Why I'm Not In With Matt Pritchard

In the latest Windsurfing magazine, Matt Pritchard has an article about increasing one's performance. The bottom line is: “GET NEW GEAR!” (I didn't add the all-caps.) He makes it clear that no part of his rig is over than five years old and, “…sometimes you've just got to step up and throw down!”

This is wrong on a lot of levels. Take me: I'm a middle-school English teacher. I'm not raking in the big bucks. My wife just had twins and we have another child too. I'm supposed to be constantly updating my gear just to get up to Mr. Pritchard's standards? Unless Mr. Pritchard wants to e-mail me his Visa card number or hand me down some of his ancient three-year sails, I'm out there on old stuff. Occasionally I can upgrade something, but that's an exception rather than the rule.

Mr. Pritchard, gaze in horror at my most used sail. It's a North 7.0 with three cams. I bought from a friend for $75 and I've sailed it for two years now. It's a very nice sail. Is it tuned perfectly? Probably not. Is the monofilm clear and lovely, like a freshly cleaned window? See for yourself.

My favorite part of this sail are the multitude of repairs. Most of these are slices in the monofilm, and are repaired easily with a roll of packing tape. I've used sailtape too on parts of the sail, but cheap old packing tape does fine. Can you count the repairs? In this small section alone there are at least four.

Here is the first 390 CM mast I purchased, a mere two years ago. Note the ribs, the dark color, the 50% carbon construction, and the fact that it's in three sections. This lovely event occurred a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to tell you that the wind was at thirty knots and the mast snapped as my Kona hit some chop just as a flukey gust came from another direction. If I were picking up girls, that would be my story. Unfortunately, this little equipment malfunction occurred when I was downhauling! Yep. Downhauling. It's an off brand. I thought I was getting a bargain for just over $200. Now I haven't been windsurfing for that long, but I've never heard of a mast snapping while downhauling. I suppose if I were applying enormous amounts of force on the downhaul line I could do that, but this is weird.

In this case Mr. Pritchard is correct. I needed new gear (and my wife needed to get me a Father's Day present). In ordered a Fiberspar 30% carbon 390 CM mast, the Reflex 3200. It stated in the literature how rugged and firm this mast is. I sure hope so.

Interestingly, I wasn't finished with that old carbon mast. I had the top section of a 460 mast and the bottom section of the 490 mast. Put them together and what do you get, a 475?

Actually, I don't think I'll sail this. I'm sure these two sections were never meant to be used together. Then again, maybe I will, and I'll e-mail pictures of it to Mr. Pritchard. Actually, the bottom half of the 460 has an aluminum mast extension stuck in the end. I'm going to use a technique I saw in Windsurfing magazine where you tie one end to the tow hitch of your vehicle and the other to an immovable object. You just need to make sure you tie a knot that creates enough friction so it won't slip.

The Great Mystery of Board Shorts

Okay, it's been a while, but I have an explanation. You see, these twin girls at my house are taking up some time. They need to be fed and everything. You gotta change their diapers too. It was also the end of the school year and I was totally swamped with grading papers. It's a little-known secret that English teacher have the most grading of any subject teacher. We have to grade every paper closely for grammar, punctuation and logical sense. This takes much time. Usually after about fifteen papers I'm ready to go insane.

My dirty secret (one of them) as an English teacher is that I dislike grading papers immensely. I'll do the dishes before I'll grade papers. So when I actually have to grade them, it takes a while. I'm an expert at avoiding grading. My other dirty secret is that I can't spell very well. Thank the gods for spell-check.

My wife is totally occupied with feeding our two young chicks. They need to feed something like every two hours. That means she's feeding them on the average of eleven times a day! Since she's doing this au natural this is taking up huge swaths of her time. I figured Kirsten is spending more time feeding these girls than the rest of her waking activities put together. I couldn't imagine doing anything that often (yes, even that).

A rather swanky pair of boardshorts. Note the 1980s style windsurfer in the background. (This picture is from the Wikipedia Creative Commons.)

I've got a lot of things to go over. A couple I'll save for later entries. The first is the clearing up of a great mystery: board shorts. What does one wear under board shorts? I had imagined some sort of Speedo undergarment, but then this supporsition posed another mystery. In every on-line retailer that I looked at, they never sold the undergarment. What gives? If people wore this thing, then somebody would be selling it somewhere. I was really confused. This was becoming a real burning question for me, almost like the “What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt”? (answer: nuttin')

Kirsten wasn't a help. She's a girl, of course, and girls have an odd advantage here. They can either wear a bikini bottom underneath or, Kirsten's preference, wear the boardshorts over a one-piece bathing suit.

I was talking on the phone with Scott when I asked him, “Scott, what do you wear underneath your boardshorts?”

His answer: “I don't wear anything.”

Me: “So what do you do about your, um, dangly bits?”

Scott laughed: “You just let 'em dangle.”

So it was that simple all along. You just wear 'em over nuttin. I've got to get me some boardshorts now. Of course I could have just checked good old Wikipedia. It has all the answers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardshorts

So what do you wear underneath your boardshorts? Leave a comment.

