Hudson River Rats Beginner Night

Yesterday (Thursday, August 19th) was the second of the biannual windsurfer beginner nights at Kingston Point Beach. (Why I didn't mention this on the blog earlier, I do not know. Somebody please smack me for that.) I arrived at 4 PM, about an hour before the event started, and rigged with fellow River Rats beth and Eva for a pre-teaching sail. I rigged an 8.5 on the Kona while Beth rigged a 6.3 and Eva was on a 7.0, the biggest sails they owned.


No matter how big the sails were, they were too small. At one point I actually was committed in the harness, but most of the time it was light-wind sailing, preying for a gust. There were also large islands of water chestnuts to avoid, and at one point I had to jump off my board to clear the fin and daggerboard.


We arrived back; the River Rats were arriving in force: Brian (the organizer), Beth, Eva, Rick C., Tommy, myself, Dick T., Ben F., John M., Steve H. and others. Beth was handing out new chachkas: River Rat coffee mugs! neat! Brian handled the rigging lesson while Rick delivered an excellent lesson in uphauling and sheeting in. As a teacher, I was really impressed.

After ground instruction, it was time to hit the water, and just in time for the wind to die. We did manage six beginner boards, including my Kona and Kirsten's Amundsen SUP board. (I brought it to paddle on while teaching, but the dearth of big boards required it was pressed into service as a windsurfer.) It was a beautiful evening, starting off pleasant but with storm clouds rolling in in the distance.

Getting in the water.

Lisa, one of the beginners, learning to sheet in.

Sultan drove all the way up from Queens to learn how to windsurf.

There's me, unable to resist sailing my wife's SUP board, if you can call sheeting in with no wind “sailing”.

This young lady is nine years-old, and she got this old windsurfer to sail. Color me impressed.

I want one of those colorful 80s-style sails. It just looks so cool.

As the evening ended, storm clouds rolled in north of us.

Learning Basics From Ned

I’m sitting on the couch, icing my knee, and wondering why I windsurf. Yesterday, during a session at Kowawese Park in Cornwall, I slipped on my board and my bare knee slammed into the plate on my retracted daggerboard. I could see the indentation from the blow right in the soft spot below the patella. And that happened ten minutes after I cut the same knee with the fin.


I feel like I’ve been inventing new and more clever ways of hurting myself, but that’s not going to get in the way of a good time. I actually had a pretty good session at Kowawese Park, even though the winds were highly variable. South winds will blow a sailor upriver, and when that’s combined with an incoming tide, that can be a little tricky. I was sailing with Faruk, one of the newest Hudson River sailors, and I noticed he was getting pushed upriver. After a while I had to go upriver myself just to get him to start sailing back. It took me less than five minutes to get to Faruk and half an hour to return, and when I arrived at the beach, ace sailor and instructor Ned was there. He criticized me for going so damn far upriver, but even after I defended myself and said I was just trying to help Faruk the “Ian did something else stupid” label seemed to stick. When Faruk finally got back, we both got chided again, and this time I held my tongue.


Ned then gave Faruk and I some more lessons on the basics. They were great. Sometimes, even when you’ve been doing something simple like uphauling for years, you can still get better. I took videos of Ned teaching and I posted them here. He’s an excellent instructor. (I’m a good teacher too, but not of windsurfing or really any physical skill.) In the videos below, you'll see him demonstrating Windsurfing 101. You may need to turn the sound up to hear his voice.

Standup Paddler Hangs With Sharks

The California surfer Chuck Patterson just made a video of himself standup paddling while two small great white sharks circled him. I'm impressed not only by the footage but by his ability to stay calm around these magnificent apex predators:



Me my Shark and I from Chuck Patterson on Vimeo.

Good Equipment Is Important

I was reminded how important your equipment is during a recent trip I took to my wife’s family in the Albany area. I brought all my fancy doodads: cell phone, iPod, digital camera, Macintosh laptop, all prepared to write and blog during a family foray, then get completely stymied by the absence of one critical piece of equipment: the power cord.


