Failure to stay straight

My life used to be easy. When I windsurfed, I mowed the lawn: back and forth, back and forth, in nice straight lines. Turns were added only out of necessity - the beer is waiting where I started, so we must turn to get back. Many year later, Andy Brandt showed me that turns can be a lot of fun, but that really did not change much. My favorite thing to do is still to go in straight lines for miles. Adding a GPS and calling myself a "speedsurfer" is merely obfuscation, and anyone who looked at my top speeds will discover.

Here's what I am talking about:



Somewhere in the movie, you may notice Nina. She fully supports my lawn mowing habit. ABK's Brendon has explained to me why we make a great team: lawns need to be mowed and watered. Nina likes to try new freestyle tricks, which takes care of the watering, so that I can concentrate on the mowing.

But recently, I have often been confused on the water. I expect water to either be perfectly flat, so that I can mow faster, or full of irregular spaced bumps (often called "chop" or "voodoo chop"). Chop slows you down, but it sailing in chop for 2 hours is a great cure for constipation, so chop is good. When I can't sail a straight line through it anymore, I simply jump a bit. But I am German, and there have to be rules. Rule number 1 in jumping is that I only jump starboard, when my right had is closer to the mast. I really tried to stick to this rule when we went sailing in Cape Cod Bay last Saturday, but I failed:



That was just the beginning. At my home spot, Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, I have to turn around after sailing 500 meters, or face the dreaded ferry line. Even when crossing the ferry line, runs are rarely longer than a kilometer (or half a mile for my metrically challenged readers), mostly because the water ends and my boards are not suited for sailing on the beach. But where we launched in Brewster, you can sail for miles and miles without having to turn around. It's perfectly safe, too, since you're always within half a mile or so from shore. So I went in nice straight lines for a mile or two, until I remembered that I should turn around and check on Nina.

Well, that was the plan, at least. But when I sailed past the end of the long shallow region, the chop suddenly started to organize, slowly turning into swell and then into something that looked like waves to my untrained eye. This upset me - I am a lawn mower sailor, not a wave sailor! Turning around early would have cut the runs short, but simply sailing in straight lines might have led to more against-the-rules port jumps. Since speed is your friend (or at least mine), I tried to accelerate by going down the bigger waves - but after a couple of seconds, I'd end up going up the back of the wave in front of me, slowing down again. So I turned back - only to see the next wave forming behind me! I went down again, and repeated this game a few times until I finally reached sections where order disintegrated into unruly chop. Familiar territory again! But very quickly, weird thoughts crept into my mind, like "that was fun not going straight all the time!". Here is a short movie from this period:



Having been raised as a proper lawn-mowing catholic boy, I had my doubts about not going straight all the time, but it was kind off fun - especially when I went up one wave and turned just a bit too late at the top, getting a little bit of air while turning:

If you stop the movie just after I landed, you will notice a look of great confusion on my face - what just happened? A second or two later, you can hear what I thought about it if you have the sound turned on..

This was almost too much fun. Sure, we had gotten up before 7 am on a Saturday to be at the beach early, so that we would get the strongest winds and the best water levels. Sure it was sunny, and the water was nice and clear. But air temperatures were in the low 40s, and water temperatures not much higher - sure we were not supposed to have this much fun? I went to check with Nina. She had stayed out of the deep water the entire time, being perfectly happy that she was able to stand every single time when she fell. She had initially been overpowered on her 4.5 m sail, but the wind dropped just a little to make the sail a perfect choice, so she was having a blast. We had been on the water for almost 2 hours by then. But the wind seemed to be dropping a bit, and I really wanted to get home to see my daughter, who was coming for a rare visit, so we decided to stop soon.

I have to apologize to my regular readers, who are probably very disappointed by all these not-so-straight videos without any of the expected freestyle or speed action - but I just have to show one more video. As I was sailing in, I was able to sail much closer to shore than before, since the water level had risen 2 or 3 feet while we were sailing. Check out the GPS tracks:

The last two runs were the runs towards the lower right. This was in the shallow area after a deeper shipping lane. With the wind coming from NW (top right), this created a water surface that was just about perfect: lots of knee-to hip-high waves to play with that ramped up nicely, but did not really break; and perfectly flat water in between. See for yourself:

As much fun as this was, I ended up worrying: have I been infected with the wave virus? Will I follow the path of so many windsurfers before me who decided that flat water is boring, and only sail in waves? Maybe I should not worry too much, because a full-speed jibe on perfectly flat water is still something I dream about all the time. Maybe we will know more in a couple of days, if we indeed get winds in the high 30s, and our plans to explore a new speed venue pan out...

Flat pictures

Yesterday: NW winds near 30 mph. Checked out Skaket, sand blowing, almost high tide, did not look inviting. First Encounter looked easy enough, but had chop instead of the little waves that you might see at low tide. So we went to Indian Neck in Wellfleet for some flat water. Flat water we got, but the wind was very much up and down. Some pictures:

Nina planing in the background

Flat and sunny :-)

Nina saw about a dozen seals; one of them jumped out of the water all the way. On the way back, we stopped at Skaket and Corporation. The wind seemed steadier at Skaket, with 22-27 knots. The wind was about 5 knots lower at  Corporation, but the waves looked nice:

The entire day, we only saw one kiter on the water. Air temperatures were just above 40ºF (5ºC).

