Windfest Report

I got home last night from Windfest. What a great day.

Scott and I arrived at Heckscher Park at about 9 AM after a two-hour drive. Winds were steady at around 10 mph, which were measured in two ways. A fellow Hudson River Rat, Dave Rogers, used an iPhone windspeed meter but this was confirmed by another person with an old-fashioned mechanical anemometer. I was told by Mike Burns that the wind was expected to go up during the day. The wind direction was SSE, almost completely on shore.


There were a couple of other Hudson River Rats there, Buddha Mike and Sven, but the majority of people were the Long Island crew. Dave and I parked our cars next to each other with one empty space between, where Dave and his wife set up their fajita grill. Repeating last year, we began the day with cold vichyssoise with chives and pepper. “You guys are foodies!” I said with glee.


“Absolutely,” said Sarah, Dave's wife.

Dave doing what he does well. I actually missed those fajitas because I had sailed near Montauk.

Anticipating the wind, I rigged kind of small with a 6.5 on my Kona board. Buddha Mike set up his traditional Buddha statue, I assume in the hope that Buddha would bless us all with fair winds. I'm not the kind of person to pray in the hope of anything for myself, but I have to say the statue made everything feel a little more peaceful. It was nice to know that Buddha was literally watching over us.

Buddha Mike introduced me to Michael Alex, the Peconic Puffin himself. We didn't know who each other were at first until Buddha Mike explained. Then it was a warm greeting: we'd posted on each other's blogs for years but finally we met face to face.


Soon the races began. I was nervous about the races. Last year's races had been a humiliating disaster (mast-base separation by a buoy) so I was determined to redeem myself. The course was around four buoys. I set myself up at the end of the rabbit start just two places away from Michael Alex. My first start was disastrous, I literally fouled the Puffin with my sail, but after stumbling at the beach I dropped my daggerboard and headed on a different path than it seemed everyone else was going.

The Judges' stand.

My alternate path paid off. I rounded the first buoy ahead of at least half the racers — pretty remarkable after being the last one off the beach. This was a moment when the sailing profile of the Kona became a serious advantage. Most people were sailing large displacement shortboards, and there were some older longboards, but ever among the longboarders, nobody seemed willing to ride the daggerboard. Or maybe nobody considered taking an alternate route and thought they needed to ride with the pack.

I finished the race in fifteenth place (if I remember correctly) out of about forty sailors. Since I was in the 7.5 Class, not the Open Class, my standing was actually a little higher because several of the Open Class sailors ended in front of me. I was even more stunned than my friends. I kept staring at the race course behind me, wondering how I could have finished in front of so many other sailors.

Here I am, in the back of a small pack, rounding the final buoy. I have the blue sail with the “A”.

Yep, I screwed that jibe up.

For the second race I was positioned at about the first third of the rabbit start. I decided to stick to my former sailing pattern but realized most of the sailors were going to cross in front of me. So I let them, then dropped my daggerboard and went upwind. I did quite well until the last buoy when I messed up my jibe and fell, allowing three sailors to pass me while I uphauled. I still finished in about thirteenth place. I'm still not sure how this happened.


After the races was freestyle competition, then more races. I'd had enough races for the day, but I enjoyed watching two guys sail a tandem Kona Mahalo in a race.

Sailing tandem!

 Then the winds started to pick up. I was still a little under-rigged, but I was having such a blast in the increasing winds I didn't care much. I did beach starts with ease (a particular bugbear of mine) and bounced up and down over the chop. I did a few sails with Sven, and was amazed that I could keep up with him with my 6.5 sail while he had an 8.0 on a 150 liter Bic. Once he pulled onto a plane, he'd pull away from me, but the Kona was great in displacement mode. I skipped the rest of the races because I just wanted to sail, and I had  blast. Only once did I pull onto a full plane, but I had such a blast sailing that I didn't care much.

By the end of the day I was exhausted. Scott too. He spent most of the time on his Starboard Rio and small sail, enjoying the chop. The conditions were never quite right for standup paddling so that board never got rigged. I found myself wishing I had brought my wideboard; conditions were just perfect for it, but no matter. We had a great time. (I'll have some videos up soon.)

An oldie but a goodie.

More photos from Scott