My last foray onto the Hudson was similar, but the results were far more disastrous than a lack of juice. I rigged an Aquaglide Impact 6.5 that I’d gotten last year as part of a package. Yeah, it was cheap inexpensive, but I’m not the kind of guy to say no to gear I can afford. I’m supporting my wife and three children plus a windsurfing habit on a public school teacher’s salary, so I’ll take the stuff where I can get it.


What the Aquaglide Impact sales brochure doesn’t tell you is that instead of a traditional mast cup at the top of the mast sleeve, it has two crossed straps, which should be just as strong, right? Not when one, just one, of those four straps begins to fray. The whole thing becomes unstable. The mast had actually popped through the top of the sleeve on a previous sail, but I’d assumed that was my fault. Inexperienced me must have rigged the thing wrong — it couldn't have been the equipment. But when I got to Swamp Hole again and looked at the sail with River Master Ned, we saw the problem. Mind you, this sail is a year old. I immediately thought this might make a good blog topic, but did I take a picture of it? No, because I assumed I’d be able to when I got back. Foolish mortal.

Here I am on this sail of evil, ignorant of the trouble it will cause.

Ned suggested I rig it anyway and keep close to shore. I tried to stay close in, but when my Kona broke out onto a plane it was too much fun! I got a little careless. Then the mast popped out the top of the sail, and I went down. Things weren’t so bad, though. I could stand up and limp back to the launch point. I was sufficiently upwind that that wasn’t a problem. Then I fell again and the boom clamp popped open. While I was trying to close it, the boom inhaul line snapped. Bad.


If I had been thinking clearly, I would have floated on my back and repaired that inhaul line with a good square knot, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. The winds were about 20 mph and there was chop, which made matters worse. I first tried to lean the whole rig on the tail of my Kona and then paddle back. Unfortunately the whole thing kept flipping over in the wind. Then I tried detaching the sail and plopping the whole shebang on top of the board, kept down by my weight. That didn’t work either; the whole thing kept sliding off into the chop. Yes, I was getting scared. I tried waving down a motorboat, but it didn’t see me. I didn’t see my friends nearby either.


Last option was a self-rescue, something I’d seen done on videos (and Windsurfing Magazine) but never actually tried. I slid the boom off, then got to work on the mast. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about stuffing the mast into the footstraps, so I ended up holding the bottom half of the mast on my board with one hand while trying to undo the rest of the rig with the other. I lost my grip on the board and floated away with half a mast and a damaged sail while the winds to my Kona. After a desperate swim, I got back to the board and paddled back to the sail, but I was scared and losing strength.


The sail got away from me again, and I decided not to go after it. Goodbye, sail, into the murky depths of the Hudson. Then I lost grip of the mast half I had, and it sank beneath me. I was left with a boom, mast extension, mast base and my big, old, trusty Kona, and thank the gods for that. After freaking out about losing the rig, I paddled back on my belly about 1/3 of a mile back to Senasqua Park, the trusty recovery point. That was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do physically. I was exhausted, waves were battering me and the wind kept pushing the nose of the Kona downstream. To make matters more interesting, I had to paddle through a parking lot of moored sailboats.


As I got close to the stone wall of Senasqua, somebody yelled a few things to me. “Are you hurt?” was the only question I could make out. I told him I was okay, then hauled the remains of my kit up the broken stone wall. Safe. After that it was a short walk to Swamp Hole. I got there, let my buddies know I was okay, then almost puked.

Wife Wins River Warrior Award

My wife has now joined the ranks of river warriors. For years she’s been mocking me about swimming in the Hudson River, the so called “Dirty Stream”, named by Pete Seeger. However, as an accomplished swimmer, the Hudson presented a certain fascination. The river itself has gotten much cleaner over the years, with much thanks laid at the feet of Pete Seeger and his Clearwater organization. When my Grandfather was a boy in the 1930s, he told me he had to use the breast stroke while swimming in the Hudson in order to push aside the “brown things” floating in the water. Now it’s clean enough for everybody, even Kirsten.

Registration on a gorgeous day.

