The Human Catapult

Ramoncito y Yo

2012-01-24T04:41:00.000-08:00

Say hello to Ramoncito. He is a 1977 Chevrolet van that somehow found his way to South America. He doesn't always work perfectly, but his motor is strong and reliable. He has 3 manual gears that shift on the column. He thinks power steering is for sissies. His battery only lasts a few minutes with the lights on without running. His gearbox jams if you don't handle the shifter with care. Sure, he's not flawless, but his personality makes up for all his other quirks doubly.

It did not take me long to learn in Chile that, for windsurfing, it's really, really nice to have a set of wheels. Sure. For a short trip, one could arrive and take a bus with all her gear to Matanzas and have a great chance of scoring some of the best port-tack days of their lives. But if one wants to spend a little more time exploring this country with thousands of kilometers of coastline, a vehicle can greatly facilitate.

The trouble is the cost of driving is fairly expensive in Chile. The discounted cost of renting a vehicle that can carry your gear is along the lines of $2000 a month. After that, the cost of gas is about double. If you want to go north or south, expect to pay a $5.00 toll every couple of hours. Getting around isn't cheap, unless you ride the bus. Then you are stuck at bus stations with a massive bag full of gear, hoping to hitch a ride to the beach.

But I was lucky. While in Maui I met a kitesurfer who connected me with a cousin who had this old van to rent. The price was going to be a fraction of what a normal car rental would cost. I was in luck. As soon as I was shown a picture, I just had to drive it. When I arrived at the owner's house my excitement grew when I first saw him. I asked if he had a name. The owner grinned at me, "Ramoncito". Then Ramoncito wouldn't start.

Eventually we got him started and I set off on the nearly four hour trip to Pichilemu, sure that somewhere along the way he would just die. But that's not the case, when Ramoncito is getting to go on a trip, he's more dependable than most of the cars I've driven. Ramoncito felt like a companion as much as a car. He would help me discuss the best way to find my way when I was lost in the middle of a shady port town. When I spent a couple weeks in a town, it wasn't long before the locals would wave when they saw Ramoncito chugging down the street.

Ramoncito just has "buena onda". The loose translation for this is "good vibe", but it's a bit more versitle of a word, describing the moment, the experience, your mood and everything that's happening all at once. Whenever I parked, someone would walk by and smile at me and ask me a couple questions about my compadre.

So what is the meaning of Ramoncito? It's a nice familiar way of calling your friend named "Ramon" the nickname "little Ramon". (Some of my Chilean friends are kind enough to call me "gringuito" instead of "gringo".) I can't venture a guess as to what the name implies to a person who grew up in Chile. To me, I think Ramoncito would be that cool, older half brother who bought you beer when you were a teenager and gave you that big box of classic pornography when you graduated high school.

I returned Ramoncito to the owner yesterday and I gotta say -- I miss the dude.

Ok, Matanzas

2012-01-21T04:05:00.000-08:00

Klaas Voget being Klaas Voget

When you talk about wavesailing in Chile, probably the first spot that comes up is Matanzas. It's a small town on the coast with not a lot going on beyond windsurfing. The name of the town literally means "murders", for reasons I don't know. My first month or so in Chile I did not sail at Matanzas, opting for places that were closer to Pichilemu and I couldn't get a clear explanation for what made the spot special or outstanding. Topocalma supposedly had the amazing offshore wind and 20 turn waves, Pichilemu had the wave that could be ridden for a minute and a half, Llico had stronger wind and opportunities for huge jumps, Matanzas did not have a claim to fame with the people I spoke to.

But after having sailed Matanzas several times, it turned out to be my favorite spot. Sure the wind was light and flukey on the inside (like nearly all of the wave sailing spots in Chile), and the wave was not the longest or the most aggressive. What I found is that Matanzas delivered something nearly every day that I could enjoy. Sometimes it was scary-fun, but usually there was some part of the day when the waves were reasonable, fast enough to carve turns on and peaky enough to find steep sections. Matanzas seems to be the groomer slope of the Chilean coast, it almost always works. Frequently on the days when it is windy it is chest to head high around noon, and builds to head to mast+ in the afternoon. On lighter wind days with big waves, it frequently becomes a pro's only show, which is not to be missed.

My friend Bjorte has to run away from a heavy one.

There is nearly always a peak to backdoor on every wave. The guys who know how to read this spot make it look amazing.

