Wow, It got cold fast....

That's exactly (or pretty close to exactly) what I said to Judy when I got out of my van at Heck this late afternoon. Judy is the wife of George (I don't think their last name is Jetson) and they are a really nice windsurfing couple. In fact, just about all of the people I've met windsurfing over the past, say, four years have been really nice.

My goal for the day was to practice tacking and jibing. (See information below about my desire to be a "racer")

I digress, however. It felt pretty cold this afternoon, and the wind when I arrived was from the SE or SSE, hard to tell, but side onshore in any event. Judy was out practicing tacks on her 109 liter board and 6.3, not planing, just practicing tacks and doing well. So, I decided I was going to, once again, practice tacking my Exocet Pacer 300 hybrid raceboard as I am a wannabe racer. More on this in upcoming posts. I rigged up my 9.5 custom Aerotech cuben fiber Pacer sail and went out. Well, the wind as measured by my wind meter on the beach was only about 9 knots, but was stronger the further one went off the beach. I was planing the whole time, no problem. Oh, I forgot to mention that just after I beach started for the first time today, I glanced at my watch and it was 4:52 PM. So, I had some fun trying to figure out optimum speed vs. angle upwind for maximum VMG (I may be relatively new to windsurfing, but not to sailing, more later on this also). This is extremely hard to do, if not impossible, without someone to gauge off of, but I was just seeing what angles felt better vis a vis speed. So, I tacked upwind for a while and tried to put into effect the ABK tacking method. (This can be viewed at windsport.com) I did this with more or less decent success, then turned downwind and did a bunch of "flarve" jibes downwind. Flarve is a type of jibe where you sort of carve in to the jibe, then finish with a flare. These seemed ok as I wasn't almost, but not quite planing off the wind.

Then, the wind picked up and I was flying! woo-hoo! I could easily have been on a 7.5 and 133 liter board, but I wanted to get some experience with the whole raceboard setup. I must tell you, dear reader, that over the past couple of days of non-sailing, I happened to look up all the information I could find on planing jibes to try and sort out some of my problems that are keeping me from the completion of this most elegant windsurfing maneuveur. Once again, the ABK videos at windsport.com are very helpful and awesome. I also looked at Peter Hart videos a few times which are also good, but no substitute for real instruction. Andy Brandt of ABK has obviously spent a lot of time figuring out the best way to teach windsurfing which is a wonderful thing. Sort of like how us classroom teachers try to figure the best way to present content to students so that they can learn quickly and easily. Unfortunately, for an athletic plodder like me, windsurfing is superhard and it is going to take me some time to get this whole carving jibe thing. I need to concentrate on one step at a time.

At this point, I should like to put in a plug for ABK board camps. I have been to three of them over the past couple of years and they are really great. At the first one I attended, I was initially disappointed to not be in the learn to jibe group, but they did sort out my stance which was in dire need of straightening out, literally. The "7" stance that they teach is the best way, IMO, to sail.

Back to today. When the wind came up to maybe 14 or 15 knots, I was super powered on the 9.5 and decided to try some carving jibes. Well, in addition to online videos mentioned above, I found pictures I took at an ABK clinic last year of master instructor Tom Lepak showing the foot work involved in a carving jibe on the beach simulator. I noticed that he put his old front foot in FRONT of his back foot when stepping over to the other side of the board. For some reason, I have been putting that foot BEHIND the old back foot first. I wondered how all these windsurfers could stay so far forward driving the board through the turn. Now, I know.

So, I tried this technique today. Amazingly enough, when I carved into the turn (which I think I have now just about figured out thanks to a few tips from Pete Roesch a couple of weeks ago on a windy day at Tanner Park) and stepped across as described above, the board stayed on a plane, and if had done my sail flip sooner and quicker, I would have planed through and out of the jibe. But, as I said above, one step at a time.

All in all, a fun time sailing. I sailed until around 6:20 or so, so I got in almost a good hour and a half with only a couple of short breaks. I am only sorry that I forgot to bring a camera as it was a beautiful day and sunset. I will post those pictures of Tom Lepak tomorrow or Saturday to illustrate what I am talking about.

Another lesson learned today, is that to practice tacking and get more efficient at it, I need to get on my 70 cm wide, 133 liter board with a fairly small sail to get all the steps down properly. The big sail and board is somewhat unwieldy for learning the subtleties of maneuveurs.

Thanks for reading.