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.
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