Slush!

This is what Kalmus looked like yesterday morning:

But it was windy! SSW wind mid-20s! That's my favorite wind strength, and the best direction! And it was low tide around noon - a perfect setup!

There was open water to be seen, but I'm not sure that getting through the ice and slush would have been possible. West Dennis tends to ice over less, but a kiter reported that getting out there was impossible. But we were lucky: just 1/2 mile down the road, at Sea Street Beach, the unfrozen water almost reached shore. Definitely sailable!

Three of us made it out onto the water at around 1 pm: Martin, Bill from Craigsville, and I. Martin's addiction is definitely worse than mine: he had to drive almost two hours to get here, and then went sailing in thin 3 mm boots. My toes got cold just looking at his feet - and they were nicely protected in 7 mm boots, with hydroskin socks for extra warmth. He did not mind, though. He later said the numbness went away after the first break (enforced by a broken harness line).

I must admit that all that snow and slush made me a bit cautious. I figured this was a great day to see how the Ianovated wetsuit works with regular Dakine mittens, instead of the open-palm mitts that I normally use. I have used the open-palm mitts in similar temperatures, but I usually need to take a short break after a few runs to shake the blood back down into my fingers, and let them warm up. Yesterday, however, walking through the slush to take a short break did not sound too appealing.

I know several windsurfers who use Dakine mittens for winter windsurfing without any problems. They have a thin, grippy inner layer that feels more like leather than like neoprene. It offers less insulation, but a better grips, and therefore causes less forearm fatigue. When I used the Dakine mittens, though, my fingers got way too cold, probably due to my Raynaud's disease (even though I have a only mild form of it). That was before I had the Ianovated suit, though - blowing warm air onto my fingers while sailing might just do the trick and keep my fingers nice and warm!

That's exactly what happened. My fingers did get cold just from gripping the boom, but warmed up quickly again when I used the warming tubes for a little while. I was able to sail without having to stop to warm up my hands - nice! I used the warming tubes mostly at the beginning and after crashes, when a little water got into the mittens. The session was about three hours long, although that included one break to switch boards, and a second break when Bill stopped and Martin went in to change his broken harness line. Towards the end, my forearms did get tired - definitely more than they would have with open palm mitts. Still, a three-hours session with 54 km sailed on a cloudy day in January is a wonderful thing! As usual in SSW winds and near low tide, Kalmus presented a wonderful playground, with orderly swell that was big and steep enough to play with, and created flat areas in between for little speed runs. I'll rate yesterdays session a straight A, which puts it in the top 5% of the sessions in the last 12 months. Here's a little GoPro video:

Gear to stay warm

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a swim in Nantucket Sound. Ok, I admit that I tried to stay on the windsurf board, but I was not always successful. I'll assign some of the blame to the strong wind:

The forecast had predicted only 28 mph, with a pronounced drop after 1 pm, so I started (somewhat) early, shortly past 10 am. The wind looked perfect for a 5.0 wave sail at Kalmus, and I had a bit of fun. Fortunately, the snow shower that had surprised me while rigging was short-lived, and gave way to sunshine later. With the sun came more wind, and the 5 square meters became a bit much. The incoming tide and strong winds made for some growing chop, disorganized as usual in Kalmus. Having to go in anyway to rig a smaller sail, I decided to hop into the van and switch to the flat waters in Hyannis Port Harbor: the Kennedy Slicks, one mile to the west.

The initial plan was to go for speed, so I rigged my 5.0 speed sail and took my 90 l slalom board for a spin. Or perhaps it was the other way round... As much as I love the Kennedy Slicks, the wind does get a bit gusty near shore. Trying to get into the back footstrap with my 7 mm booties ended up as split practice - a failure by other means, since I neither got into the straps, nor did I do a split. Instead, I got an ice cream headache from the cold water. Fortunately, pulling the head out of the water helped.

I gave it a few tries and eventually got into both straps, but never felt comfortable. I started hearing little voices inside my head - "do you really think it's a good idea to sail out here alone, out of control, in almost freezing water, 35 knot winds, 20ºF wind chill?". Where ever that voice came from, I agreed that the out-of-control part perhaps was overdoing it. So I switched to my trusted Tabou 3S 96, with its nice, big, center-mounted footstraps that I could get into in my sleep, wearing ski boots (to answer the inevitable question: no, I have not tried that yet). That did the trick - I was finally having some fun, doing little speed runs on the perfectly flat water next to the stone pier. Here's a little video that shows the conditions at Kalmus and the Kennedy Slicks yesterday:
Overall, I was out for almost three hours, although that includes switching spots and a bunch of short breaks. I was perfectly warm the entire time, despite air and water temperatures just above freezing, and strong winds. There were two critical things that made that possible: my Ianovated double nylon suit, and my Xcel surf hood. Both deserve a closer look.

The double nylon Ianovated suit

Regular readers of this blog will know that I love my Ianovated wetsuit that I bought in 2012. The tube warming system is pure genius, and allows me to sail with open-palm mittens all winter long. When I bought the original suit, I got the one that had a smooth outer surface, rather than the "double nylon" suit that has a fabric-like outer surface. My rationale was that the smooth outer skin eliminates evaporative cooling, and thus would be warmer. However, my lovely wife tried and immediately bought the double-nylon version of the same suit, and was plenty warm in it all winter long. So when Ianovated came out with a "two zipper suit" that included a relief zipper, this middle-aged male got himself a double-nylon, double-zipper suit. What could be more fun than looong winter sessions?

But until yesterday, I had worn the double-nylon suit only on relatively warm days; air temperatures often were near 50ºF (10ºC). Even on these warm days, I noticed that the arms and legs got a little chilly when I was standing around during breaks; in contrast, the smooth skin suit was perfectly warm even in breaks. I was a bit skeptical about how warm the double-nylon suit would be in cold conditions. Yesterday was the perfect test day - air temperatures of 34ºF (1ºC), water about the same, clouds initially and intermittently, and 35 knots, for a wind chill of 20ºF (-7ºC). I wore a short-sleeved thin neoprene shirt and neoprene bike shorts underneath, as I always do when it gets cold.

I wore the suit for almost 5 hours, which includes the drive to the beach; rigging during a snow shower; the first 40 minute bump and jump session at Kalmus; de-rigging, driving to the Kennedy Slicks, and re-rigging; about 2 hours windsurfing with frequent breaks at the Kennedy Slicks; and the final de-rigging and drive back home. I was perfectly warm the entire time. The water was cold enough to give me brief ice cream headaches a couple of times after crashes. I wore open palm mittens the entire time, and needed a couple of breaks at the beginning of the first session to shake the blood back down into my hands. After that, my hands were fine, and I used the warming tubes only occasionally, mostly after crashes. So the double-nylon suit is definitely warm enough for winter sailing.

The Xcel surf hood

The second piece of "winter equipment" that impressed me yesterday was the "Surf Hood with Bill and Neck Dam" from Xcel Wetsuits. Until recently, the hoods I had used where the ones that the local windsurf stores had in stock. The warmest of these was a 3 mm "Coldwater Hood" from O'Neill. That one kept me warm, but it always felt very tight and restrictive. The Xcel hood is made from thinner (2 mm) "superstretch" material, and is much more comfortable. But the really great feature about the Xcel drylock hood is the "double flap neck dam".  The neck has two pieces of neoprene over each other - one goes inside the wetsuit, the other one on top. That creates a perfectly waterproof seal. It works beautifully with the Ianovated suit, which has a relatively loose (and comfortable) neck. Whenever I wore a regular cap, some water would get in at the neck during crashes. No big deal, since the suit is a wetsuit, and the water warms very quickly. But still, I definitely preferred have absolutely no water entry with the Xcel drylock hood. Despite the thinner neoprene, it was warm enough yesterday, so I highly doubt that I will ever sail when the hood does not feel warm.

