Waveboards- 83 liters versus 220 liters

About two weeks ago I had an funny wavesailing session at Wiggins Pass in Naples, Florida. Most of my wavesailing there has been in Northwest wind, but this time the wind was from the South. It was strong enough for me to use a 5.5 sail but it was a bit inconsistent- perhaps because of the direction. Anyway, I started out with my little waveboard, the 83 liter Starboard Evo, and had some good runs on that. After a while, though, I started having trouble staying planing and staying upwind against the longshore current. I considered switching to my larger shortboard, the 106 liter Exocet Cross, but then I said to myself, "Aww, heck. Why not switch all the way up to the 220 liter Exocet WindSUP? That way I'll still be able to catch waves even if the wind gets really light."

The huge board certainly had a different feel. On the way out a shortboard skitters and jumps over the waves, whereas the WindSUP whomps over the waves like a destroyer battleship in an open ocean storm. On the way in, either board is happy to ride a wave, but the two boards require drastically different kinds of input from the rider to make turns. The 83 liter board carves squirty little turns with subtle motions of my toes and ankles and moderate repositioning of my sail and body. The 220 liter WindSUP swerves from its momentous path only in proportion to how strongly and deliberately you stomp your weight around on it. But if you really exaggerate your commands it carves awesomely. As per typical, my video doesn't quite capture how fun it was out there, but here it is anyway. The song is "My Body" by Young the Giant.

Wiggins S Wind Shortboard and WindSUP from James Douglass on Vimeo.

Sarasota Winter Classic Regatta

I had a great time last weekend at a windsurfing regatta (pictures here) in Sarasota, which is about two hours North of where I live in Bonita Springs. The regatta had all the right ingredients for greatness, including:

1. A big grassy parking, rigging, and launching area.
2. An expansive flatwater sailing site exposed to good wind from all directions.
3. A cool yacht-club style event building provided by the Sarasota Sailing Squadron.
4. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and beer on tap included in the cheap registration.
5. Great organization with lots of helpful volunteers running the show.
6. Free camping and shower facilities right at the site.
7. A good number of both young and old participants in longboard, formula, and Olympic RSX classes.
8. Sunny, warm, windy weather.
9. The right blend of relaxed friendliness and competitive seriousness among the other racers.

The first day was quite breezy, averaging 15 knots or so. The race organizers set up two courses; a big windward-leeward course for the A Formula and RS:X classes, and smaller but more complicated trapezoid course for everyone else, including Kona One-Design, and Open Class. Below is a GPS track from one of my races on Saturday. You can see there were two laps around the trapezoid. The wind was from the South, so Buoy 1 was the upwind mark.

I sailed in the "Open Class" because:
1. I figured my 85 cm wide, 58 cm fin length, 135 liter volume formula board from 2001 would not be competitive with the 100 cm wide, 70 cm fin length, 160 liter volume formula boards from 2012 that everyone else would be riding.
2. I figured my 9.5 meters squared camless freeride sail would not be competitive with the >11.0 meters squared cambered race sails that everyone else would be using if the wind got light on the second day.
3. I wanted to be able to race my WindSUP 11'8" longboard if the winds got too light for formula, and the Open Class was the only one that would accomodate multiple boards.

It would have been a perfect choice except that only two other guys were in the Open Class fleet, and they were on very different gear, so I was mostly competing with myself. It still felt like a regatta, though, because our 5-minute starting countdown began right after the Kona fleet started, and because the two-lap course was long enough that we would start passing the Kona boards before the end. My best race was one where I passed ALL the Kona boards, including the famous all-around windsurf racer Nevin Sayre, who has lots of impressive racing records, like fastest time in the Gorge Blow-Out and fastest circumnavigation of Martha's Vineyard.

The racing was even more interesting on Sunday, because they lumped the Olympic RS:X boards in with the Open Class and ran us both on the trapezoid course. Since I was riding the WindSUP longboard Sunday I was more closely matched with another Open Class competitor, Dieter, who rode an F2 380 racing longboard with a 7.5 Severne Glide sail. My downwind and reaching speed was similar to Dieter's, and I planed a bit earlier, but he had better upwind speed and angle so he beat me in most of the races Sunday. Both Dieter and I were in the middle of the pack of the RS:X boards, though they would get past us if a puff of a wind came through the course that allowed them to plane upwind.

This video is of one of the higher wind races on Saturday. The song is by King Crimson.