This is the spin cycle and it's really easy to get there because there is a strong current that runs down the beach. If you get caught in a heavy set going out and can't waterstart for a few seconds you end up taking a beating for a few minutes and finding yourself 100-200 meters down the beach. The good news is that it's relatively safe even though some gear gets broken.

Belgian friend Gregory getting some air. There are a million incredible wavesailors from Europe in Chile that you've never heard of.

My anemic bottom turn

Hotel Surazo is built right at the launch which is both a good and a bad thing. The good part is that it's an incredible place to stay and the restaurant has amazing gourmet food. The downside is that it's really pricey and even the camping options are over-the-top priced.

Olivier is actually a windsurfing teacher in Texas. Really nice guy and oh yeah. He rips.

I sailed x many days last year...

2012-01-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks, I stopped counting some time in August around 120 sessions I think. Maybe I got close to 140 in the bay. Then like 20 days in Maui. Then 15 days in Chile maybe. Who knows. It was for sure more than I've ever sailed. I learned some new tricks, too, which is pretty much my thing if I had to choose a windsurfing "thing". I'll probably look at the calendar more closely when I get home.

One of the cool things is that happened this year is that I got my girlfriend to start windsurfing. She had a couple lessons with Big Winds then Brendon from ABK took her under his wing a bit as well. I always think your loved one needs to windsurf because it's something (s)he wants to do, not because s(he) feels like it's something you want h(im)er to do. I'm not sure where we stand on this issue, but she has been bugging me about getting out on the water when the seasons starts in the bay area again. I guess that's a good sign.

I'm pretty sure she's my only regular blog reader, so the least I could do is put her picture up!

My Thoughts on the Windsurfing Magazine thing.

2011-12-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

Well, this is sad news. As I'm sure you've heard, Windsurfing Magazine will be suspending publication for the foreseeable future. Obviously, it's hard for me to swallow because I've contributed a little bit over the years and I've been fortunate enough to have participated in testing gear with them as well.

For sure, the electronification of media in general appears to be the major cause for this decision in my mind. Apparently, the windsurfing manufacturers and channels seem to find more value in adding us as facebook friends and making 2 minute music videos peddling their goods ridden by team riders than supporting print magazines. Maybe they're right. The sad part is that we all know that a pro can make a turd with a universal joint look amazing, and we lose out on real feedback from, ya know, actual people on what's good, or approachable in the market.

I really love flipping through a magazine. I like the depth that photos have on paper that I don't get looking at photos online. I love going to someone else's house, finding magazines on their coffee table and looking at pictures from whatever they happen to be into.

I love Windsport, too. I don't think they're going to be getting a huge windfall of subscribers from Windsurfing Magazine because I think most of us have been willing to pony up the 20 bucks a year for whatever we can get our hands on. I thought the magazines were complimentary. Windsport covered more of the PWA scene and had more content about advanced maneuvers, Windsurfing always struck me as more grassroots and reaching out to the entry level.

Mostly, I feel nostalgic about the first issues of Windsurfing Magazine I ever read. They were covered in saltwater and collecting mold in the bottom of my college friend's Toyota Forerunner. At the time, I had only vague ideas of what a windsurfer was. I was 20 years old and those brittle pages changed my life forever.

Wave Snobs be Damned - Embalse Puclaro

2011-12-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

Go ahead. Crucify me for coming to Chile and sailing flat water. There have been some really nice days of wavesailing here on the coast of Chile. More than nice, incredible days. But there have also been waiting periods. In general there have been breaks of 4 or 5 days followed by 3 days of wind. This reminds me a bit of Santa Cruz in the spring, maybe someone can correct me on that? Either way the wind doesn't happen every day here on the coast, and I'm a guy with a craving for freestyle. When the forecast wasn't lining up for 5 days, I took a nice long, scenic trip up to the Valle de Elqui, where they grow the grapes for Pisco.

The looks I got the day I left Matanzas were classic. "You're driving all the way up there, away from wave sailing?" Embalse Puclaro is a long 10 hour drive from the popular wave sailing spots, way up in the warm north. It's a man-made reservoir, maybe 10 years old that is treated to 30 knot winds for hundreds of days every year. This time of year, you can plan on only using your smallest sail every day. For freestyle it can be downright incredible, the only problem being too much wind on many days.