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Today was a few degrees warmer than yesterday, and it was windy in the morning, so I just had to be greedy and try to get one more session in. As often before, my greed got punished. I ended up playing the rigging game: wind 19, rig 6.5, wind increases to 30; optimist thinks it will stay there (as it did yesterday), de-rigs 6.5, rigs 5.0, goes out, too small. Carry the 5.0 back, rig the 6.5 once again, the wind sees me and drops even more. Overall, I ended up with maybe 4 planing runs in 30 minutes on the water, and 45 minutes rigging. But it was still great to be out!
The lovely Nina, who had joined me today, picked a more sensible strategy, and was planing most of the time today on her 4.7. As long as at least one of us has a good day on the water, we'll call it a win.

Thanks, Iain

It's Thanksgiving, and there are many people and things that I am thankful about. But I'll dedicate this to the man who made the picture above possible: Iain Smith, the inventor of the Ianovated wetsuit.

That's me in the picture above, getting ready to windsurf in Wellfleet Harbor earlier today. It was a lovely and sunny day, but air temperatures had dropped from mid-50s yesterday to 34ºF (1ºC) today. Wind meter readings were around 30 mph WNW - too good to not go windsurfing! Even last year, I probably would have stayed at home. Yes, I have sailed in similar temperatures before, but it's usually a gradual process - as it gets later in the year, we slowly get used to the lower temperatures.

Enter Iain. He is a dedicated British windsurfer who did not want to stop sailing in the winter, when the best winds come. Like many of us, Iain experimented with all kinds of gloves and mittens to keep his hands warm. He experienced the usual trade-offs: if gloves are warm enough to keep your hands comfortable, they will make your forearms very tired very quickly, cutting sessions short. But unlike most other cold-weather windsurfers, Iain has a "cold weather handicap" - Raynaud's disease. Wikipedia describes this as "excessively reduced blood flow in response to cold" - in other words, your hands get much colder, much faster.

But Iain did not give up. He experimented until he found a solution that works: a system to blow warm air onto your hands while you are windsurfing. In hindsight, it seems simple enough: blow into tubes through a snorkel mouthpiece; run the tubes through the inside of the suit to keep the air warm; and finally have the tubes emerge into mittens. After proving the concept, Iain then formed a company to manufacture and market the suit.

As many great inventions, the suit was met with a lot of skepticism and ridicule. On every windsurf forum where Iain posted about the suit, the vast majority of responses explained in lots of detail why such a system could never ever work (I have seen such posts on British, German, Polish, and US forums). But on each forum, there would also be a few windsurfers who tried it out, and reported back that the "tube suit" worked not just well, but amazingly well. I got one of the Ianovated suits last winter, and it kept amazing me  for many sessions in a row, even after I knew that it worked well. My lovely wife, who had no intentions of buying a new wetsuit, tried the Ianovated suit once, and bought it right away. We sailed through the winter using open-palm mitts, even when the water temperature was close to freezing (we did, however, only sailed on days where the air temperature was above, or at least close to, the freezing point).

Many of my windsurfing friends have told me that they stop sailing because their hands get too cold. So after trying and loving the Ianovated suit, I hoped that I might be able to get some of my friends to try it, and also enjoy some of the best windsurfing of the year - cold weather windsurfing. Yesterday, I was very happy to see two friends try their new Ianovated suits for the first time. Not surprisingly, they (a) were surprised how well the hand warming system works, and (b) loved the suit.  Today, my suit gave me the confidence to go out after a 22-degree temperature drop in 24 hours. As expected, it kept me nice and warm the entire time, and I had a blast windsurfing on a beautiful sunny, if chilly, day. So once again: thank you, Iain!

Below are a couple of pictures that my lovely wife took, and a short video from one of the runs today.

Plenty of wind

We got plenty of wind today - averages up to 42 mph, with gusts just below 50. We also got a lot of rain, but the wind was too good to not go windsurfing. After a few days with temperatures below freezing, today was outright warm, with air temperatures around 55ºF (13ºC).

With winds this strong, my first thought is to go for speed. The timing and wind direction were not quite right for Sandy Point, so I thought - why not try speedsurfing on Bass River, just behind West Dennis? Well, the GPS tracks show that this did not quite work out as planned:

The hoped-for speed track is the top right of the image. Dean, who started sailing just as we arrived, quickly reported that the wind there was way too gusty - "0 to 50 mph in a couple of seconds". That seemed hard to believe - we had checked out the spot the day before, and the obstructions (some small trees and shrubs) had seemed too far away to have a big effect. So I rigged my 5.0 m speed sail, grabbed my 90 l slalom board, and went to confirm Dean's findings. Bummer- he was right! Close to shore, were we had hoped to sail, the water was flat, but gusts were extreme. I never saw Dean fight for control so hard - and we are talking about a guy who'll sail a 6.2 m slalom sail in 30+ mph winds and big chop for hours. He's a much better slalom sailor than I am, so you can imagine how far away I was from any kind of control. Here's a picture that illustrates this:

Note that I was on perfectly flat water, simply trying to go straight - but the board is out of the water as if I was going for a new school freestyle trick. It was just a big gust hitting me...

I quickly decided that this was not a speed day for me, and walked back to rig a smaller sail and get my "comfort" board, the 3S 96. That took a while, but I eventually made it out and sailed in front of the parking lot, where Jerry was having a blast, throwing plenty duck jibes and speed loops. He inspired Nina to also go for duck jibes in the 40 mph winds - and she got at least one after just a few tries.

I had rigged down to a 4.5 m wave sail, which turned out to be a bit too big for my taste. Funny, though - Jerry, who weight about 40 pounds less than I do, was perfectly fine on a 4.2 the entire time! I added some downhaul, which made life a bit easier, but the real fun started when Nina called it a day, and I got to use the 3.7 she had rigged. Full power on 3.7 - that's something I see maybe twice a year!

Our friend Jonathen had picked today as his first day of cold weather windsurfing. While the air felt warm to us, it probably was 10 degrees warmer when he sailed the last time, several weeks ago. The water had definitely cooled off; the Nantucket sound buoy still gave readings around 45ºF, but it felt a few degrees colder than that. But Jon did not want to miss a 40 mph day, and he had his new Ianovated suit to try! So out he went, in what probably was the strongest wind, and definitely the coldest water temperature, he has ever windsurfed on. When he tried the tubes to warm his hands, a look of amazement came onto his face - "It really works". Nevertheless, the first few falls into the cold water came a bit as a shock to him. His session ended up being on the short side - but he stayed perfectly warm the entire time. He even sat around for quite a while in his suit to chat with Nina at the end of his session.

Just as everyone was getting ready to call it a day, Gary pulled into the parking lot. I decided to keep him company on the water for a while, and switched harness lines while he rigged. That involved de-rigging my 4.5 m sail, and taking two booms apart, so it kept me busy for a while. By the time we both were ready, the wind had dropped, and the 3.7s ended up a bit too small, so I called it a day after a few runs. Unlike Jonathen, Gary had sailed in cold weather a number of times before; but just like Jonathen, this was the first time he used an Ianovated suit. And just like Jon, he was amazed to discover how well the tubes work for warming your hands. It is pretty amusing to see these expressions of amazement. Even if have heard great things about the tube suit, and your mind believes that it will work, it is still astonishing when you feel it the first time. For me, this astonishment lasted for an entire winter season... but I am a slow learner :-)

In the end, it was a great day to be windsurfing, even though my hopes for a new speed strip did not pan out. It was nice to see a sizable group of windsurfers on the water on a rainy day at the end of November. I love sailing with windsurfers that sail better than I do, and today, there were two guys and one gal out there in this category. I also love that in our group of 6 windsurfers, a full two-thirds showed up in Ianovated suits. There's a lot more fun cold weather windsurfing ahead of us!