What's a Low-Wind Session Good For?

Scott and I got out yesterday for a couple of hours. The wind sucked; there's no other way to put it. But we went out anyway. Why did we do that?

Here are some good reasons to go out for a low-wind sail:

1) It's a good time to take out a beginner and practice some basic skills. Scott worked on sheeting and weight distribution, and got stoked. Any little improvement is a good thing.

2) It's a good time to work on basic skills, like the sail spin. This is when you hold the boom or uphaul line in zero position, then move the around the board. Practice rotating the sail without moving the board. Practice moving the board underneath your feet without moving the sail. You'll improve your balance and footwork, as well as get basic skills for tacks and jibes. I learned this from Ned Crossly, one of the most esteemed and skilled members of the Hudson River Windsurfers. As a professional West Point Movement Coach (yes, that West Point), he understood the importance of moving correctly. When I was a beginning windsurfer, he generously spent time with me, helping me on basic skills. (Thanks, Ned.)

3) Practice tacks and jibes. This is a great time, again, to improve those basic skills without the fear of a high-speed wipeout.

4) Break out your biggest sail. See how fast you can go. Can you plane in 8 MPH wind?

5) Break out a longboard and find out what all those crazy longboarders have been talking about. The great thing about a longboard is: There's no such thing as too little wind. If there's no wind, break out an SUP paddle and paddle around on the longboard. It's a great workout.

Any other suggestions? Please post.

A Few New Pictures

It's hard for me to get pictures of myself windsurfing because I often go out alone. My schedule keeps me from getting together with the other Hudson River windsurfers too often. However, we just got some pictures developed from last year. My wife took these early last fall. As you can see, it's still warm enough to sailing in shorts.

Coming back from a low-wind session. I'm on the F2 Strato.

Nice form!

I think that's Scott on left, uphauling. The light is quite nice. It's making my sail glow.

I'm hoping to get out tomorrow morning (worked it out with Kirsten). The mornings usually don't have much wind, but any day on the water is a good day. I'll try the big sail.

Sailed a Rio

I had about 1 1/2 hours free on Saturday. My friend Scott was going out so I accompanied him with my kayak. I figured I'd get more time in the water without having to rig. (Besides, I could always steal his board for a while, which I did.) Scott finally got sailing on his Rio. I showed him how to uphaul and sheet in, and he eventually got it. He was making the classic beginner's mistake of keeping his feet on either side of the mast, preventing his sail from sheeting in well, but he's learning.

The Rio L is a nice board. It's a freaking aircraft carrier, which is good and bad. It's a full meter wide, which means I can waltz with a partner on top and not step over the edge. It's so stable, I was letting myself get sloppy with my tacks. It turns, like any good shortboard, like a top, even with the daggerboard extended. The wind was blowing about 10 mph, and even with the little 5.0 sail we'd rigged, the Rio wanted to climb onto a plane. I never quite got it up on a plane, but it sure wanted to.

It was interesting being on a shortboard after having sailed longboards almost exclusively for about a year. They sure turn easily, even one as big as the Rio L. While that board has about the same volume as my Kona, it's a completely different beast. The Kona cuts through the water, while the Rio wants to be above the water. The Rio wasn't much fun at slow speeds, I'm used to that, but the idea of planing up and down Peekskill Bay on a wideboard seemed like a lot of fun. Hmm....

The Hudson isn't quite this scenic, and my Bilbao isn't nearly this clean. It's also orange.

My kayak is a Bic Bilbao. It's a sit-on-top kayak which works quite well for the Hudson. I saw one a few years ago in the Inland Sea shop in Cape Cod and liked the design. It's great for the ocean or river and handles rough water well. I preferred a sit-on-top model so I wouldn't have to worry about rolling the kayak over and getting trapped underneath. The Bilbao also has a nice, rear-facing child's seat in front so you can take a kid along. I've paddled it on the Hudson and Cape Cod Bay and have grown to like it. The only problem is that it's a little heavy (46 lbs), so it's an effort to put on a roof-rack by myself.

Here's a good review of the Bilbao. This review also discusses the Bilbao's two-seater cousin, the Tobago:

http://www.sit-on-topkayaking.com/KayakData/Reviews/BicSport.htm

Today (Monday) I was out on the kayak again with Gabriel. He got real upset the other day when I went out with Scott and the kayak and didn't take him, so I agreed to take him out after I picked him up from the day care center today. We launched from the Annsville Creek park which has a nice kayak launch, plus a kayak shop where you can take lessons, rent kayaks, etc. They're expensive but pretty good. We launched at about 4:30, but the tide was so low we got stuck a couple of times. We both wore PFDs, but I felt a little silly with them on considering the water was about 8 inches deep. Gabriel amused himself by picking up handfuls of mud then hurling them. That was pretty funny to watch. We got into some deeper water near the rail bridge. While we were underneath the bridge, Gabriel was highly amused by the echo, which was a new thing for him. We go out of the water about 5:30, and we were both pretty muddy.