Sarasota Schizoid Man 2013 from James Douglass on Vimeo.

There's another big regatta in Florida this weekend, the Calema Midwinters, near Cape Canaveral. Lots of the Sarasota folks were going, and I really wanted to go, but I just have too much work to catch up on. Oh, well. I'll still sneak out of the house for a bit to sail some waves at Wiggins Pass this afternoon.

Dusting off the 3.5 Sail!

Here in SW Florida we get excited whenever there's enough wind to use a windsurfing sail smaller than 9.5 meters squared. So imagine my excitement the other day day when a cold front made it windy enough to use a 3.5 meters squared sail! That's 6.0 meters squared smaller than what I usually use.

It was a weekend that Rhonda's Aunts were visiting from New Hampshire. I felt sorry that the ladies didn't get to experience the mellow, 80 degree beach weather that had characterized most of our "winter" here in Bonita Springs, but at least I got to show off my windsurfing skills for them.

I started the session with an 83 liter Starboard Evo and an old 4.5 Ezzy wave sail that I got to replace the 4.7 Northsail that I busted in the fall. This was my first time using the Ezzy in real conditions, and I was pretty pleased with it. The wind gradually rose during the session as dark clouds approached. When the clouds arrived I got VERY overpowered. I tucked-tail back to the beach and helped some kiters make emergency landings. For a minute I wasn't sure if I would go out again, but the idea of getting a 3.5 session was impossible to resist.

Often using a super small sail like the 3.5 is uncomfortable and "twitchy." You alternate between being annoyingly underpowered and bouncingly overpowered on the steep, short chops characteristic of 30+ knot winds. Somehow, though, on this day at Wiggins Pass, the 3.5 felt just right. I had an awesome time playing in the choppy onshore swells. The very windy conditions seemed to make the onshore wave-riding easier, because there was still ample wind in the sail when turning downwind on a wave. I made a helmet camera video of the session. The 3.5 part is not until the end of the video. The song is by The Who.

Wiggins Cold Front 16 Feb 13 from James Douglass on Vimeo.

PS- Not to knock big sails, I had a great time sailing in sunny flat water at a windsurfing race in Sarasota last weekend. That's going to be my next blog post.

"Seasonal" Blues, Windsurfing Race in Sarasota

I am starting to understand why Southwest Florida locals dread the so-called "Season." The Season, which could stand for Tourist Season, or for Wealthy Retiree Part-Time Resident Season, is INSANELY CROWDED.

Initially I was under the impression that The Season began around Thanksgiving, and back then I thought, "Hey, this isn't so bad. Yeah, there are a few more people on the beach, a few more grey-haired folks in the supermarket, and sometimes there's a bit of a wait at the popular restaurants on a Friday or Saturday night... but it's only a minor inconvenience."

The truth is that the REAL season doesn't start until after the Christmas Holidays. That's when droves of folks my parents' age and older TAKE OVER Bonita Springs. There is no day of the week, and no time of the evening that one can avoid an hour long wait for a seat in a restaurant. Worse, ALL THE PUBLIC BEACH PARKING AREAS FILL UP. Ironically, there are miles of nearly-empty beaches in the region, but they are impossible for peasants like me to access because they lie behind unbroken tracts of luxury private condominiums and seventh homes of (I presume) workaholic wall-street investors, NYC plastic surgeons, neer-do-well heirs and heiresses, and crooked politicians and corporate CEOs. The scant public beach lots, despite charging money for something that I believe should be free for everyone, are grossly undersized for handling the lemming-like herds of humans overflowing the land.

Sunday I faced the nightmare situation of driving back and forth for an hour within 8 miles of my house, being turned away from one beach lot after another. I was seething with Incredible Hulk-Like rage, furiously cursing the gods and the county planners, pounding on the steering wheel of my windsurf-laden minivan, when FINALLY I got a spot. I rigged a 9.5 and my formula board, and planed for about half an hour before the wind died and I had to go back home to spend the rest of the day grading papers and planning lectures. Ahh.

I propose a new law to resolve the beach parking problem. I call it the 50-50 law: If a beachfront home or condominium is less than 50% occupied more than 50% of the year, then it shall be BULLDOZED, and its flattened, pulverized remains will serve as a free beach parking lot for the commoners.