Warm in the cold

Overcast skies. Persistent drizzle. Temperatures in the low 40s (7ºC). I think fall has arrived!

In fall, we windsurf a lot. It was Sunday today, and windy, so we windsurfed. Driving to Duxbury through the rain and cold, I wondered if staying in front of the fireplace might not have been a better idea. I should have had more faith!

Duxbury looked good - not super-windy, but meter readings were around 25. Nina sailed her 4.5 in her semi-dry, no gloves, no hood. I wanted to be warm, so I used my tube suit (with the tubes), open palm mitts, and my new Gath visor helmet. Almost overkill - the water was still warm. So was I. Nina had to take a break after a few minutes to warm up her hands. I just blew through the tubes a few times. I like toasty hands a lot.

Sailing was interesting. Lots of kiters were in the bay, which is unusual. One of them explained to me that it was due to the very high tide - they sailed straight through the marsh, which apparently is a lot of fun. Not a thing to do on a windsurfer, though, so we stayed on the open water.

We had a nice obstacle course laid out for us. The high tide flushed out the dead reeds. Single stalks, up to 2-3 feet long, were not a big issue for our weed fins - unless you collected them before you had picked up speed. But apparently, dead reeds love company, and often form what I call "reed islands" that can be 6-8 feet across. Running into one of those at speed will slow you down big time, even with weed fins. I tried, just to confirm my suspicion. Confirmed. I was not going really fast, though, so no catapult.

Going around the reed islands was definitely a better idea. With the clouds and light drizzle, you'd typically have about 2 seconds from first seeing to hitting them, unless you changed course quickly. Fun. Maybe too much fun - I went back to the van and got my 21 cm MUF Delta fin. With a 55 degree rake angle and shallow depth, this fin sheds just about anything. Sailing was a lot more relaxed afterwards. Hitting a reed island would still cause a slowdown, but without any catapult danger.

The van still had all the small gear that we had put in recently for 35+ mph winds, so I sailed my 90 l slalom board - the big board stayed at home. So when the wind dropped a bit, I had a hard time to get planing. I did not really like schlogging the small board, so I kept the session short - barely longer than an hour. By then, the tide had started to go down, and the kite surfers went over to the ocean side.

So it was just a short session in light rain - but it was totally worth it. It reminded me that it is easy to stay perfectly comfortable and warm even when it gets colder outside and when the sun does not shine. Some of my windsurfing friends have started to get picky about the days they sail, sticking to the warmer days only. They don't have the right suits! I can't wait until Jon finally gets a few days off again so he can try his Ianovated suit. I really want to see the amazement in his face!

Tomorrow, I should get my second Ianovated suit. This one will be double nylon, and have a pee zipper - what a wonderful invention for older guys who like long windsurfing sessions! Since I'll have two Ianovated suits then, I'll be glad to let anyone try one of them. You just have to let me know, and come sail somewhere on Cape Cod!

Winter freestyle

It was sunny, windy, and relatively warm today (41º F, 5º C), so we just had to windsurfing. Nina finally had a good session again, sailing her 90 l Skate / 4.5 m Manic combo. With a very low tide at Kalmus, the water was shallow and flat, perfect for her to practice some freestyle - duck jibes, push tacks, and even a Flaka attempt thrown in. For once, we were not the only windsurfers on the water - someone else joined us. I did not get a chance to chat with him, but we had a couple of fun little drag races.

Even though Nina planed most of the time on her 4.5, we missed the best wind in the morning, and my 5.5 was large enough only for a few runs at the start of the session. I later switched to a 7.0 and practiced finding lanes between waves for speed. No great speeds were to be had, but I'm happy with a top speed that was 20% faster than the highest gusts. We got decent hours and distance numbers, and managed to improve our ranking on the GPS Team Challenge by a couple of spots - nice not to be second-to-last :-)

We both were in our Ianovated suits today, which kept us rather warm. Nina did not use the tubes, except for a minute at the start; I used them a few times at the start and after swims. Nina said she probably could have sailed without her open palm mitts today - what a difference the sun (and a bit of practice in cold weather windsurfing) makes! Although I'm sure that the suit also helped by keeping us very warm. As much as I liked my baggy dry suit, I have to say that I like the warm wetsuit better now, and not just because of the hand warming system. Of course, it helps a lot to have a van to change in - the Nissan NV high roof van was definitely a great investments.

2013 continues to rock, with 3 sessions in the first 8 days, and the next session on the horizon on Thursday: W winds in the mid-20s, sun, low 40s - see you in Skaket for a morning session!

She likes it, too!

We had a bit of snow on the ground this morning, but wind meter readings around 30 - what better day to test the Ianovated wetsuit again! We drove to Indian Neck Beach in Wellfleet Harbor in the morning. It's a beautiful area of Cape Cod. This little iPhone snapshot may give you an idea, although it certainly does not do the place justice:

The first time we had sailed there was about a year ago, also in near-freezing temperatures. Back then, I used cutout gloves plus mitten shells plus re-usable handwarmers to keep my fingers warm; Nina had used mittens and the handwarmers. Today, both of us went out with just open-palm mittens, and Ianovated wetsuits. Sail sizes for the day were 4.5 and 5.5.

Once again, the "tube suit" worked beautifully. Both of us stayed nicely warm, and we sailed for almost two hours.  I used the tubes a lot in the first few runs, and felt comfortable enough to go for a 5-mile roundtrip to the other side. That ended up being a small mistake - due to a few areas of wind shadows, it took me almost 20 minutes, and my fingertips ended up getting a bit too cold. As I have mentioned before, my fingers tend to get cold very quickly, and my doctor believes that I have Raynaud's disease. I needed to take a break on shore and shake the blood back into my hands, which hurt a bit - I definitely should have done this earlier. After that, my hands were fine for the rest of the session, and the only time I used the tubes was when my hands had gotten wet after bad jibes.

Nina, who has more "normal" hands, used the tubes only at the beginning, and her hands stayed toasty for the whole session afterwards. This is probably what most windsurfers who test the suit will experience. I'd love to test this theory by letting others try my wetsuit, but I have one little problem with it: I really do not want to go back to my older semidry and drysuits that do not have tubes! And Nina has similar thoughts about the size medium suit that was intended for testing...

Well, after two hours of windsurfing on a sunny day and lots of fun, I'm happy. I am still amazed how well the Ianovated wetsuit works - for the most part, it simply makes the cold disappear. I admit to sailing a tad defensively today, but we are already talking about a wave session on Sunday. Not sure if it will happen - Nina's cold has to get better, the snow/rain has to stop in the morning as the forecast predicts, and the wind has to come in as predicted. But even a couple of months ago, we would have not even considered going out for a wave session when temperatures are just above freezing. What a difference a suit makes!
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My apologies for sounding like one big commercial, but even though we have sailed through a couple of winters here, I never thought that winter windsurfing could be so much fun. 

No more cold hands: Ianovated wetsuit review

Keeping the hands warm in cold weather windsurfing is the critical issue for most windsurfers. Many of my friends who stop windsurfing sometime between October and December mention cold hands as the primary or even only reason (most of them have dry suits or very warm wetsuits). On the "Eastern and central USA" section of the iWindsurf forum, the "Which gloves are best" topic comes up every year when temperatures drop.

My lovely wife and I have found several solutions that have let us sail through the Cape Cod winter the last couple of years. She likes neoprene mittens, I prefer two-layer solutions like palmless gloves and nylon shells; but whatever we have used in the past, it has always made us sail conservatively: staying out of the water was way more important than trying fun stuff.