The day before had been much warmer, with temperatures close to 60ºF (15ºC). Lots of wind early in the morning, but it came with rain. Drew talked me into sailing after the sun came out. We were at Kalmus around noon; Martin also showed up, but the wind did not look that great, and was predicted to go down. With high tide and strong winds earlier, there was lots of chop, so we drove over to Kennedy Slicks. Indian Neck was pretty flat, but Kennedy Slicks was really flat. Unfortunately, the wind died after a few runs; Drew never got planing. Martin stayed out and practiced light wind freestyle - it was a beautiful warm day, and he'd probably been way too hot if he had not fallen often :-). Here are a few pictures:

Martin on the left, Drew close to shore

That's flat!

Drew almost got going..

Marty water starting in10-12 mph winds

You-know-who going for a duck tack

Even though I am German, I can't really complain about two nice days of windsurfing in a row. So what if the wind was not perfect? We were out playing in the sun! I was perfectly warm both days in my Ianovated suit (the new double-nylon one with a "relief zipper"). The only difference was that I needed a hood on the colder day, wore a neoprene shirt under the suit, and used my open-palm mitts and the heating tubes. With that, I was as warm and comfortable as any day in the summer.

Hardings Beach

Sunshine. Lots of white caps. A deserted beach. It must be November!

The forecast had called for wind all day long, but it took almost until noon before the air had warmed up enough to let the wind get down to the surface. Optimistically, I had planned on a morning speed session at the Kennedy Slicks, and an afternoon session at Kalmus. But the wind came more westerly than predicted, and was stronger in Chatham than in Hyannis, so off to Hardings Beach I went. Nina had to take care of some things and could not join me; Martin had to work; and Hardy, who certainly would have joined me if he had been around, is currently not on Cape Cod.

I ended up sailing alone. Not a big deal, since the wind was side-onshore, and air and water temperatures were a bit reasonable; but being alone on the water made me sail a bit more cautiously. Here is a little video from my 90 minute session that shows the conditions:


I was perfectly powered on 5.5, a welcome change from 6.5 or larger that I had to sailed most days this fall so far. The wind was steady all afternoon, with averages near 25 mph - 5 mph more than in Kalmus, which also looked a lot gustier on the wind meter graphs. Here are a few things I love about Hardings:

• Friendly little waves, perfect for a non-wave sailor like me (although they are good enough to occasionally attract "real" wave sailors like JE & PK).
• Very safe - safer than Kalmus, since there is no shipping lane with active ferry traffic nearby. A sand beach extends for about a mile from the launch for those who have to practice the "walk of the conquered hero" (renamed from the "walk of shame" by Coach Ned).
• Long reaches - I like to sail longer on one reach than many windsurfers, and Hardings allows runs of about 2 miles in WSW. 
• Waves and lanes on the inside, big orderly swell on the outside. Fun to sail in!

The next day, I went to sail Kalmus in 16-18 mph winds on my big slalom board and 8.5 m sail. Also fun, although quite different. But it made me appreciate the absence of ferry traffic in Hardings even more. Again, I was the only one on the water; with relatively light winds, the water was pretty smooth. That is, until the high speed ferry came steaming through. Even 10-15 minutes after the ferry had passed, the water surface anywhere close to the shipping lane could only be characterized as "voodoo chop". 

This time of the year, it is quite common that the forecast predicts much higher winds further out on the Cape. Wind meter reading often confirm that this really happens. Even after correcting for known biases (Hatch Beach reads 3 mph high in most directions; Kalmus reads low in S and SW, Chapin reads low in many directions), beaches in Orleans (Skaket) and Chatham (Hardings) often get 5 mph stronger winds than Hyannis (Kalmus) or Dennis (Chapin). That's especially the case at the beaches with the clearest fetch for the given wind direction - Hardings for W and WSW, and Skaket for W to NW (and possibly even N, but that's just speculation). It's definitely worth driving an extra 20 minutes (relative to Kalmus) on such days! 

30 great minutes

I wanted fall to come. October is good, November is better, December great. I remember many wonderful sessions where the wind blew all day, three days in a row.

Fall came. It's getting colder. Some friends stopped sailing on the colder days, and talk about stopping for the season soon. We should get our first snow tonight or tomorrow. Days are short - it gets dark at 4:30 in the afternoon.

But it seems nobody told the wind. Maybe the wind is exhausted, after blowing a lot during the summer. It has lost its stamina - on a good day, we may get a few hours of wind before it drops. Then nothing the next day. Or maybe the wind has developed a sun allergy - it's windy a lot at night. When we see wind during the day, it usually rains.

I have perfected mistiming the wind. It started on November 1st, when I missed most of the wonderful warm 35 mph winds. After that, I had three more similar sessions. Twice, the forecast was fantastic for the entire day, but the wind got tired after an hour or two. Of course, I started sailing as soon as the wind got tired. All that schlogging made me tired, too. The third time, the wind picked up earlier and faster than predicted. I went from underpowered on my 6.5 m sailed to fighting for control in overpowered conditions. With less than an hour left in the day, and Nina reading in the van instead of sailing, I did not rig down, but called it at day. Well, at least I got some planing that day. Yesterday was a different story...

But windsurfers must be optimists. So when the forecast predicted 16 mph WSW at 4 pm this afternoon, I kept my eyes on the wind meter readings. On sunny days, we often get a few miles more than forecast, so I kept dreaming of 20. At 3:10 pm, the meter readings hit 17 mph, gusting to 20. A bit more than an hour of daylight left - was it worth going? Sure it was!

I made it onto the water at 4:15. The wind had picked up a bit, at times gusting into high 20s. In the happy zone between powered and slightly overpowered, I had 30 minutes of fun as the sun went down. I had the water all to myself. No other windsurfers of kiters to create chop - the little wind swell was all mine to play with. One half hour of bliss. It's great to live on the Cape!