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I had a marginal session saved by a nice 60 minute jump in the wind. I arrived late to a full parking area at the visitors center (which is now a hopping joint for the general public), and it looked like my 7.5 was the only thing that would get me on the water. I rigged up and hit the water, but for an hour had a 50:50 planing to non-planing session. Seven or eight kites were on the water with twin tips or foils. I had the chance to talk with Pat and Penny from Syracuse. They rip! On the water, in the air, and on four wheels…ask em some time.
It was nice to catch up with Suan, and Vlad from the Cayuga Windsurfing Club while I rigged. I figured to give up on the day when it ramped minutes after I cam ashore. Unfortunately it was minutes after a couple of the crew packed up and left. Suan rigged up a 5.8 and I flattened my 7.5 as much has I could (knowing that time spent rigging down may be fruitless as the wind may die) and put on a smaller fin, and we went for it. Vlad joined up as well.
Mostly the next 60 minutes for me were like PWA slalom racing. Balancing on the edge of exploding. I managed to get 13 more miles under my belt and hit 28mph while burning runs in close to the visitor center and a wedding party. On the run I hit 28 mph, I struck what turned out to be a thick plastic car bumper and had a huge catapult. I was lucky to not have any gear or myself injured.
Wd
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The best part was having favorable conditions to rip down in close to the Visitors Center and doing some screaming jibes in front of the I Love NY sculpture. Then head upwind and do the same along the promenade near the Ramada.
I neglected to mention some more of the cast of characters. Suan and Vlad were up from the southern reaches of the finger lakes, as well as a Mr. G.E. Moore of Freaky G. fame.
Geoff was holding his big sail down through all of this as well, with the added technical difficulty of what looked like a long board that he was riding before the wind ramped up. Whoa!
Suan and Vlad had just finished taking their gear apart when it built up, and they joined the game with smaller sails. Suan, ever the determined one, went 5.8 so that he could work on duck jibes. And he did. And he made a couple. I witnessed decent first success that was as grabby as mine occasionally are. Nice Suan!
Wd
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Belated follow-up…
I got to Geneva SP at about 12:30 or 1:00, I think, and it was looking 7.5-ish. I saw an Ezzy orange top that I now know was Doug, and a black sail that…I’m not sure whom it was, possibly Suan.
I rigged the 7.5 and went out on the iSonic. It was some good, some hunting-for-wind schlog. Like Doug, about 50/50 in gradual rising gradual falling waves. I didn’t go down in as low as Doug and Suan because it was iffy enough out in the middle, HWS marina level. Seemed to be dropping so I went in to put the iSonic away and get the Kona 11’5 tri-fin. It’s really a light-to-moderate wind surf sailor, but with the step tail it goes pretty good overpowered and has quite nice glide. Smooth jiber, but long arcs only, helped by quite round rails…very soft feel. Normally I’d have gone down inside with Doug and Suan, but the Kona is a bit big for slashing waves…it’s more of a light wind down-the-line kind of board. Then, as Doug says, it was dying so I came in.
Suddenly the wind came up, and I didn’t think it would last too long so I didn’t want to re-rig anything and, like Doug, went back out with the 7.5 and Kona. iWindsurf showed 20-25, and held my own for a while but ultimately dropped in to flatten the sail a notch. Helped a little, but then it started dropping. That little session made the day that would otherwise have been ho-hum.
And I’ll attest that Suan had at least 1 nice duck jibe, because I saw it. Good to see, as we talked about how to do those last time we sailed. Nice work, Suan!
PS – was up again today, and there’s now quite a lot of wood, some of it big, floating around.
GEM
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