I believe that this is about to change! Several things have changed that make winter windsurfing easier: we finally got a van; we moved to Cape Cod, so that the drive to the best winter windsurfing spots is now only 40 minutes instead of 2 hours; and we have a jacuzzi and a sauna to warm up after a session. But the biggest difference will be the new wetsuit I recently received from Ianovated. I had an opportunity to test it in 38º F (4º C) weather two days ago, and it worked beautifully, keeping me and my hands nicely warm. Here's the full report.

The idea behind the suit

The idea behind the suit is nicely described on the Ianovated web site: breathe out into tubes which then go through your suit and into mittens or regular gloves. The warm air of your breath warms up your hands while you are holding your boom. This allows you to constantly blow into your hands to warm them up, without having to take breaks! After first reading about the suit, I had tested the idea with some tubing and a regular semi-dry neoprene suit. It worked well enough, so I ordered the Ianovated suit.

Getting the suit

Right after my test, I contacted Ian, the inventor of the suit. He offered me the same great deal that he offered on a German windsurf forum. He shipped the suit from the UK the next day (Monday), and I received the suit 3 days later (Thursday). I had asked him to also send me a second suit for anyone who wanted to try the suit, and he did! I received a large smooth skin suit that I use, and a medium double-nylon suit for anyone who wants to test in on Cape Cod. He even added some open palm mittens for the test suit.

First impressions

The first thing I noticed when unpacking the suit was that the neoprene felt quite thick. I sometimes use an Ion 5/4 semi-dry suit; the Ianovated suit has neoprene at least as thick, but appears to use the same material for the entire suit, including arms and legs. The legs, upper body, and arms are cut quite wide. That makes it easy to get the suit on, and leaves plenty of space for the tubing, but raised the question how warm it would be.

I used the suit for the first time the next day, but air temperatures that day were about 50º F (10º C), warm enough that my open palm mittens were perfectly fine, even without breathing through the tubes into the mittens. I noticed that my lower arms getting tired, but that was at least partially because I had to use a wave sail on a slalom board in gusty conditions, and used my hands much more than normally. Still, I had seen similar problems with other suits when I first got them, and placed a couple of plastic bottles into the arms of the suit over night to stretch out the neoprene. That has always worked so far, and worked again this time

Testing the suit in cold weather

Two days later, on December 23rd, I got the opportunity to really test the suit. The air temperature was about 39º F (4º C), with 25 mph winds:

Due to a somewhat different forecast, we arrived at Hardings Beach in Chatham a bit too late. We initially saw two of the locals (JE and PK) planing on 5.2 and 5.3 m sails, but by the time we had rigged, the wind had come down quite a bit. I re-rigged from 5.5 to 6.5, and went out on my Tabou 3S 96. That turned out to be the right choice - I was powered for about 40 minutes, until the wind dropped further and I had to call it a day. Here is a short video:

I wore a short sleeve neoprene shirt under the suit, mostly because I find this more comfortably when changing into and out of the suit. I started to use the tubing when carrying my gear to the water, and it warmed up my hands nicely. During the session, I breathed out through the tubes about half of the time, and just left the tubing dangle most of the rest of the time. With the given temperatures, I normally would have had to take a break after a couple of runs to warm up my hands - but with the Ianovated wetsuit, I did not need any breaks, since I simply could breathe onto my hands to warm them up. That worked very well, and my hands were comfortable the entire time. I did fall several times, and had to swim after my gear once. When getting back up on the board, my hands would be a bit cold from the swimming (the water temperature was about 44ºF, 7º C). I typically started to use the tubing once I was comfortably planing again. After a swim, there would be some water in the tubes that had to be blown out first - but that turned out to be a great thing, since the water warmed up very quickly, so my fingers would get a warm water rinse. Nice!

When watching the video above, keep in mind that I am mostly a flatwater sailor - and I mean really flat. I usually don't jump, but rather try to keep the board on the water, and I don't do waves. In the short session, I did several jumps that were decent for my standards and the marginal conditions. I also played around with the little waves a bit (at least when I did not have to concentrate on going upwind or staying on a plane). For me, this was a playful session - very different from a typical winter session! The fear of falling, which had been pretty noticeable in previous winter sessions, was mostly gone, since I knew that I would be able to warm up my hands easily when back on the board. The suit kept the rest of my body very warm, too, including my arms and legs. I did feel tiny amounts of water entering the suit, mostly through the seams. However, the amounts were so small that they never were any problem - they may even have helped a bit once they were warmed up. I has definitely warmer than I would have been in my Ion 5/4 semidry suit: when wearing the Ion, my arms sometimes get a bit chilly, and water that enters through the back zipper can also feel cold, despite the back flap and a neoprene shirt.

My other winter suit is a baggy dry suit, the Boost from O'Neill. The Boost usually keeps me warm, but I try to avoid high impact crashes, which can force water into the suit. Once inside, water can make the suit feel clammy and cold. In contrast, the Ianovated suit is a typical wetsuit, where any water that enters warms up very quickly, and is not a problem. Like any neoprene suit, the Ianovated suit is definitely much better suited for swimming to catch up with your gear after a fall than the baggy dry suit.

Summary: A great winter wetsuit!

After reading about the Ianovated wetsuit and my own tubing tests, I had high expectations for the suit, but it has clearly exceeded my expectations. Even without the tubing, I think this would be my favorite suit amongst the three suits I own, because it is very warm and easy to swim in. With the tubing, which works wonderfully to keep my hands warm, the Ianovated wetsuit is simple a stroke of genius. In 39º F (4º C) weather, I used the tubings only about half the time to keep my fingers warm - this leaves plenty of room for the air and water temperatures to drop even further (although I usually only go windsurfing when the air temperature is above freezing).

The only bad thing about the Ianovated wetsuit is that I did not discover it in October, when some of my friends were still sailing who now have stopped for the winter. Had they been able to try the suit when they started to think about stopping because of cold fingers, I am sure many of them would have bought the suit and extended their season. But anyone who still is sailing and wants to try the Ianovated wetsuit on Cape Cod, let me know! As I said, I have an extra size medium suit for testing, and I'll be glad to let anyone I know try my size large suit, too. If you don't know how to get in touch with me, ask JE, or send me (boardsurfr) a private message on the iWindsurf forum.
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Disclosure: I am not affiliated with or sponsored by Ianovated, nor will I receive anything from them if anyone decided to by a suit after reading this or testing a suit. But I do have to admit some self-interest: I would like to see more windsurfers sail through the winter, especially my friends who stop because of cold hands. The Ianovated worked so well that for the first time ever, I actually considered doing freestyle in the winter, something I have always shied away from since it involves frequent falling.

The cold hand problem has been solved

It's the time of the year where a lot of windsurfers in New England stop sailing, even if they own dry suits. The common reason: cold hands. A few extraordinary windsurfers like JE can sail with thick gloves, and still throw in a loop or shaka when they feel like it; but thick gloves kill the forearms of lesser windsurfers, like your's truly.

I have experimented with various gloves, mittens, and combinations, and found several solutions that work well. Around here, open-palm mittens work fine until about mid-December; but when air and water temperatures drop below 45 F (7 C), I need more warmth. I have blogged about several options that work,  but all of them have their draw backs, which make winter sessions shorter and less playful.

So when I read "The cold hand problem all the way down to 0°c / 32F has been solved" in a thread about "Gloves/mittens for winter sailing", it peaked my interest. I followed the link to www.ianovated.co.uk/, and liked what I saw: a suit with built-in tubing that enables you to blow warm air into open-palm mittens while sailing. But the suit is made in the UK and not cheap, so I just had to follow Ian's suggestion to try this by stuffing some tubing into my suit. I used 10 feet of clear 1/2 inch OD tubing and a T connector as the mouth piece, and took some silicon to make soft patches where the tubing enters the arms of the suit to minimize water entry. Here's the result:

Today's wind forecast looked marginal, but it predicted WSW wind and sun. In previous years, this often meant winds that were 5-10 mph over the forecast, but this year has been so bad that I did not want to get my hopes up. Well - the wind came! Around 11 am, meter readings for Kalmus and Chatham were around 20 mph, trending up a bit - oh the excitement! Bad old wind addict that I am, I left my lovely wife at home, since she had to deal with an electrician who double-checked the hookup of our new outdoor sauna. I hopped into the van and drove to Harding's Beach in Chatham to try the spot in WSW winds.

