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I have fallen in love with Oleander Point. It's convenient -- about 15 minutes from my house, it's quick and easy to rig because you can just dump your stuff on the ample grass and rig quickly. There is no walking it out, and the chop is great! I spent the afternoon there again, along with a couple of my old friends, and a few of my new friends.
I didn't have a great day sailing. I went out first on my 6.6 and was a bit overpowered. After a few runs I came back and put more downhaul and outhaul on. It helped a lot, especially because I was loading up my fin and spinning out a lot before. The fin I used was a little underized for the 6.6, but I didn't want to jump to my next size up, which would have been too big for the conditions.
After some more crazy rides I decided to rig the 5.4, because I thought it was building a little and the 5.4 would be the right one. But, alas, I was too underpowered. I planed a lot, but rarely felt totally powered up. The chop was good-sized and being underpowered was tough at times. Part of the problem with the 5.4 was that I left the mast base all the way forward, as it was with the 6.6 (and needed to be). But, it prevented me from planing as quickly and I also felt out of balance at times, especially on the port side, coming back in, riding the wind-blown swell.
Once, it died so much that almost everyone out there was bobbing and I had to waterstart about 5 times in 5 minutes because I couldn't stay on my board. Right when I made it in, about 100 yards downwind from the launch, it came back up a little so I went back out and sailed upwind and stayed out for awhile until it backed off again.
All in all, not a terrific day. My jibes were awful, and I was so pumped to get out there because the last time I sailed my friend's wife took some video of me and I saw some problems I was going to fix. It just didn't work out. One of those days. I had a couple of nice little jumps and one big one where I felt like I was up there for a long time. I landed that one badly and spun out, or else it would have been my best jump ever. I think that it will all come together soon, jibes, duck jibes and jumps. I hope so!
The move of the day was one jibe out the outside in the waist high chop (it's not everywhere, but there are a few alleys). I jibed, switch my feet, then my sail (I'm usually a sail first guy, but I'm trying to learn both ways) and was about to eat it, but then my speed picked up with a push from a swell. I just about buried the nose and was mentally preparing for the visit to the dentist next week as I was sure to eat my boom when the bottom just dropped out and I went FLYING down the face of that sucker, eight feet of my 8'7" Carve in the water. I leaned back with the sail and the nose popped up and I ROCKETED out of there, accelerating as fast as I've every accelerated on a windsurfer. I was screaming along, out of the straps, bouncing over chop like a crazy man. I actually had to slow down to settle the board to get into the straps. I was shocked that I saved that one!
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