The Newburg-Beacon swim is about a mile in length. It’s a charity swim for the Beacon Riverpool, an innovative pool on the Beacon riverfront. The five of us (Kirsten, me, three kidlings) drove out to Newburg for Kirsten’s registration. She got a neon-green bathing cap with a number and a GPS ankle bracelet. We arrive early, so we waited around for a while, enjoying the beautiful day (and I, secretly wishing I had my Kona board with me). As the time for her to swim drew nigh, I took my son on a trip to the bathroom. As we passed a waterfront restaurant, an old man was preparing to sing. I took one look at him and recognized Pete Seeger himself.

Seeger is 91 now, and his voice isn’t what it was, but what I heard moved me. I’d grown up with the man’s music (literally: my parents played me Seeger’s records when I was a kid) and seeing him now was very moving.

The dive-off point.

Then it was time to go. Kirsten had to attend safety meetings and the kids were getting restless. I drove across the Newburg-Beacon Bridge to Beacon and camped out the family on the waterfront at the receiving point. With binoculars, I could see the swimmers on the other side lining up on the dock. At 11:30, the first wave of swimmers jumped in, and the river was full of florescent-colored bathing caps and their escort kayaks. It was very colorful.

What was Gabriel doing while he was waiting for his Mommy to cross the river?

He was writing a story! Without being prompted!

The first swimmer made it across in just under a half an hour. The second swimmer came soon after and it was a woman. Then the third swimmer approached the pier. He/she looked familiar. I recognized the skin tone and peculiar way his/her hand cut through the water in the freestyle stroke. Then I got a glimpse of the swimmer’s bathing suit: it was a one-piece woman’s suit, and that was Kirsten’s. “Gabriel, I think that’s Mommy,” I told him. He got excited, and so did the twins, although the two girls are only two and really didn’t understand what was going on. When Kirsten pulled herself out of the water we were all cheering like mad.

Kirsten emerges from the water.

Now she strolls down the dock. Ho, hum. Just swam across the river. No biggie.

Kirsten told me she had been pretty confused while approaching the dock because there were no swimmers in front of her. She was stunned that she was the third across because, “I wasn’t even trying hard.”

After we ate, the five of us strolled towards the Riverpool, passing Pete Seeger on this side ripping up some more songs. I went back to the car to retrieve everyone’s bathing suits and noticed Pete Seeger had finished his set and was talking to some children. I went over and shook his hand, telling him, “I’ve been listening to your albums since I was a kid.”

“I’m surprised you stayed out of jail,” he answered.

“No, I did fine,” I laughed, then ended it with saying, “Thank you. You’re one of my heroes.”

We ended the trip with a dip in the Riverpool, which is a really neat thing. The bottom is solid netting, and the whole thing floats in the water. It also bobs up and down with the waves, which makes a kind of unique bathing experience. This one is small, but a larger, adult-sized pool is in the works.

And now I can say that my wife is one of the river warriors. I’m very proud of her.

The River Has Other Plans

Today was going to be my first return to the Hudson after my foray into beach sailing in Cape Cod. Cape Cod had been pretty good to me. I had sailed out in the swells of Corn Hill beach pretty successfully, with not too many spills, so I was ready to go back to my home front and conquer the Hudson yet again. The river had other plans.

Winds were forecasted to be north in the mid-teens, so I packed my quiver into my wife’s Volkswagen Jetta and headed for Swamp Hole. Presnt at Swamp Hole was our resident wind guru Ned, who’s forgotten more about windsurfing than I’ll ever know. I first rigged my Exocet Cruiser, a board I’m falling less and less in love with, with a 6.5. The winds were almost right for a 6.5 but I couldn’t seem to get my weight right on the board or something. I don’t know … I’ve only had one or two satisfying sails with this board. Then an odd thing happen: I went down on top of the sail and it suddenly felt weird underneath me, like it was all crinkly or something. When I uphauled I realized the sail had popped off the end of the mast. That particular sail only has a strap at the top, not a pin or end-cap, and I hadn’t been putting a pin on the strap to hold it in. Now I learned my lesson with that. I limped back to Swamp hole and decided to redo everything. I rigged my cammed 7.0 instead and dropped it onto my Kona, then set out again.