Another important tip for this trip: if you're not going on the weekend go with a group. Puclaro is popular with weekenders from Santiago (a 6-7 hour drive) but during the week it's not very lively. I mean no one is there. So when a group of friends of friends invited me to join, I jumped at the opportunity. I was greeted immediately with a group of sympathetic-toward-gringo friends, warm weather and ideal 4.2 conditions for 6 hours a day.

Ack! A kiting picture on my blog! Who put that there?

Friends Carlos and Juan Carlos, not to be confused with one another.

Getting a picture of a friend jumping a kiteboard from a downward facing mast camera takes some coordination and timing. Yeah, I missed the jibe.

Marcela -- badass windsurfing chick...

So basically a friend of a friend told Claudia there was going to be some gringo windsurfer coming into town and she reached out to me on Facebook to let me know about this trip. She's another great sailor and yes, gentlemen, she's single and ready to mingle.

Gee, what do I want to eat after 4 hours of sailing in 30 knots? How about 10 lbs of meat? Chileans love their grilled meat, and I do too.

Pichilemu: Little Forest. Great Waves.

2011-12-03T08:13:00.001-08:00

When I was considering my options for this trip, one of the things I had to consider was which beach town would be the best for me to stay. The two main options close to the well-known wavesailing area are Matanzas and Pichilemu. They are about 1.5 - 2 hours apart driving distance. The way I understand it, Matanzas gets more consistent windsurfing conditions and Pichilemu, in general, is a bit lacking for wind. On the other hand, Pichilemu has way more options for surfing and boasts two really nice left point breaks that work nearly every day. Matanzas seems to have some waves that work less consistently (maybe due to the wind many times), and often times they are the type of waves that barrel most days making them above my "level".

The other thing I took into consideration, other than my aquatic needs, were my chances of improving my Spanish. Matanzas is a very, very sleepy town. There are a handful of high-end cabanas and resort type lodges, but outside of that there just aren't many people milling about. Most of the tourists in this area seem to be from Europe, so Spanish is a distant second or 3rd language for many of them. In comparison, Pichilemu is very vibrant and full of energy (and full of people who don't speak a lick of English). I would still describe it as a sleepy surfing town, but it certainly has a pulse.

This picture is an example of the type of windsurfing conditions you will find at la Puntilla in Pichilemu. The wind is very offshore, the waves are typically logo-high or more. The nice thing is that most of the sections of this wave don't really "throw". The rides can be over a minute long, but it can be very challenging to get back up to the peak. I've seen experienced windsurfers, even professionals, forced into the 150m swim to shore and the 300m walk walk of shame.

When Juan was in town we scored a couple of days of laid-back chest high surf at Punta de Lobos, considered one of the best left breaking waves in this hemisphere. Initially I was very intimidated to surf there since I had seen all the videos of the triple overhead+ days there, but fortunately there are many days that are reasonable for a surfer of my (pathetic) skill level. A good representation of the wave can be seen in the first picture of the blog. I don't think it is a really fast wave on small days like this, but it's a little steeper in the pocket than a lot of the waves I've surfed. Some of the good guys manage to get barreled in some sections.

I decided to bring only my point-and-shoot camera, which I'm somewhat regretting. Many of the spots beg for a bit longer lens. The good news is that if I make the effort I can get some nice shots from the water. The bad news is all of the pictures I take from the beach are absolute crap. Such is life!

Fun fact: Pichilemu is a Mapuche word (the predominant native community of Chile). It means "small forest".

Finalmente!

2011-11-30T11:24:00.001-08:00

The first week of my trip to Chile was busy. I was catching up with family and trying to get things ready for the next two months of easy-breezy windsurfing. These types of things can be done easily if you're here for a week or two. You would throw down your credit card, rent gear, stay some place next to a windsurfing spot and drink a lot of pisco sours between sessions. Awesome. But, the cost of car rental is pretty high in Chile. I think the other renters I spoke to said they were spending something like 750,000 Chilean pesos per month. This comes out to about $1500 a month. For a week or two, if you just want to get to the water, that's the best way to go, but for me to throw down $3000 for two months (whilst *cough*, being unemployed), really didn't seem like a reasonable option. I eventually figured out a way to make things work with a bit of difficulty and luck. I'll get to that part in another entry.

When I finally made it to my selected first destination of Pichilemu and settled in, the wind predictably died for a few days. This was fine, as I was able to figure out how the surfing thing works here. I was able to get some help putting footstraps on my board too.