Once there, I noticed that the water state did not look that different from the last time I was there, when I was barely to rarely planing on my 7.0. However, the wind felt stronger, so I went out on my 5.5 and the 3S 95, but with the big old 32 cm weed fin in case the wind dropped. No need to worry, though - I was planing right away, and stayed nicely powered the entire time I was out. Air and water temperatures were around 45 F (7C), perfect for trying out Ian's tube idea. As soon as I was hooked in, I grabbed the mouth piece, and breathed out through it a few times. My fingers in the palmless mitts got warm right away - nice! I kept sailing for half an hour, using the tube to warm up my fingers every few minutes. Without the tube, I would have had to go in after a few minutes to shake the blood back down into my hands and warm up my fingers, but since I could blow warm air onto my fingers anytime I felt like it, I did not have to go in today! Having nicely warm fingers did wonders for my confidence, and I started jumping a bit, playing with waves, and simply having a blast. After 30 minutes, I went in to grab the GoPro for some movies, but discovered that I did not have it in the van. I got pretty hot during this short stop (in a 6/4 semi-dry neoprene suit, 2 mm neoprene shirt, 7 mm booties, and a 3 mm neoprene hood), so when I went back out, I took my fingertips out of the palmless mittens. I sailed for another 20 minutes, but then caught myself messing up and swimming around quite a bit. Since I was the only one on the water, and in view of the temperatures, I decided to keep the session short and call it a day.

Despite the short sail, I did take several opportunities to waterstart and swim around a bit. I did get quite a bit of water into the arms of the suit when water starting, and some also came in around the neck. More flexible tubing and better silicone pads probably could reduce this; even as it was, I'd definitely rather have a bit of water in the suit than cold hands (or thick gloves, glove-mitt shell combos, etc.). I'm not sure that would still be the case when the temperatures drop much further; but I am sure that Ian's tubing idea would still work very well. His idea to build tubing connectors into the suit is definitely a great one, because it will keep the suit as dry as any similar semidry or dry suit; the loose-fit upper body is also a great match to the tubing inside idea. I currently have both a very warm semi-dry neoprene suit and a baggy dry suit, but I am seriously tempted to get the Ianovated suit. After my tests, I believe that Ian has indeed solved the cold-hand problem.

For all my GPS-addicted friends, my tracks for the day are below. No bigs speeds today, though - the theme was wave-play rather than speed.

I needed that!

It was a lovely day at the beginning of January - lots of sun, and air temperatures in the low 40s (7 C). With no windsurfing for almost a month and a good wind forecast, I just had to get out today. Still on jet lag, I was up before 6, only to wait for the wind to come to Cape Cod. Yes, it was blowing upper 20s in Point Judith, and the forecast there was just as good, but that would have been too easy.

It's a long story of driving around that's not worth telling, but I eventually made it to Kalmus Beach in Hyannis around 10 am, just as the wind picked up to 30 mph averages. I took my time rigging, hoping someone else would show up, but ended up sailing alone for the first hour. With all the thick booties and gloves, I could not really tell if I was powered or overpowered - but I was nicely planing most of the time. Of course, I had my Hawk trimmed for speed, but ended up sailing in chop, since I wanted to stay closer to shore while sailing alone, instead of making a trip over to Egg Island. Together with lack of practice, jet lag, and at least 17 other excuses I can think of, this made jibing a difficult proposition. Here are pictures from two attempts:

If I had been going for jump jibes or Willy Skippers, that might have been decent attempts - but I was actually going for a simple step jibe. Oops! After a few slightly wet jibes, I decided to take advantage of the refreshing water temperatures (35F, 2C) instead, and practice new ways of falling in jibes. Except for my partially frozen brain, I was perfectly warm - and my brain thawed up a bit after I exchanged the thin hood for the big and tight hood (which I still think was originally developed for more devious purposes). Thanks to a Clew-View mounted GoPro HD, I can share some picture of these crashes with you:

Trying to prove that the earth is round.

Walking backwards off the tail

I like the way the water drops look on this one.

At some point, I forgot that I was going for new ways to crash, and thought I was actually trying turn around without falling. That did not work, which then in turn frustrated me. So I decided to let the board try to jibe without me:

Much to my surprise, that seemed to work better than when I stayed on the board. The only problem was that I was still swimming in the water when the board took of on the new reach. But while the board and sail may be able to turn ok without me, their straight line sailing (which happens to be one thing I am good at) sucks. So does the waterstart without me (that's another thing I'm good at, thanks to plenty of practice even when the water is almost freezing), so eventually, I caught up with the gear again, and sailed back in.

Well, I needed that. I am feeling a lot better now, and I'm sure the sea water that's still running out of my nose will stop within an hour or two (just kidding - I waited until the dripping had stopped before turning on my computer!). Next time when it's sunny and warmish, my lovely wife will (knock on wood) be with me again. It's only half the fun without her!

It was nice to see Jerry and a few other windsurfers show up around noon. I suspect a causal connection between them showing up kinda late and the wind dropping shortly thereafter. I can't really proof this, but I think the wind rewards those that show up early. Point Judith had much steadier wind the entire day, and I'm sure the Rhode Island windsurfers showed up bright and early again! Well, next time the wind is westerly, that's where you'll find me.
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Disclaimer: It is by no means certain that my brain freeze has indeed ended, so (as always) read this at your own risk :-)

Staying warm and rigging right

Well, fall definitely has arrived. We sailed twice this week, Tuesday in Wellfleet and today in Duxbury (GPS tracks above). Wellfleet had typical NW winds: gusty and strong at first, then dying down even though the forecast had predicted the wind would stay all day. Air temperatures were around 60F (15 C), the water a bit warmer, and it was sunny - not a bad day, and nice being able to plane on a 5.3 m sail for a while.

Today's call was Duxbury: NE winds forecast in the low 20s, but arriving in the mid-20s early in the morning. The weather was quite different: air temperatures near 50F (10 C), and water temperatures that seemed to be almost as low. Instead of sun, we got rain - mostly light, but every now and then, it rained hard enough that I had to close the windward eye while sailing. Fortunately, watching out for other sailors was not required: Dani and I had the entire Duxbury bay to ourselves, and Dani had to stop after 20 minutes. He had over-estimated the water temperature and went out with thin summer boots, no gloves, and no hood. After a couple of runs, he had problems getting into the foot straps because he had lost all feeling in his toes. When I took a break almost an hour later, he was sitting in his van and still shivering, even though he had the heat on full blast, and had put on his 5 mm boots to warm his feet.

Dani is a pretty smart guy with lots of experience windsurfing in cold weather - so what made him go out today without the right protection from cold? Well, he sailed last Saturday in West Dennis, just 30 miles or so from Duxbury. There, he had used the summer boots and a thinner (3/2) wet suit, and was perfectly comfortable. The water in Cape Cod bay tends to be a bit colder than in West Dennis, but I had used a wet suit with short arms myself on Tuesday. It seems that the water has cooled down very rapidly since then.

Another part of the problem, I think, was that Dani was already cold when he got on the water. He had changed into his wet suit and summer booties to rig, since it was raining. But wet suits tend to get cold really fast on land.