I had a couple of planing runs out into the river when the wind started picking up, I mean really picking up! My friend John Spanos, who was also out there, estimated the winds got to 30-35. There I was, out there with a 7.0, getting knock down like crazy. It was brutal. Forget about sheeting in; the best an intermediate sailor like me could hope for was surviving and getting somewhere, but I was having trouble even standing up! (No, I don’t know how to waterstart yet.) After about fifteen minutes of this beating, my muscles were aching and I wa getting exhausted. So much for a nice little sail.

The problem with launching from Swamp Hole is that there are only two recovery points, one close by at Senasqua Park and another at Croton Point Park, which is quite a bit downstream. I was flailing about parallel with Senasqua but was also getting blown south. Man, I did not want to recover at Croton Point! Getting battered in high winds, seriously battered, is one of those moments which tests a less-skilled sailor like myself. After you’ve been knocked down for the twentieth time your arms start to ache. You swallow a lot of water (The Hudson River! Yum!).

As you can see by the Google Earth Legend in the lower left corner, it's over a kilometer from Swamp Hole to Croton Point Park.

Then crazy thoughts enter your brain. You start muttering: “I hate windsurfing! I hate this sport! Why the hell did I ever go out on the river? I promise, God, when I get back to shore, I’m going to take up skateboarding. Or jogging. Or gardening. Or anything where I won’t have to get into the water. Just please let me get to shore!”

For some reason, my thirty-fifth attempt to sheet in was successful. I managed to get the sail engaged, spilling most of the wind, and pointed the Kona towards Senasqua. I made it in and parked the board on the beach. No, I did not kiss the ground; the joy of being on shore kept the thought from my mind. Then I did the “walk of the conquered hero” back to Swamp Hole to get the car.

It's much closer from Senasqua to Swamp Hole.

After chatting at Swamp Hole for a while, the wind died down. Ned suggested that I might be able to sail my board back,“if you got the tacking right.” Now, tacking is one of the things I can actually do on my Kona board reasonably competently (Ned taught me) so I took him up on it. I walked back and returned upwind to Swamp Hole in just one tack. I was redeemed!

The only good thing about getting hammered out on the water is that it’s a good workout. Forget about the elliptical trainer or the treadmill: just get your inexperienced rear end out on heavy winds with a big sail, and you’re in for the workout of the month. Not that I would actually suggest this as a workout, but it has its benefits.

A Family Vacation

A Family Vacation (With Windsurfing)

One of the toughest things to balance sometimes is windsurfing with the rest of your family life. After all, windsurfing is a pretty time-demanding, but so is your family, especially when there are kids involved. In my case, I have three, a six year-old boy and two year-old twin girls.

We’ve gone on vacation to Cape Cod. Getting there required some determined packing on my end: I own neither a minivan nor a large SUV, but needed to get all my windsurfing gear to the Cape along with all my family’s luggage. In the end, I had half a roof. So I packed almost everything into my trusty sail bag and loaded it on top of my Kona board and my wife’s Amundsen SUP board, with everything snuggly sitting next to our Thule box. Since all this luggage was pushing the weight maximum for the roof rack, I left my big sail (8.5) and 490 mast at home. An 8.5 sail is a pretty big beast to take into the swells anyway.

We like to rent a cabin in Truro, which is pretty far up the Cape. Most days my wife Kirsten and I schlep the family to Corn Hill Beach, a beach not known for its windsurfing but a great place for a family. It’s on Cape Cod Bay, so the waves are tiny and when the tide is out, the shallows go on forever.

I usually windsurfed around my family’s needs. Some days I’d hit the water at 7:30 AM, before the family was ready to do anything. Other times I’d sail in the late afternoon and arrive back at the cabin with something yummy waiting on the table. Unfortunately, my good digital camera broke the first day we arrived, so we had to make due with my wife Kirsten’s manual film camera. (Pictures coming when the film is developed: how quaint!)