In happier news, I'm still living with the love of my life, my Valentine, Rhonda. (Swoon!) Our two dogs are healthy and behaving themselves. Florida Gulf Coast University now lets me drive their boats, so I've been able to get started on my own seagrass research in the Caloosahatchee River Estuary. Also, I'm getting psyched up for a Windsurfing Race next weekend (Feb 22-23) in Sarasota, Florida. It's the "Sarasota Winter Classic." There should be a wide mixture of young and old competitors, and serious and not-so-serious competitors. Also, there is free camping at the sailing site.

http://www.mswindsurfing.com/docs/2013_Winter_Classic_NOR.pdf


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My only dilemma is what competitive division to register for. In the most competitive Formula "A" Class I would certainly be left in dust, since my formula gear is out of date and my skills are rusty. I could sail my Exocet WindSUP in one of the longboard divisions, but that board isn't really meant for racing so I might get left in the dust in that division, too. Hopefully there will be enough other competitors in a similar situation to me that the race committee will be able to run the less competitive "Formula Sport" division. I'm not sure if any of the divisions will let you change boards depending on the wind strength, but what would be ideal for me would be to race on the WindSUP if the winds are too light to plane, and race on the Formula board if we get planing conditions. We'll see.

Karenia brevis Red Tide Doesn't Kid Around

When I saw the swell forecast last week I couldn't believe it- "4 foot waves with a 9 second period? That NEVER happens on the Gulf side of Florida!" But strong Northwest winds on the other side of the Gulf had indeed pushed a rare swell in our direction. There was no question in my mind that I was going to be ON it when it came.

The day arrived, I strapped the WindSUP 11'8" to the roof-rack, and headed down to Wiggins Pass State Park. At the entrance they had a little note posted- "Red Tide: Dead Fish on Beach." They were still letting people into the park, though, so I figured it couldn't be too bad.

The water didn't look red to me, but I did notice an awesome (by Gulf Coast standards) swell peeling along the sandbar. The too-good-to-be-true forecast was really happening! I opted to paddle rather than sail the WindSUP because the wind was ultra light and offshore.

Out in the break there were a few dead mullet floating around- not the most encouraging sign. The single-celled dinoflagellate alga that causes most red tides in Florida, Karenia brevis, contains a neurotoxin that poisons the fish when they ingest it. The poison can also be released into the water when the algal cells die, and waves or wind can froth the poison into the air. The airborne toxins can cause coughing, sore throat, burning eyes, congestion, and asthma-like symptoms in people.

There was one other SUP guy out there who seemed to be doing alright, so I didn't worry. The waves were FUN, and I finally felt like I was using the WindSUP to it's full potential. It caught the waves easily, went down the line with speed and stability, and even turned if I told it to. In the video it looks like I'm riding barely-there waves, but they were actually about waist high on average.

SUP Session in Smooth Waves at Wiggins Pass from James Douglass on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, I didn't completely escape the effects of the red tide. It made me cough and feel congested- like mild asthma and hayfever. When I got home I had a headache and a sore throat that hasn't gone away. I had been hoping to get out on the water some more this weekend but unless the red tide condition changes I don't think I should. Checking the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Red Tide Website was disheartening, as it showed the toxic algal bloom currently covering most of the SW coast of Florida.

Apparently, blooms have been known to last as long as a YEAR. Ugh.

Survived a Semester of Professing

My first semester as an assistant professor at Florida Gulf Coast University was busy (it’s now the second semester and I’m just getting a chance to blog about the first), but it went pretty well. The classes I taught were:

Marine Ecology- An upper level undergraduate elective with 31 students. This was my big lecture course, and the one that required the most preparation and grading. It was fun getting immersed in marine biology topics that I had always loved but which hadn’t been part of my own research. I spent late nights making slide presentations and writing test questions about deep sea hydrothermal vents, whales, coral reefs, sharks, sea turtles, barnacle sexual behavior, etc. My students were mostly junior and senior environmental science or marine science majors. There was a wide range in their readiness for the class, but they all managed to pass with at least a C. One weird-but-good teaching technique that I got from another FGCU professor was to give the students a lot of hard study questions with no answer key, but to select their test questions from the pool of study questions.

