Light wind day

The second day of the ABK clinic in Hatteras once again had plenty of sun and warm water. The wind was light today, so there was a lot of backwind sailing, heli tacks, and upwind 360s to be seen - and a lot of improvement over the course of the day. Nina worked on some fin-first upwind 360s, duck tacks, and a few more things Andy suggested. I learned the clew-first upwind 360, which took me a couple of hours, spread over the morning and afternoon sessions. The initial tries where quite frustrating - slicing the sail forward clew-first, and then controlling pressure to turn again, was not exactly easy. But having light side-off wind with really flat water definitely helped, and I eventually got the trick. The clew-first heli tack, which is just the first half of the trick, came as a "free" bonus from learning the 360. Afterwards, I played a bit with the duck tack / switch duck jibe. My initial attempts were rather sad, even though I had gotten a few duck tacks in January in Bonaire - but that was on a huge board, and today, I was sailing my Skate 110. When Andy demonstrated the trick for me, it (of course) looked easy and elegant - but he explained a few key points, and I did make some progress afterwards. While I did not complete a duck tack today, another light wind day might be enough.

For the next two days, however, high wind stuff is on the schedule - the wind forecast calls for averages between 25 and 34 mph for tomorrow and Thursday. There may be some thunderstorms tomorrow, and probably a lot of rain, but Thursday should be sunny and windy :)