Woot! We finally had a big wind day in Massachusetts this summer, with 20 knots from the Southwest at Nahant. I got out after work and was joined by Scott from Michigan. I've never met anyone from Michigan who wasn't a delightful and genuine person, and Scott continues that streak. He sailed a 6.5 Sailworks Retro on a 108 liter RRD freeride board, and I sailed a 5.5 Aerotech Charge on a 106 liter Exocet Cross. I used a 22 cm weed-wave fin at first, but when I realized that the waves were mostly too small to ride I switched to a 32 cm MUfin "No Spin" to have better trim for flat water blasting and racing Scott.
I shot some boom-mounted GoPro camera video and edited it up with a Lou Reed song.
Nahant Waveless 7-17-12 from James Douglass on Vimeo.
Looking at the video, I notice my regular jibes are pretty good, but my duck jibes need work to be able to exit with speed.
Saturday 11 23 24 morning call
20 hours ago
7 comments:
Say hello to Scott from his MI friends. We lost him to MA for a year.
Doesn't look like anything wrong with the exit speed of the duck at 1:07. A friend of mine claims it is way easier to come out of a jibe with power and speed using a duck. I just got my first consistent ones last weekend - on Saturday we had stupendous wind, it blew about 35 knots uber steady for 4 hours (I was on a 4.0 that whole time) at Nitinat. Like the Gorge but with steadier wind and clean water! Best day ever there for everyone. Wish I'd remembered my GoPro!
Morley
Brian- Ha! Will do.
Morley- I've heard the legend of Nitinat. It's a glacier-carved brackish-fjord lake on Vancouver Island, right? Looks like an epic place to sail.
Yep, spot on the geology and marine ecology! The top is brackish, starting about 30 ft down its anoxic; every few years it has a gas burp - kills fish, but so far no humans. The amazing summer winds are driven by a strong thermal cline inland - it is often 15 degrees C at the coast in fog, while inland will be sunny and hot in the 30s (60-90s in US speak). Add a system pressure gradient and you can have the 30 plus knots for days in a row; but the wind is steady and smooth like silk. A little toned down compared to the Gorge or the southern Oregon coast though.
Dear Mr. Douglas,
Since I am not a scientist and only vaguely familiar with the laws of causality, I'm going to go ahead and blame the lack of wind on the East Coast on your lack of Windsurfing Blog Posts.
-Baron JSW225
HI JIM,
LOVE THE BLOG, I JUST BOUGHT A PHANTOM 377, AND I NEED SOME TRAVEL ADVICE. I WILL PICK THE BOARD UP AT MIAMI AND NEED TO BRING IT TO CANCUN. AMERICAN AIRLINES SAY THAT THE LONGEST THEY CAN ALLOW AS BAGGAGE IS 320 CM, DO YOU TJINK I CAN JUST WING IT AND FIGURE IT OUT AT THE COUNTER? THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
Kisin- I'd say pack it REALLY well, bring it to the counter VERY early, and be as nice and charming as you can possibly be to the counter attendant. If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to sail it to Cancun. :)
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