So, here's a short summary of things to do to stay warm when windsurfing on cold, rainy days:

1. Stay warm when getting your gear ready. Wear rain pants over your pants; winter boots; a warm jacket (e.g. a neoprene rigging jacket); a neoprene hood or warm hat; and rigging gloves. If you break a sweat, great! 
2. Overdress on the water. Wear booties that are a bit warmer than you think you need; wear a dry suit or a wet suit that you know is warm enough for the conditions; use a neoprene hood and gloves. If you discover that you are too warm while sailing, it's easy enough to ditch some of this gear to cool down. But if you discover you are not dressed warm enough, your body will have cooled down so much that you probably need to (or should) end the session.
3. Stay warm in breaks. If you are using gloves and/or are wearing a wet suit with long arms, your lower arms will probably get tired much more quickly than during summer sessions, and you'll need to take breaks. Any wetsuit or drysuit that's warm enough when windsurfing will be too cold when standing on land! So put on a warm jacket like a neoprene jacket, or whatever else will keep you warm. You did remember to bring a thermos with coffee or tea, right?

Since I hate getting cold when windsurfing, I followed my own advice. I thought I had overdressed a bit, but ended up being just perfectly comfortable. For gloves, I used Glacier gloves with the insides of the fingers cut out. That minimizes the extra effort needed to bend the fingers, and perhaps more importantly, gives me direct contact to the boom, so I don't grip too hard without noticing. My hands, which tend to get cold very quickly, stayed perfectly warm, despite my usual frequent water start practice.

Being perfectly comfortable despite the cold, I really enjoyed the session today. We started sailing shortly before high tide, which allowed us to sail close to the sandbar that separates Duxbury bay from the ocean, in really flat water. At the water got higher, there was more and more stuff floating on the surface - mostly dead reeds, sometimes in form of little islands up to 5 feet wide. Running into one of these at full speed would have caused a major catapult, which kept speed runs interesting. 

Just after the tide turned and starting going out, I went to the north side of the Powder Point Bridge to check the conditions there. However, the reeds were so bad that sailing there was almost impossible, and I quickly returned to the south side. Sailing back to the sandbar on the far side, I discovered that the combination of wind and outgoing tide had moved most of the floating obstacles towards the land side of the bay, and the speed strip now was clear. I had a number of great runs along the sandbar, but then decided to keep the session short since I was the only one on the water, and I assumed that Dani, who was watching me, wanted to leave.

While the session was a lot of fun, I was pretty disappointed with my top speed of 32 mph (27.5 knots). I had gotten a number of downwind runs in very flat water, and although the wind near shore was a bit gusty, I am sure that I caught some gusts of around 30 mph on decent downwind angles. I was sailing my Fanatic Hawk 95 and my Hot Sails Maui GPS 6.6 m sail. Less than 2 weeks ago in Hatteras, I had reached 31 mph (27.2 knots) in substantially more chop and less wind (gusts were 26 mph or less). What gives?

One potential explanation is that the wind meters were wrong, and that the wind was actually very similar on both days. That, however, is not the case: in Hatteras, I had to work to get planing and stay on a plane, and rarely felt fully powered. Today, I was fully powered 90% of the time, and really nicely powered in some of the gusts. In recent months, I typically go about 25-30% faster than than the wind even in chop. Today, that would have meant a top speed of 35-40 mph, not just 32 mph. 

The one thing that was different today was that I used a different mast. In Hatteras, I had rigged the sail on a 460 cm Powerex 100% RDM mast. That required a scary amount of downhaul tension - the sail is spec'd for a 430 mast with a 36-38 cm extension. So today, I rigged the sail on a 430 cm Gaastra 100% RMD mast. The sail did not look quite right - the profile below the boom was noticeably shallower. Getting all the cams on also was a bit more challenging, another indicator that the mast may be a mismatch for this sail. And despited the shallow profile below the boom, I had to use a few centimeters of positive outhaul to keep the sail from touching the boom too much. The sail is spec'd for negative outhaul, and with the Powerex mast, I had sailed it with neutral outhaul.

In Hatteras with the Powerex 460 mast, the sail felt both powerful and very slippery. Most of the drive seemed to be forward and translated directly into speed. I had sailed a Pilot 6.5 m sail earlier that day, and the GPS was about 3 knots faster, despite feeling a lot lighter (except when water starting it...).

Today on the Gaastra mast with positive outhaul, the sail felt heavy and slow. There was a substantially higher amount of sideway pull, and I had real problems getting comfortably until I moved the boom down about 2 inches. But even after that, the sail never gave the slippery sensation that is typical for a race sail.

The mast itself is not a problem - it works beautifully with a couple of Gaastra sails. However, it appears to have a bend curve that really does not go well with the GPS sail. The sail looks ok when rigged on land, but it performs poorly on the water when rigged on the Gaastra mast. I had read about problems from mismatched masts, but we usually mix & match sails and masts pretty randomly, and never noticed real problems. However, we usually also do not know what a sail would feel like on the proper mast! Still, seeing such a big difference between the two masts was somewhat surprising. I can't wait to try the sail in similar conditions in Duxbury on the Powerex mast!

Cold, hard fun

We went ice surfing today - a first for both of us. But with Dean and Jeff setting world records and posting great videos, we just had to try it. Dean had kindly offered to let us use one of his ice surfers, and gave us a brief introduction what we should do. But when he explained that the orange flags indicated big holes in the ice, and pointed to the large areas in lake that were not frozen, I started to get just a bit nervous. So when I went out for a trial run and thought the board was shaking and vibrating, he pointed out that it was not the board, but rather my legs...

The first run was very interesting. Picking up speed in the gusty winds was almost too easy, but turning and stopping the board was quite a challenge compared to a freestyle board on (non-frozen) water. My first tack attempts ended in dead stops, which was just fine. The first jibe attempt looked a lot like a typical beginner attempt on water: ok entry, but then going downwind forever... until eventually I hit the emergency break by throwing myself down onto the ice. That was a smart move: I discovered that, yes, the ice was hard, but falling did not really hurt much, so why be afraid? Still, the first session was very short and exhausting. Nina's first session looked similar, with slightly different falls. But after a couple of more tries, things got easier, and we actually managed to (sometimes) turn around without falling or stopping. The wind was quite gusty, and in the strong gusts, even the 4.2 m sail felt a bit big. It did not help that the sail was a cambered race sail, and depowering it was therefore rather difficult. But depowering is the wrong idea, anyway - Dean and Jeff were having fun doing 45+ knot runs. I barely made it above 45 kmh - but that's still about as fast as my best speed during the recent week in Bonaire.

This was a very memorable day - a thousand thanks to Dean for giving us an opportunity to try this. The ice sailing season is almost over, but we'll sure try again next year. Tomorrow should be warm and windy for a nice day of windsurfing in West Dennis.

Here's a short video from today:

Warm but clumsy

Much to my own surprise, I went windsurfing in Cape Cod yesterday. It's been just a little more than a week since I was in the tropical waters of Bonaire, and the snow in my backyard is still 20 inches thick. I thought it would take me a few weeks to get used to the cold weather again; but having to spend a day outside to remove snow and ice from the roof probably helped. So when young Graham posted that he'd go, I decided to join him. It helped that Jerry posted a picture showing that there was almost no snow on the ground on Cape Cod, and that the forecast called for sun and "balmy" 40 degrees Fahrenheit (that's about 5 C).

Original plans had called for Hardings beach, but when the wind turned from W to NW just like the forecast had predicted, Skaket seemed like a better choice. When I got there, Jerry and Peter were rigging 4.7s already. The wind was going down quickly, however, and they mostly schlogged when out on the water. Since they are both much better surfers than I am, and also a lot lighter, I decided to rig my 7.0 instead of trying to plane on the 5.5 that I had rigged.

