The song for today is: "Decisions, Decisions" by the Starting Line. (To avoid possible copyright infringement, this is a cover of the song. Sorry if the quality is not so great, but I wanted to get the idea across.)
So, here it (almost) is. The day after tomorrow is the 3rd Annual East Coast Windfest (http://www.ecwindfest.com/). I have been waiting two years for this as I missed last year's event.
As I have chronicled before, I am a former sailboat racer (highlights of my boat career include:
1972 East Coast Hobie 14 Champion, top 30 in 1988 Sonar North Americans as mainsail trimmer, and 12th place as helmsman of a Farr 41 at the World Offshore Sailing Championships in 2000), but am currently a total wannabe windsurf racer.
I am getting real excited and looking forward to some around the buoys windsurfing. The wind should be on the light side Saturday morning and Sunday mid- to late-afternoon with higher winds forecast for Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The lighter wind is kind of what I am more excited about as that is when the course racing will mostly likely be run. Although my windsurf skills are not all that great, yet., I do have a good sense of course racing tactics and strategies, especially starts. Oh boy, I really hope they have some timed starts. Due to my advanced age and decrepit shape, the "Le Mans" starts off the beach are killer (in a bad sense) for me.
Anyway, here is the cause of my present conundrum: 7.5 or 9.5. You see, they are running one class with a max. sail size of 7.5 and an "Open" class for sail sizes larger than 7.5. In the higher wind parts of the weekend, this won't present a problem, but if there is indeed lighter wind for part of the event as forecast, I need to make a decision. If I had been able to sail more (or at all) since last October, this would be no choice at all, I'd just go with the 9.5. But since I haven't sailed all winter, I may lean towards the 7.5 even though my hybrid Pacer Pro 300 just does not go too well with the 7.5 in subplaning conditions. Oh well, I guess I'll wait and see what happens tomorrow afternoon. That is when I am planning to get and do a little planing and see how my thumb is and how it all goes. Then, I will make my decision Saturday morning based on Friday afternoon, the wind report then, and how I feel. Stay tuned.
If you are in the area, (Long Island, that is) you should definitely go down to Heckscher State Park on Saturday and Sunday (9:30 AM registration) and join in on the hilarity. I just watched last year and it is really a fun time. Since the wind is supposed to be good Saturday afternoon, I am sure the freestylers will be putting on quite a show.
More later...
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