My first session finally came and I didn't have to drive anywhere for it. Right in front of the hostal where I am staying, there is a beach called "Infiernillo". Infiernillo beach can have anything from a overhead barreling wave all the way to a long mushy close out. This particular day, we had some sets that were head high or slightly over. Yes, it was kinda heavy, the same way Waddell will surprise you with an overhead close out on a day dominated by windswell. The wind cranked up to a good 5.0 condition and we managed to get an hour and a half of good sailing. The wind is slightly onshore at this beach and the wave gives you maybe one or two turns most of the time. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Waddell Creek, but going the opposite direction. With a slightly bigger swell, it gets pretty sketchy with big hollow closeouts being the normal fare.

I rather enjoyed working backside this day. I've been trying the shove-it for nearly a year on starboard and have yet to land a clean one. Backside wave riding is great way of learning this move, from what I hear.

The shorebreak, even on a small day, was challenging at times.

I didn't get a lot of pictures, I guess I was trying to sail. "Trying" being the operative word. I didn't have much of a concept of how different it would be to sail waves on port tack rather than starboard. Turns out, it's really different. Even the simple task of hopping over whitewater going the other direction has turned out to be a challenge. Juan was actually in town for this session, but we couldn't get synched up for getting a picture of him out there. I'll get some photos up of his visit next time around.

Did you know: Easter Island is owned by Chile. I guess any remote and practically uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean has to be owned by someone.

Santiago de Chile

2011-11-23T14:36:00.001-08:00

I arrived in Santiago two weeks ago with an 800 pound bag of windsurfing gear and just slightly more than an iota of comprehendible Spanish. Maybe the bag was a little lighter and maybe my Castellano is slightly better than I've admitted, but after 18 hours of traveling I'm not sure I could lift a loaf of bread or put together a thought that a 5 year old could understand (in English). The good news is now that I have completed this feat of bravery aboard a quiet, air-conditioned airplane with a full menu of Hollywood and art-house movies, I am here for the long haul. Over two months, for what it's worth.

The first week of my trip involved getting reacquainted with long lost family. You know, the kind of family that you haven't seen in 20 years but would gladly sleep on their couch while you get your affairs settled? Fortunately, they took my freeloading with all the grace of a Kelly Slater cutback. After about a week, I had both of my gringo feet planted firmly on the seismically active ground of Chile.

Santiago is a really nice city. I think the metropolitan area is about five million people and it's a city full of energy. When I visualize a South American city, I expect to find chickens literally running around everywhere. Santiago is much more like a city in the US. The metro system is incredibly good. As good as any metro I've ridden in the United States. It has some of the cool-headed attitude of New York without an air of snobbery. It seems like people are just out there trying to make a good living and improve their standard of life somehow. There is a sense of pride about people. There isn't a ton of people around trying to make a quick buck. I encountered very little panhandling.

This is the tallest building in South America. It's not completed but it is somewhat symbolic of a healthy economy.

Mount Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in all of the Americas. I snapped this photo with my phone around the time that I wasn't supposed to be using my electronic device. It was worth it. The Andes, as a whole, were mesmerizing. The profile of the mountain range is far different from the others I've flown over.

The above three photos are from Cerra Santa Lucia, which is a park built on a steep hill right in the middle of town. It has these cool stone stairs that go through gardens and terraces and the stairs eventually summit at a platform that has a 360 degree city view. Very cool.

Every great city needs great street food. You're never far from an empanada or a variety of other traditional fastfoods in Santiago. I'll go into more detail at some point of this obviously important cultural discussion.

Bellas Artes is a really nice museum to check out. Most of what I could find was modern art.

You know a city is forward thinking when you find an exhibit of speculums hanging over white fur.

Bellavista is the "bohemian" neighborhood of Santiago. It's pretty fun and funky. I saw more of this kind of cool graffiti than the "tweaker was here" stuff tagged all over the place.

The market in Bellavista was full of energy. Loved the vibe there.

What would a travel blog be without a picture of exotic-looking spices and fruit stuff? A bad one, that's what! Actually the food thing is more difficult than I thought it would be here, mainly because Chileans use different words to describe pretty much every fruit and vegetable.

Adios weones! Next time, I promise I'll get some water pictures up.

Maui - the big finale

2011-11-13T12:28:00.001-08:00

Testing the one-handed sailing capabilities of the RRD Quad. Very important.