With water temperatures near 0 C, I decided to dress "extra warm", with neoprene socks inside my 7 mm booties and reusable hand warmers inside the Dakine mittens. All the rigging and dressing took a while, and when I finally got out, the wind had died down to definitely not planeable. I tried for a while, but ended up not having enough wind for water starts. My fingers and feet stayed nice and warm the whole time, but I felt a bit like a deep see diver or astronaut in full gear. Holding on and staying balanced was a big challenge. My arms, which had never gotten sore when sailing for 4 or 5 hours a day in Bonaire, got tired pretty quickly. So I ended up doing more walking than actual sailing - but hey, at least I was warm the entire time.

Even though I did not plane at all, and all the cold weather gear killed any ideas of light-wind playing, it still felt great to be out. Just knowing that windsurfing in Cape Cod at the beginning of February without getting cold feels great. Who knows how much fun I would have had if the wind had been a bit better :)

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Having "one of those days" yesterday where I felt like a complete ... on the board made me think about the ABK Freestyle Clinic. It was really helpful to meet a whole bunch of guys who are a lot better windsurfers than I am, to see them work on the water, and to hear how long they have been at this game. This was the 7th ABK camp for me, but Bob, the best surfer in the class, has been going to ABK camps for about 10 years, and tries to go to five camps a year. In my first two ABK camps, I left with the feeling that I had learned a lot: planing through my jibes, backwind sailing, heli tacks, fall jibes, and more. Some of these things (like planing through jibes) I had been working on for years, with limited success.

But in the later camps, my learning progress seemed to slow down quite a bit. Sometimes, I'd work on a trick for most of the day, perhaps getting close, and switch to a new trick the next day, with similar results (for example because the wind went up or down). Worst of all, if I went to new places like Maui where the conditions were very different from what I was used to, I sometimes felt like a total beginner.

But the last camp was an eye opener in many ways. Playing with the fall/jump jibe showed me how close you can be to completing a trick, even if it does not feel that way: Andy just had to make one little suggestion, and I got a bunch of them in a row. For the more difficult and sometimes frustrating tricks, it helped a lot to see better surfers try and fall again and again. Some of these guys I have known for a year or two now, and I am often amazed how much better they have gotten in this time. One example is Priscilla, whom I met for the first time this year. But I had a chance to look at the camp videos of her from last year and from this year, and the improvement is very dramatic. Other examples include Greg, Anthony, and Marty. The common denominator: constantly trying, constantly falling :)

I have to admit that I still have a strong tendency to be lazy, and to just blast back & forth. With a GPS on my arm, I even have the excuse to be working on speed, which is not nearly as trivial as I thought at first. However, one marginal day in Bonaire showed the limits of the BAFing. At first, I tried to plane using bigger sails and fins, with limited success and limited fun. When I switched to light-wind mode and working on difficult light wind tricks, I ended up falling a lot more, but I had at least 10 times more fun.

Another thing that is creeping up on me is the idea that I am starting to understand some of the "basics". When studying Karate, my teacher insisted that good basics are way more important than fancy antics; looking at the success of his students, I have to agree. In windsurfing, I have not heard anyone talk about "basics" the same way, but the principle still applies: there are a few simple movements and principles that you should understand and know how to do well. Then, fancier moves will fall into place almost automatically. One example is the heli tack. Andy does not really teach the heli tack much; instead, he focuses on learning to sail backwinded and clew first. If you can do that, the only other thing to learn is one-handed (neutral) sail movements and "avoiding the bull's horns", and the heli tack is there. Now, I am starting to see similar common elements in moves like push tacks, pile drivers, and duck tacks.

The bottom line: sailing outside your comfort zone and trying new things is what will make you a better sailing. If you look like a fool on any given day, so what? It will all pay off in the long run with more fun. Just enjoy the day, and get some good instruction every now and then.

The secret to warm hands

After 4 weeks without a good windsurf session, we just had to go sailing today - who cares that the temperatures were a bit below freezing? They were supposed to go above the freezing point, and it was sunny and windy.

We planned to sail at Skaket Beach in Orleans, a great spot for NW winds. When we got there, the wind was indeed great - and so were the waves. There were not very big, maybe chest to head high, but they were breaking everywhere. Not really surprising - Skaket does not have single break point like a reef, but instead lots of little sand banks, and the drop off is pretty slow. We arrived near high tide, and the wind averages were probably in the low thirties - two things we had not seen in Skaket before. As flat water sailors, we were a bit intimidated. It did not help that the wind was straight onshore; who knows if we would have made it out if we had tried. But the final nail in the coffin were large chunks of wood and trees in the shore break. I saw only a few, but I had no desire to run into one of these babies on the water.

So we decided to drive up towards Wellfleet to explore other options. The waves at First Encounter Beach looked a bit more managable, and the wind was side-on, but there was even more stuff floating in the water. We checked out a few ponds and inlets, but the road to the spot that look most promising on the maps was completely under water. You could see where the road was, because there was a bridge in the middle of the bay - rather funny, now why did we not take a picture again? Oh yes, we had windsurfing on our mind, and severe withdrawal symptoms after 4 weeks without.

We ended up at Indian Neck Beach in Wellfleet Harbor. Here's a picture of where we sailed:


The wind there was side-on, and lots of white caps could be seen a bit further out. However, the water was pretty flat, since the wind had only a mile or so over the water to build up chop. So we decided to go out. In view of the wind shadow near shore, we took the big boards and somewhat bigger sails - a 4.2 for Nina, and the 6.2 for me. As expected, the wind near shore was weak and gusty, but it cleaned up and got stronger after a few hundred feet. It actually got a bit too strong for my 6.2, but I kind-of managed.

After maybe 15 minutes on the water, my finger tips started to hurt from the cold. I was wearing neoprene gloves with the inside of the fingers cut out for a better grip, and mitt shells on top for warmth. But since I spend quite a bit of time in the water practicing my waterstarts, water temperature was maybe 39F (4C), and the wind chill was somewhere around 15F (-10C), that was not warm enough. So I went bag in and put re-usable hand warmers into my mitts, after activating them by twisting the little metal plates on the inside.

That worked beautifully! My hands were nice and toasty for the rest of the short session (maybe another 30 minutes), without ever having to stop and shake the blood back into my fingers. The heating pads were still nice and warm at the end of the session, and probably would have worked for another half hour.

Nina also used the re-usable hand warmers inside here Dakine mittens. She had complained about cold fingers in a variety of different gloves and mittens she had tried before, but today, she was toasty and warm the entire session. Needless to say, she looked great as usual while sailing, and did not get as much waterstart practice as I got because she just did not fall in when tacking. Oh well, as long as she'd having fun :)

Today's session was the coldest windsurf session ever for both of us, but we stayed nice & warm and had fun. Ok, I did get a bit cold at the start, but once I figured out that the beginning of January is not a great time for being in the water under the sail (at least here in the Northeast), and after I used the hand warmers, things got a lot better. We sailed cautiously because of this was a new spot for us, and because of the cold; and then, we had to cut the session short because Nina had an important appointment in the afternoon. But nevertheless, this was a great day of sailing.

For all of you who might be interested in trying re-usable hand warmers, here's a bit more information. We used the HotSnapZ reusable handwarmers, purchased from Amazon.com. They cost $20 for 3 pairs, and can be re-used many times. They contain a over-saturated solution of sodium acetate and a little metal plate. When you bend the metal plate, the sodium acetate starts to crystallize, and the bag gets really warm. It stays warm for about 30-60 minutes, depending on the size (we used the 4-inch red round bags). They can be re-used after putting them in boiling water for 10 minutes, which dissolved the crystals again. This process can be repeated hundreds of times if you are careful enough. And if the bags should burst, not really a problem - the stuff in them is food grade (not that I suggest that you eat it!). You may see some reviews where people complain that re-heating the bags was too much trouble - but that was probably a couch potatoe or maybe a kite surfer :-}
The one thing that's less than perfect about the re-usable hand warmers is that they get hard when the sodium acetate crystallizes. Here, the HotSnapZ warmers are better than a cheaper brand I have tried - they keep some flexibility for quite a while, and they also seem to be generating heat a bit longer.
Before trying the re-usable hand warmers, Nina first thought about using the cheap, non-reusable hand warmers. However, these have several problems. The non-reusable hand warmers are iron-based, and require oxygen to work (basically, you're just converting iron to rust). So you could not put the reusable hand warmers in a ziplock bag to keep the water out. But if you put them in water, they don't work, either. Even if you would figure out how to keep them dry and in air contact, you'd still have to worry about the bag breaking. If that happens, more oxygen can reach the iron, and the temperature can get really high really quick. That's not an issue at all with the reusable hand warmers.

