At 170 American lbs, my quiver sort of sets up like this with relation to wind speed:
5.3 Less than 20mph average
4.7 20-24 mph average
4.2 25-29 mph average
3.7 30 - ∞ mph average
I think I'm like most windsurfers in that I don't go down a past a certain sail size. At some point, if you're a passionate windsurfer, you're going to encounter some gusts in your career that are over 40 knots. Most of my sails I keep within a 5 knot range of one another, but I've given my 3.7 the unenviable task of having a range of at least 15 knots before I completely throw up my hands and give up. Usually those "windy days" pay no heed to your sail sizes and the average could be anywhere in the 30s and the gusts will happily roll through in the 40s.
Yesterday, a wind blew through the bay that had the sensibilities to realize that I wanted to be a happy windsurfer on my 3.7. Instead of being the usual DEAR LORD HELP ME iddy biddy sail weather, it was perfection from 2:30-4:30. The settled wind was confidence inspiring, so I was happily jumping, going for vulcans, and even going for loops. This was not a typical 3.7 day, at all. It was a great one!
7 comments:
I know exactly what you mean. I love those rare days when a sail that small is perfectly dialed. Where every move is sooo smooth and easy in that much wind. And its quite incongruent from the stand point of you’d never expect to be so dialed in wind that strong. Take the other xtreme, where it becomes mostly oh sh&t! hold on for dear life. That was basically the conditions when I tore up my shoulder back in January. The 3.7 went from being overpowered, to oh sh*t, I’m way higher than I wanted to be and this is gonna turn out badly.
Ahhhhhh I can’t wait. 2 more weeks and I’m on it
I like how you vaporized at the end of that clip.
:)
kev dawg shovin' his thing around in gale force winds.
your Legend 3.7 is sweeeeeet!!!!
It is really interesting to me that I have the same quiver spacing in the same wind strengths, but just add 1.0m2 to each sail. I am 6'6"/230#
Usually, I start to close the gap in sail size as the wind increases on my smaller friends. Thanks for sharing.
yeah, when it's blowing 35+, everybody's just on their smallest stuff, which usually is right around 3.7/3.5
George -- yup... they're rare, you gotta enjoy them. Good luck getting back into it!
Mo -- Kevin is the rider in the video, and the camera automatically lost focus when it was zoomed in so far and the subject disappeared. Pure dumb luck :).
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