The best part of the semester was when we took a snorkeling field trip to the Florida Keys Marine Lab in early November. We spent all day on the boat, visiting some shallow nearshore habitats, and a nearly-pristine offshore reef with water as clear as the sky. A photography student, Samantha Oliver, came with us and took a lot of cool pictures:

Current Topics: Seagrass Ecology- The other two classes I taught were short “discussion” courses, where the students had to read a scientific paper about seagrass each week and then we would talk about it. One of the two classes was a graduate course with two students, and the other was an undergraduate course with 18 students. The grad student course pretty much taught itself, but I kind of struggled to get some of the undergraduates motivated. In the undergrads’ defense, they hadn’t known what the course was going to be about when they registered because it was just listed as “Current Topics: Biology, Instructor: Staff” and they assigned me to it at the last minute. If that happens again I’ll be loose with the topic and not try to stick with just seagrass.

Besides the courses I taught, I also sat in on a rigorous computer mapping (GIS) class taught by another professor in the Marine and Ecological Sciences department. That was to better qualify myself for research funding in the form of government contracts for seagrass monitoring. Environmental monitoring contracts typically require maps and spatially-explicit data analyses among their “deliverables.” It was good that I took the class, because I now have a grant now to do a year’s worth of seagrass monitoring in the Caloosahatchee River Estuary, and I’ve recruited some of the hotshot snorkelers from my Marine Ecology class to help with that. The project is related to something called the “Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan,” which aims to improve the health of estuaries and wetlands by restoring more natural patterns of freshwater flow from central Florida to the everglades.

There’s a lot more that happened in my first semester, too, but I don’t want to go on and on about it in my blog. My strategy for blogging this year will be to have more frequent but shorter / sloppier posts about whatever is on my mind at the moment.

Happy New Year.

Inlet to Inlet Race Report

**Note: Since I originally posted this, Ron has put a great summary of the race up on his website, including official results, stories, and a photo album- http://www.i-to-i.org/**

Woo hoo! I finished Ron Kern's annual "Inlet to Inlet" windsurfing race in Fort Lauderdale.

Ron explains the race to some of the windsurfing and kiteboarding competitors.

This is my GPS track. It was a 24.5 mile round trip. The second picture is a close-up of the southern part of the course. 

The wind was 15-20 knots side-onshore from the East-Northeast, which made for rough water and intimidating shorebreak. (See what happened when a catamaran tried to launch.) Fortunately, all the windsurfers who showed up made it out successfully.

I rode my Starboard Formula 135 with a 58 cm fin, and I played it safe with the sail choice, rigging a "small" 8.0 sail- an Aerotech Freespeed. The previous day I had tried my 9.5 Ezzy Cheetah in similar conditions at the race site and found it doable, but more tiring. Since my goal was to finish the race without crashing or running out of stamina, 8.0 was the right choice. The only thing awkward about it was that my boom was too long, leaving some bare line between the clew grommet and the clew. Oh, well.

My setup-

Compared to 2008 I improved one notch in the standings, getting 3rd place. My 1:35 time was a lot better than my previous 2:43, thanks to a favorable wind direction requiring just one tack, and thanks to riding a Formula board instead of the Kona ONE. (There were four Kona ONE competitors in the race this year, and I think they all finished. Their course was a little shorter than ours. The Port Everglades Buoy was the downwind mark for everyone, but the Kona boards had an upwind mark a few miles closer than the Hillsborough Inlet Buoy.)

Though I was satisfied with my own time, I was way behind Ron Kern and kite racer Zack, who finished in 1:10 and 1:13, respectively. Ron was on his 9.5 Neil Pryde sail and Mike's Lab formula board with a 64 cm Ifju fin. Zack was riding a custom 70 cm wide tri-fin directional kite-race board with 42 cm side fins and 38 cm back fin. Initially I thought Zack had won the race, because he was leading on the way to the Port Everglades Buoy. But Zack said Ron passed him on the upwind leg and was untouchable after that. Both the leaders were real gentlemen who were good sports about the competition.

My video for the event didn't turn out as great as I was hoping because the !@#$ camera fogged up. If you want to see the schools of soaring flying fishes, the deep blue water, and the giant sea turtles that I saw out there you'll just have to do the race yourself next year.

Inlet to Inlet Windsurf Race, 2012 from James Douglass on Vimeo.

After the race, Ron and Sue Kern hosted a nice "debriefing"  at their beautiful house. There were tons of prizes and beverages donated by the race sponsors:

Adventure Sports / Neil Pryde / JP

Liquid Surf and Sail

Sandy Point Progressive Sports / Aerotech / Exocet

iWindsurf

I left with a purple ladies waist harness for Rhonda, plus a downhaul tool, uphaul, and rashguard for myself. Thanks! :)