Three New Tricks

Being part of a windsurfing couple has many advantages. One is that you can claim more new tricks! We sailed Duxbury yesterday, north of Powder Point Bridge. Here's a view from Dani's drone:

Nothing exciting wind-wise - mostly below 20. Still fun with 7.6-8.5 for me, 6.6 for Dani, and 5.3 for Nina. After missing a cold and rainy day with 30 mph winds earlier this week, Dean also showed up and rigged a 7.6, was was mostly underpowered on his tiny itsy-bitsy fins. Sabah showed up later after work, when the wind was going down already.

I took the presence of several other Fogland Speedsurfers as a valid excuse to revert to my old lawn-moving ways. Plenty of fun on the flat water, with top speeds near 26 knots in 18 knot wind, gusting to 20. Sailed about 120 km before the wind died.

Nina used the perfectly flat water behind the grass islands for freestyle. She completed two new tricks - her first Reverse Duck Jibe (also called Early-Throw Switch Duck Jibe), and her first Carve 360. Nice! The Reverse Duck Jibe was a result of working on the Duck Tack for many days. This time, when the sail came up too much towards the nose of the board, she decided to make it a jibe. The girl rocks.

Today was longboard racing practice in Duxbury in 8-14 mph wind. Dani proved unbeatable today. He used a 7.3 m freerace sail instead of his 7.5 m KA race/speed sail, which was a much better match to his Phantom 320. He also found a mast track position that worked much better for him, and started railing the board more. With all those adjustments, he finished every race in first place, usually with a large margin. Nice!

One of the things I worked on in all racing was railing the board on the upwind legs. So when we stopped racing because the water levels dropped, I just had to grab the Kona Mahalo and try some rail rides. That move already existed when I learned windsurfing more than 3 decades ago. I always wanted to do it, and even tried on various occasions without success. But today, having plenty of power in the 7.5 helped, and I actually got both feet on the rail for the first time! It was not nearly as tippy as I had imagined, and I actually sailed on the rail for a few seconds. The board, however, found this boring, rounded up, and belly-flopped, throwing me into the water. Who cares? I came up with a big smile - I know believe that I will get rail rides (with a dry exit) soon!

After two days with lots of windsurfing, I could use a break. If you believe the iWindsurf forecaster, I'll get one tomorrow. But computer models predict SW wind up to 14 mph, and it will be sunny and warm. Chances are good that we'll get a sea breeze around 20. Sunny, warm, windy - what are the chances that we'll stay home?