evo 83, but I switched to the bigger Exocet Cross 106 to better deal with the flukey conditions. The sail I'm using in the video is a 5.5 Aerotech Charge. Later in the afternoon I switched to the blue 6.6 sail and got some even funner wave rides, but the video of that didn't turn out because my batteries were dead.



There were several kiters rigged at the beach, but only one of them went out, and only for a little while before ending up way downwind, because the shifty conditions were bad for kiting.

AC off, WIND on

The stagnant heat of Florida's long-lingering summer has been banished at last by the first cool front of the year. A gentle breeze rustles the blinds, filling my room with fresh scents from outdoors. 74 degrees of perfection.

The weather came yesterday with a West wind that was still hot, but strong and long enough to signal a change from the usual. It was also strong and long enough for me to rig a 5.5 sail and to baptize the 83 liter "Evo" waveboard that has been sitting on my rack since I bought it in May. (Remember this post?)

I played it safe and used the board in the lagoon, where the wind was onshore, rather than in the ocean where it would have been offshore. I think that was a good call, since it was plenty gusty in the lagoon, from about 10 - 25 mph, and would have been even gustier in the ocean.

The Evo shlogged well for its 83 liters, and when puffs rolled through it would pop up on a plane with no complaints. The main improvement I noticed over my previous small board, an 87 liter F2 Maui Project Style, was that the Evo had better turning and jibing characteristics. The carves were smooth and easy to initiate, and the board seemed to carry speed and stay planing even during my sloppy jibes. I can't wait to try it on the ocean side, maybe tomorrow. The wind is supposed to be NW shifting to North, which will be somewhat less offshore. I'll need a wetsuit, though. The high is only going to be 72!

Tuesday Stream of Consciousness

Consummate heat under a bright, empty sky. Light wind from the west, shifting south.

The work day inches along; frustration, progress, coffee, frustration, progress, peanut butter and jelly, check the weather.

12 mph southeast at the St. Lucie Powerplant, a good sign. Marshmallow clouds piling up inland. 14 mph at the powerplant. Text Marc- "seabreeze is on!"

Receive text from new neighbor- "house painting party after work" - whoops, deleted. :P

A few more things to get done, now roll out in the red minivan, east up Seaway Drive... Who's that jogging? The cute blond teachers who hang out at the Tiki Bar! I wave, one waves back - yes!

Kiteboard Ray's Jeep is parked by the beach- it must be good! Looks breezy but Ray can't stay upwind on his 12. Indecision about what to rig; kite or formula? In the meantime, rig longboard beginner stuff for friend Jen.

Ray still complaining about wind so I go for formula. Some guilt for leaving Jen while I rig my own gear, but she's tough, I rationalize.

Beach start and WOW it's great! Two tacks and I'm out past the jetty. Formula flying on the fin, hydrodynamic harmony, hiked out with full power. Late day sun golden through boiling clouds, my pink sail looks BOSS. Upwind, downwind, then take a breather to help Jen and Marc.

Props to Jen for gutsing it in the choppy water. Props to Marc for getting upright on his kiteboard, briefly. My work is done here- back out for formula round two.

Zip, zap, back and forth, semi-planing jibes. The sun dips lower, squall clouds loom, that's that. Exit the shorebreak, schlep the board, schlep the sail, mind the fire ants in the grass. Fat raindrops pop on the sailcloth, melt salt and sand from my skin. The water is fresh and tropically warm. No rush now- can't get any wetter. It's dark when the last item is stowed and I'm smiling invisibly.

Yeah.

Florida in 2060 a.d. - Suckfest!

The other day I got hold of this scary report by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). It estimates how the land use and population of Florida will change by the year 2060. Right now we're at about 18 million people- crowded as it is. But by 2060 the population is supposed to DOUBLE to 36 million people! That's a whole 'nuther Miami, a whole 'nuther Orlando, a whole 'nuther Tampa, St. Petersburg, Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Daytona, Melbourne, Panama City, Key West, etc, etc. Holy crap!!

Picture of the former everglades from rapingmothernature.com...

That's going to be a huge strain on the natural ecosystems that support both human and animal life in the state. Where is our drinking and irrigation water going to come from? Where are we going to put our poop, pollution, and garbage? Will there be anything left of our already-dying coral reefs? Where are the endangered species like panthers, bears, burrowing owls, and gopher tortoises going to live?

The map below shows how almost all the wild, undeveloped lands in the state will be developed by 2060. Pretty much every patch of nature that isn't already designated as a reserve will be converted to human use if trends continue. Dang. We really need to stop population growth and development before it comes to this.

