Windsurfing nirvana. That's what Bart said after sailing in Duxbury Bay for the first time. His words, not mine. He continued to write "I wish I had known/sailed this place before". Alex, who also sailed in Duxbury Bay for the first time yesterday, wrote "Gene and I both had an absolute blast".
Ok, I liked it too. No big surprise for me, since I have had many great sessions in Duxbury. But before you all get excited, let me put things into perspective. Check my GPS tracks from yesterday:
Did you notice that runs are 3 miles (almost 5 kilometers) long? Most windsurfers I know would die of boredom halfway through the run. So sue me, but my idea of fun is a bit different. Maybe I had a good reason to like the long runs. I was aiming to get a good 1-hour average speed for the GPS Team Challenge. My jibes are currently a bit broken - not wet, but rarely planed through. So I needed long runs with few jibes to get a good average. If came out reasonably well - 20.78 knots, a new personal best. For me, that's fast.
But Dean also showed up. He has the annoying habit of sailing 3-5 knots faster than I do, even if we are on very similar gear. He set a new personal best for the hour, to, at 23.1 knots. But that's great - at least for a little while, the Fogland Speedsurfers have the #1 ranking in the 1 hour category for the month. Only 23 teams have posted sessions so far, and we will probably slide down a few spots before the end of the month, but for now it's great.
Another thing that can be great in Duxbury Bay is that the outer sandbar minimizes the chop. In the area where we were sailing, the chop ranged from a few inches to a foot or so, and it was quite orderly. Here's a short movie just to show the conditions:
I was on a 6.0 m sail and a 96 l board. I later switched to my 90 l slalom board to go a bit faster.A lot of windsurfers I know probably fell asleep trying to watch the video - no waves, not even decent chop. What can I say - Duxbury Bay is for flat water lovers! Well, at least the part closer to the outer sandbar is, when the wind is NE-ENE. The one time that I ventured closer to the main land, about a mile away from the sandbar, I found some sizable chop that could compare to Kalmus on a typical SW day. There's even a launch there, close to the harbor, for those who love chop. But I like my water flat.
If you also like flat water and consider checking out Duxbury, let me give you a few warnings. The "nirvana" conditions that we had yesterday happen only if the wind direction is just right, between NE and ENE (it was 50-55ยบ yesterday). In NNE wind, the bay on the south side of Powder Point Bridge can be much less pleasant. Then, the bridge throws a surprisingly long wind shadow, so you'd have to sail away from it. And while the chop lines up nicely parallel to a beam reaches in NE-ENE, you will head straight into it in N-NE wind directions. We're talking about short, steep chop here - no fun at all!
So in more northerly wind directions, the smaller part of the bay on the north side of the bridge is better for sailing. But for the north side, you really need to watch the tide levels. At water levels below 4 feet, many parts of the northern bay are too shallow for windsurfing. I proved that repeatedly by running aground at full speed a few years ago; fortunately, the only thing that broke was a boom. Even at intermediate tides, the marsh islands stick out of the water and disturb the wind, making it quite gusty. Later, near high tide, the same islands are fully covered by water, which can make normal fins dangerous. But freestylers with mini-fins and kiters love it. Finally, when the high tide goes down, the current can get strong - I and others have been swept under the bridge when falling close to it, and the wind near the bridge was not strong enough to waterstart. Not a big problem with a windsurfer, but kites can get stuck. Also, as we get later into the fall, the outgoing tide will flush out a lot of dead reads, which can stop you dead in your tracks even with a weed fin. That gets better towards low tide, but keep in mind that most of Duxbury Bay can become unsailable if the tide drops to very low levels. The nominal water depth even on the south side is often just 1-2 feet, and spring tides (near full or new moon) can drop the water level to -2 feet.
But when the conditions are just right, the northern part of the bay can be a lot of fun in N-NNE wind. Here are some GPS tracks from last Thursday:
The windiest day of the 4-day nor'easter was last Friday, but we decided to stay inside - too much rain! Our bodies also wanted a little break before two more days of sailing. On Saturday, we went to Orleans for a speed session with Dean, Alex, and Gene. The wind was a bit lighter and gustier than expected, but still fun on 4.2-6.2 m sails. The 6.2 was Dean's sail, who set a new personal best for the spot with 35.94 knots. In most months, we count our rankings by how far away from the bottom we are - 5th from the bottom counts as a good result. But together with yesterday's numbers, the Saturday session put us into the top half of the monthly ranking (9th of 23 teams). Four different team members contributed - Dean, Al, Bart, and Peter. Great to see three of the fast guys on the team sailing at the same time! For the rest of the month, I plan ignore the GPS TC rankings, since we'll only get pushed down as the other teams get good conditions. Unless, of course, we get another nor'easter - I bet that Dean and Bart can improve their nautical mile numbers for the month by a few knots!