So, if you have a dry suit or winter wetsuit, good booties, and a hood, but cold fingers kept you from windsurfing (or from windsurfing longer), get some mittens or mitt shells, put some re-usable hand warmers in, and go have fun on the water!

Staying warm at 32F

We went windsurfing today at Skaket Beach, despite temperatures that barely made it above the freezing point. But after not going yesterday and missing a perfect day, staying home again would have been too hard. I ended up sailing for 90 minutes, and being perfectly warm the entire time. Air temperatures were between 31 and 33F, water probably around 40-42F, wind 20 mph with gusts to 27 - and it was sunny.

This is the first time in more than 25 years that I went windsurfing when it was this cold. I did, however, remember from the last time that I was nice and warm, despite the cold temperatures. Still, being twice as old as back then, I was just a bit skeptical...

The only parts of my body that got cold at all were my face and my fingers - but not any colder than on an average day of skying. I took a few short breaks to shake my arms to get the blood back down into my fingers, which are clearly the weakest link. I first sailed in O'Neill 3 mm gloves, but my lower arms got tired too quickly, so I switched to what seems to work best: neoprene gloves with the inside of the fingers cut out, and nylon mitt shells (based on a post by Ron C. on iWindsurf). The combination worked perfectly fine, although I may play around with waterproofing the shells a bit for longer swims.

The cold today did wonders for my jibe success rate. At least at first, most of my jibes were dry. Being on my most-used board-sail combination (Skate 110, Matrix 7.0) helped, but I sure tried harder not to fall. Of course, I did fall a few times, including once where I had to swim back to my board for a couple of minutes. I barely felt the water temperature, though, through my dry suit and several layers of polyester underneath. I may even have been a tad overdressed - most of the time, I was sweating a bit. Not bad for a freezing day!

I'm looking forward to (hopefully) many more days of windsurfing this winter - the wind certainly is great this time of the year, with averages in the 20s or higher about every other day. For all those who might think about joining us on the water, here is a list of what I was wearing today:

• O'Neill Boost dry suit. Baggy, breathable, affordable (~$420).
• 7 mm O'Neill boots. Very warm. I also wound a couple of layers of electrical tape around near the top to reduce water entry, which worked very well. About $60.
  
• O'Neill 3mm Coldwater Hood, $46. Creates an (almost) watertight seal with the neoprene neck of the dry suit. My head is usually hot, even after falling into the water.
• Neoprene Gloves (Aleutian) with fingers cut out ($20)
  
• Nylon Mitt Shells (made from EMS Mitts by cutting the stuffing out)
• 2-4 layers underneath. Long sleeve "performance" underwear (Old Navy, Target, $10-$20). T-shirt ($8, Old Navy). Fleece pants ($20, Target, Old Navy, Ocean State Job Lot). 2 Fleece sweaters (LL Bean, Old Navy, $15-25). Everything is 90-100% polyester, which wicks away sweat and stays warm even when wet.
  

Most of the stuff was from Sailworld Cape Cod, although I had to order some things that Jim did not have at amazon.com. Everything together costs less than a new sail at suggested retail prices, and definitely less than a new board. It will allow you to sail on great days like today, when you have the water pretty much to yourself - no crowds like on late summer days. Hope to see you out there soon!

Redemption

The day after I wrote about a couple of bad days in Duxbury, the bay redeemed itself with some great wind. Today's winds were in the 30s, a bit more easterly and steadier. I was nicely overpowered on a 5.0, Nina with her 3.7. Just love our North Ice sails - they handle very well when overpowered. Even though I felt a bit out of control most of the time, I set new personal bests for 1 and 2 seconds, with 33.4 mph. Just a tad above my previous best, but every little bit counts :)

Temperatures were a few degrees lower than yesterday, and the stronger wind made it feel a lot colder. Nevertheless, I was pretty comfortable the entire time, largely because of two small modifications:

1. A short-sleeve neoprene shirt under my 5/4 semi-dry suit. Much better blood circulation in the lower arms than with a long-sleeve shirt, and plenty of warmth.
2. I wore cheap, yellow latex kitchen gloves under my open-palm neoprene mittens, so my hands stayed nice and warm the entire time. The kitchen gloves were thin, but kept the water away from my skin, which made a big difference. Here's a picture:

Another thing that helped a lot today was that we parked and started at the ocean side of Powderpoint Bridge. The harbor master drove by a number of times, but we did not get a ticket, so I guess it's probably ok to park there after labor day, at least when the lot is almost empty. We stayed at the north side of the bay, and got a mix of nice flat water and well-formed small swell, nice!

The forecast for tomorrow is NE 25 mph. Since NE winds in Duxbury get a clearer fetch than N winds, they are typically steadier, and often ~5 miles higher than the forecast. Should be a great day for sailing in the south side of the bay, with some bump & jump in the middle and some nice long speed runs on the ocean side of the bay.

Strong currents

Our second day in the Gorge started with a lot of rain in Hood River. The wind forecast for the afternoon was good, though - for the eastern part of the Gorge. So we loaded the car and drove east - about 40 miles to Maryhill. No more rain, and the air was warm.

The Maryhill State Park is nice, with plenty of grass and shade for rigging. The wind did not quite follow the forecast, though. The first surfer out did not plane; it was amazing to watch him go downwind at a 45 degree angle, while actually staying in place because the current was very strong (maybe 6 knots). Eventually he fell, and was quickly carried hundreds of feet downstream. When he made it back to shore, he had to walk downwind - a somewhat unusual thing at most other places, but a sing of things to come.

After seeing the first guys planing half an hour later, I did go out on a 6.0 sail and a 94 l board. With all the new equipment and conditions, I managed to fall three times on the run out and back, which meant a downwind walk for me, too. A couple more followed when the wind died down a bit, and I did not manage to plane on the next couple of runs.

Eventually, the wind did pick up, and so did the swell. I rigged down to a 5.3, and Nina finally decided to go out on a 4.2 and a 78 l JP FSW. I was fully powered on the 5.3. Sailing there was like nothing I ever had done before - the swell and chop was similar to Maui on one of the windier days, but I was pointing downwind at a 30-45 degree angle the entire time to compensate for the current and the inevitable waterstarts. It took me until the last run, when the wind had gone down a bit, before I got comfortable with the conditions, and managed to turn around with a half way decent jibe. Still, I was happy enough to adapt to rather different conditions reasonably well within a day, even though my GPS told me that I was going slow the entire time.

Nina's experience was somewhat less positive. She waited a while before windsurfing because she was worried about the barges and the current. When she finally did go out, she just made a single run out and back, with a quick waterstart in between. While things did not look too bad from the shore, she was rather unhappy about here experience, and decided to not go out for a second run. That helped me discover a benefit of tracking your speed with a GPS, and trying to go fast: you will often go for deep downwind runs, an experience that comes in handy when you need to go deep downwind to compensate for strong currents and occasional falls. Of course, GPS speeds today were terribly slow. I dropped the boom cam when I took it out of the car, and broke off a small piece of plastic from the mount, so there won't be any movies, unfortunately.