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Oh Yeah!
Where do I start? I guess I'll go with chronological. I arrived about noon, later than I wanted because I took the kids to the park early (I love doing that, but I was conflicted when hit with a 30mph gust!).
Everyone was coming in and talking about 5.0's and wind, so I rigged my 5.4 and headed out about 1pm. I got hammered. I couldn't do anything. I took one run, jibed and came back, fiddled with some adjustments, took another run and jibed and came back to shore. I moved the mast base all the way forward, flattened the sail to epic proportions with downhaul and outhaul and got ready to return to the battle.
After a few more minutes on shore, I decide instead to use my 4.7. I have used this sail with great success previously, even though it's an older sail and isn't supposed to work very well, especially with my constant curve masts (it wants flex top, I'm told by the man who made them). In an effort to soften it up and let it sail overpowered a little better, I rigged it with a shorter mast, the 400. I added about 30 cm of extension to make it right. The shorter mast is softer, and the additional extension is supposed to soften it even further. It all went together well, so I took it out.
I was still having a little trouble, but it became mostly a tailwalking and "board too big" not "sail too big" issue. I don't have a smaller board. I toughed it out. The sail seemed fine.
After awhile I became more comfortable and was really blasting around, despite the "board too big" problem. Then the wind died a tad and I was almost perfectly powered. It was great. I was kicking ass! I was surfing the small areas that had 2-3 rollers (BIB is shallow in most spots, but there are a few areas), I was pulling of great jibes (real, planing, perfect), I was kicking ass! (Did I mention that?).
A little while later, the wind died even more, to about 20mph. This is typically about 6.6 weather for me, and everyone else went in. EVERYONE. I was alone -- and still ripping! Whoohoo! I can't figure this sail out. New sails are supposed to have great range down -- 6.6 in 5.4 weather, etc -- but this has great range up -- 4.7 in 6.6 weather. I was loving it just being a tad underpowered but still ripping. I even tried some duck jibes, though I didn't make any. I tried some chop hops and had a few, but not great ones. I'm mostly worried about the landing. I've had a few bad ones and my ankles held a town meeting to encourage me to forego this pleasure.
During one of my duck jibe attempts, I wiped out and had to swim about 30 feet to my board. I got to the board, put my feet down in the 4 foot deep water and landed on this:
http://windsurf.hansanderson.com/photos/net.jpg
That's an old net covered in barnacles. As I was dragging it to shore (I was just off shore when I wrecked), I stumbled on something else. This time it was a 12" weed fin, Trim box. I don't own a Trim box, so I gave it to Don at Worldwinds.
I took a few more runs, but then called it a day. I'm really enjoying this good wind. Tomorrow might be another day. We'll see how much work I get done tomorrow morning.
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