Ok, I admit it: I'm addicted. Just back from 6 weeks in Maui, where I sailed a total of 37 days, mostly on a 77l board with a 4.5, I just could not stop myself from going windsurfing in Duxbury today.
Temperatures were just below 70, and it was raining hard. What made it really seem like fall, though, was the wind direction: east, later turning to northeast. That's what we typically get in October or November - but from what I have heard, the summer here in the Northeast was stinky, anyway, with the typical SW winds mostly being absent. So maybe the early arrival of fall winds is a good thing...
I arrived when the wind had just dropped from 28 to 23 mph, and the water looked incredibly flat. Since Nina was not yet ready to brave the rain and cold, I had not brought the trailer, and only stuffed the 117 slalom board into the car. With barely a white cap in sight, I rigged the 7.0, which got me planing nicely. Oh how sweet it was to be on flat water again! The outboard footstraps, however, felt funny, and I just could not get comfortable with the front straps. And then there was the needle-like pain from the horizontally flying rain drops which was just a tad distracting...
The wind picked up steadily, and the 7.0 sail was starting to feel a bit big when the gusts approached the mid-30s. Funny how flat water works - in similar wind on Maui, the 4.5 would have felt big, and there's no way I would have been out on a 71 cm wide slalom board. The fog got a bit denser, too, and I was still the only one out on the water, so I called it a day. Putting things away in 30-mile winds and rain made me really appreciate the hot shower when I got home later!
Well, I got my fix for the day. I really missed the flat water! I did not get any good speed today, but I'll blame the rain for slowing me down:) Did not matter, anyway, since nobody else from our speedsurfing team was out, and we need at least 2 sailors out for the results to count.
AWSI 2024
3 months ago