The full report has lots of pretty pictures and juicy info, going into other problems the state will have, like sea level rise and stuff. You should look through the pdf here. It's not too sciency at all.

Wind Thresholds and Kitestration

On the rare days that the weather is suitable for kiteboarding, I always seem to have an equipment problem. Most recently it was a busted pump. I had to pump like, 1000 times to inflate my main kite bladder instead of the usual 40. At the end I was tired and sweaty and the kite still wasn't fully hard. I thought it would be alright, but after just two minutes of riding, it folded in the middle of a power stroke and dropped from the sky like a scorched moth. It nearly self-destructed in the shorebreak before I could swim to it and drag the whole sandy, algae-entangled mess out of harm's way. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Windsurfing has been better to me. I managed to procure a loaner formula boom last week so I can rig my 9.8 again. (Thanks, you-know-who.) Friday I had a good sunset session in onshore winds, and today another good one in offshore winds. Neither sesh would have possible on kite gear, because of the lightness, flukiness, and / or direction of the wind.

All this got me thinking about the wind requirements for windsurfing versus kiteboarding, and inspired me to make the graph below. It shows the approximate wind needed for longboard windsurfing, formula windsurfing, bump & jump windsurfing, and kiteboarding. (Windsurfing on a big freeride board would be something intermediate between the curve for formula windsurfing and B&J windsurfing.)

Anyway, all the types of wind-riding are pretty cool in 15+ knots, but their rideability and planing thresholds are different below that. Here's why I drew the curves like I did, based on how each toy's handling changes as the wind increases:

Longboard Windsurfing-
0: Can't move.
1-4: Move slowly in any direction with the daggerboard down.
5-8: Move well in any direction with the daggerboard down, but have to force board to rail.
9-12: Board begins to rail itself and go upwind great. Railing straps can be used if the wind is steady. May be able to surf swells with the daggerboard up.
12-15: Powerful upwind with the daggerboard down, and can plane off the wind with the daggerboard up.
15+: Full-power planing with decent angles possible without the daggerboard. Have to be skilled with railing straps to sail with the daggerboard down.

Formula Windsurfing-
0: Can't move.
1-4: Slow slogging, limited upwind ability.
5-7: Stable slogging and ok upwind. No planing; at least not without constant, aerobic pumping.
~8: Concerted pumping will initiate planing, but hard to go upwind or downwind on plane.
~10: Less pumping required, ok angles while planing.
~12: Little or no pumping required to plane; high upwind and deep downwind angles possible.
~15: Intensely powered-up with awesome speed and angles and fully-planing jibes. Beyond this it gets kinda scary for most people.

Bump & Jump Windsurfing (manouverable board just big enough to float the rider)-
0-3: Can't move
4-8: Slow, precarious slogging with little or no upwind ability.
8-13: Stable slogging and ok upwind. No planing unless riding a wave.
~14: Can pump onto a plane, but not much power for jumps or manouvers.
15+: Few pumps required to plane. Good power for jumps, jibes, etc.

Kitesurfing-
0-6: Can't launch or fly kite.
~8: Can launch kite, but hard to keep it in the air.
~9: Can fly kite and body-drag ok, but not enough power to get up on board, and can't relaunch kite from water.
~10-11: Can ride board, but only by constantly working the kite. Can't stay upwind and tough to relaunch.
~12: Can ride and stay upwind, but have to work the kite a lot.
13+: Can "park" the kite and ride steadily most of the time. Can jump and stuff.

The thing is, with kiting, even though you have the lowest planing threshold besides formula windsurfing, you're basically dead in the water below that threshold. And the threshold is actually higher than it seems from the chart, since you have to account for lulls in the wind. Like, even if the wind is averaging 12 knots, if there are lulls to 8 knots, you're in trouble. I think that's why most of the kiters around Fort Pierce only go out when the average is around 15, and why, since the wind rarely reaches 15 between May and September here, the kiters disappear for the summer.

Weekend of Windsurfing and Kiteboarding

It's blowing about 10 knots and your formula windsurfing boom is broken. 48 hours of weekend yawns before you, and you have important work to procrastinate on. You:

a) Rig the biggest sail you can on your smaller boom, and ride a longboard
b) Put that sail on a shortboard and try bobbing for waves
c) Kiteboard
d) All of the above

If you answered "d", then you and I have very similar approaches to weekend management. This weekend's activities are documented in the two videos below, both shot with my gopro helmet hero wide camera and edited with windows movie maker. I finally learned how to add music... so you might take this moment to make sure you know where your "mute" button is.

Longboard


Shortboard and Kiteboard