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Today is the last day in my windsurfing "year". I started sailing in Corpus Christi on 8/26/01. It's been a fantastic year, with 105 days of windsurfing. Considering that I missed about 35 good days because of work or other committments, and that I was too snobbish to sail another 50-60 big sail days, I could have easily done 200 if I had a mind to. The 105 represent 105 good, fun sailing days and a lot of progress. When I started I could hardly sail at all beyond erratic straight line dashes. Now I can jibe pretty well, fast tack, duck jibe okay and am starting to get some some jumps. This time next year I hope I am able to do all of those easily and jump higher than anyone around here. I will also probably come up with more goals. Probably I'll want to ride some waves (I need better, stronger gear first), try some loops, maybe a few freestyle tricks like an vulcan or wymaroo, etc. Or, it could be just a matter of smaller increments of improvement on what I already know. I'll make those goals in November. That is when I made the current set of goals and I'll use that as my goal calendar year.
I've heard that Corpus isn't a very good place to sail, but I have to disagree. I really like it here. I think we need more young sailors but this is a difficult place to work, because the job market is pretty bad outside of oil company work. It's too hot to beach bum in your van for long periods, too. I do think that we could support another 500-1000 windsurfers on the water with only parking and launch issues being a problem. There is wind and there is water and there is warmth.
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Today, John and Mike and I met at TAMUCC Beach to try to sail light wind on the Bay. I checked out Oso and saw it capping quite a bit so I drove over there. When I got there it looked too light so I drove to Grassy, where I saw a few guys slogging.
I rigged up my 7.8 and Allstar 70 and went out and surprisingly was able to plane. I wasn't ripping, but I was planeing and I was pretty shocked. I think I am learning how to rig the sail a little better and I'm a better sailor now than I was the last time I used this board, too, owing to a lot of windy days since.
I ripped around for about 90 minutes, doing a bunch of nice fast tacks and a few nice jibes. Most of the jibes were difficult because I was still trying to turn the Carve, not the Allstar. Once I got it figured out it was a little better, but there is a definite difference in sailing the 7.8 and Allstar over the 6.6 or even 5.4 and the Carve.
It was a rather boring sailing day -- just about powered on a 7.8 in flat water -- but I was impressed that I could sail at all. Still, since it's not nearly as fun as the smaller gear, it's worth the wait for windier days, which are common around here.
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