Unfortunately the winds were never very remarkable. Most of the time they ranged from 5–15 mph, which meant my biggest sail, a Neil Pryde V8 7.0, was pretty underpowered. That said, I had some great sailing. I love salt-water sailing: the board floats higher, the waves and swell are fun to sail over and the water just a has a different feel to it. It feels more alive than the Hudson River I know so well. Plus, there’s always the chance of meeting a critter out there, like a seal, sea turtle, dolphin, or shark. (I like sharks.) Low winds also gave me the change to practice more jibes and beach starts. The jibes I’m doing a better with, but beach starting is still confounding me. I can do a shallow-water one, but I’m still struggling to do one in deeper water, especially when the winds are light.

Most of my runs worked this way: on the way out I’d pop down the daggerboard and ride out about ½ a mile into the bay. Then, I’d retract the daggerboard, jibe, then ride the swells back to the beach. Yes, the winds were light and I rarely planed, but this was still great fun.

My best sail was probably a Monday evening after a day at the beach. The winds were about a steady 15 mph all day, but I only had our standup paddleboard. The winds were too heavy for much for any serious paddling. I returned later in the day for a sunset sail on my 7.0 sail. My Kona was bouncing up and down on the swells, sometimes planing, often not. I tried to avoid using the daggerboard as much as possible during my runs out and back and only used it at the end when I needed to get back upwind to my launch point.

One highlight of the beach sailing was a sail with my son Gabriel. In light winds I put him onto the middle of the board. He then straddled the mast, facing backwards. We sailed out and back a few times in light winds. Tacking meant gingerly stepping around the boy as I turned my big board. Gabriel was pretty scared, but when he got to shore he shouted he loved it.

Unfortunately the tide was so low that I had to walk my board out about 150 yards from the shoreline to get water deep enough to sink the 46 cm fin. I worked on my beach starts, and even did one from navel-deep water without too much trouble. The bottom at this beach, especially the deeper water, is infested with crabs and the occasional lobster. So all the time I was wrestling with the beach start I was nervous that an aggressive crustacean might chose that moment to start nibbling at my toes.

I took a trip down to the upper Cape one day and stopped in at Inland Sea in Dennis. Phil, the proprietor, is a welcoming owner. He always remembers me, even though I come to the shop maybe once a year. The shop doesn’t have a fancy interior, but it shouldn’t. The space is dedicated to kiting, standup paddling and windsurfing gear. It was great for me to actually walk through the space of a real store and look at the boards and sails instead of just browsing a website. We chatted for a while and complained about the beach parking fees at Dennis ($20) but then realized at Truro it wasn’t much cheaper without a weekly sticker.

I bagged a session when the wind was good (10-17) for two reasons. The wind was offshore and there was an outgoing spring tide. Yeah, there were people on the shore, but the beach was crowded and there were no craft in the water. So I spent the afternoon on the SUP board, paddling and goofing off with Gabriel. He enjoyed a game where I’d push the board with him on top out into the water, then I’d deliberately fall when the board leash pulled my ankle. For some reason this was extremely funny.

On our final day I got a great session in the morning. I met a windsurfer named Dave from West Virginia in the parking lot. He was a really friendly guy and he helped me carry my sail to the beach, which was a big help. He was thinking about launching too and made up his mid to do so after seeing me. The winds were running about 15-20 mph when I launched, still with the 7.0. I had a great run in the swells. I’m still getting knocked down more than I like, but it was great going on and off a plane. Dave launched later with a 6.2 and a 140 liter AHD board and I joined him for a second session, but the wind had died down by then and his sail was definitely too small. Dave said afterwards, “It’s better we rigged and did something than standing around and talking about it.” I agree.

Here are something I learned with a family windsurfing vacation:

1. Make sure your wife gets time in the water; that way she won’t begrudge your time in the water. This also means don’t complain about spending time alone with the kids.
2. Don’t search for perfect conditions. Be flexible with your time and just get out there and deal with what you’ve got. Consider early morning sails. Remember, time on water is better than no time on water. (This is why I bring my Kona longboard.)
3. Get your kids involved in watersports. Kirsten and I regularly take Gabriel on SUP trips. I even did a small session with him standing on the board in surfer mode while I sat, paddled, and maintained balance. Even really little kids can sit on a floating board in six inches of water. Don’t neglect a PFD for the little ones.