I'm sure you've all enjoyed reading this enthralling mini-series of Maui based blog posts. I hope no one fell of the edge of their seat. (Mom? you ok?) I've been in Chile for almost a week, but felt like I needed to finish my thoughts on Maui before moving on.

I must say that Maui, as a whole, feels like a dessert that's a little too sweet and rich. The air and the water are always warm. The tropical fruit is delicious and copious. When you crash, the water gives you a warm hug. It's just too much of a good thing. When I consider moving there, it occurs to me that I can't even imagine putting in a day of real work there.

Maui was spectacularly fun. The board test was, again, pretty tedious at times. I do think there is a good bit of utility in the testing of boards by a group of varied sailors. Having ridden my first multi-fin boards 3 years ago in my first test, I can honestly say they have come a long way in terms of their design. Now they can be designed more user friendly for folks that are learning to wave sail as well as be designed for the most advanced riders. These boards are often not the same ones so I think the average windsurfer would be hard pressed to find a board they will totally love without some kind of guidance from the windsurfing media outlets. Over the years the types of boards I like has changed a ton. At my first test, I loved the freestyle-wave boards that were easy to get going and forgiving through jibes. Now I find myself wanting a board that turns a bit more aggressively on the wave, or one that is well suited for freestyle/crossover purposes. Just like the iPhone, things get noticeably better every year.

My last few days in Maui were very memorable and I hardly sailed. The AWT competition was wrapping up and I saw windsurfing at the highest level I had ever seen. The wind was very light and flukey, and the competitors were braving gigantic waves that were over mast high. At Ho'okipa there is a channel that allows you to get out without hitting big waves, and even that was closed out. We saw heats of amateurs and experts alike getting served large slices of humble pie on the rocks. During some of the heats, practically all of the competitors ended up getting pushed on the rocks. At times, all of the competitors were struggling to get out and no one was outside trying to catch a wave. It was very, very exciting.

Here are some photos that my girlfriend took from the competition:

I believe this is Josh Stone with an aerial. Some of the pros (and retired pros) who happen to live there but can't travel to many events were there. In some ways there were old timers vs. new timers and the old timers definitely held their own!

Also, some of the top-flight PWA guys joined in. Normally they are focused on the PWA tour (aka the European Wave Tour) so they miss the AWT events. Hopefully having guys like Marcilio "Brawnzinhio" Browne join and not get 1st place will turn some heads about the legitimacy of the AWT. Marcilio threw about 1000 of these goiters and landed seemingly 998 of them.

Is that two Marcilios in one picture? Why no, that's a goiter by the USA's own Bryan Metcalf-Perez. Bryan for sure hasn't gotten to sail this spot as much as most of the others, (or even wavesail for that matter) but you can tell that he could become one of the better wavesailors out there if he trained a bit more on the coast. That said, maybe he would be better served focusing on his Freestyle career?

Kai Katchadourian katches a juicy one. The final heat was a tough call. I think Kai placed 4th, but I gotta say I think that was a little bunk. Kai killed it with wave selection and had some of the longest rides and biggest aerials. For sure Camille Juban was the outright winner, but I enjoyed watching Kai sail these conditions more than Marcilio (who basically did one big move on the waves he took but didn't get a lot of nice looking top to bottom turns). That's the way it was though. The judges over and over scored a one-goiter wave higher than a really sweet fast ride with lots of spray and maybe an aerial. C'est la vi.

Marcilio Wave 360. I could do that. In a dream.

Lots of people were watching.

I don't have a lot of really good pictures of Camille, but he was amazing to watch. No one else was generating as much speed as he was, or turning with so much style. Hats off to this guy, I had never heard of him before this contest.

Josh Stone is such a badass.

Berndt Roediger throwing some style out there with the head toss a la Levi. Levi registered but didn't show up. I get that he's not into competition, but everyone would have loved to see him.

This was the biggest wave I saw anyone catch all week. We were watching Berndt struggle to get over a huge outside set. He got over the first, the second, then the 3rd, just as they were cresting. Then this one came and everyone started yelling 'JIBE JIBE JIBE' from the beach. For sure Berndt couldn't have heard the crowd over the massive waves breaking, but sure enough he jibed onto this giant. There was no where to go on it but it's always great to see someone catch a wave this size, sorta like watching people surf Waimea.

Here's the same wave breaking.

And here was the penalty. A tough time getting back out with white water that goes over your 340cm mast.

I've got more pictures here and they're full sized, if you're interested.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61591219@N07/sets/72157628120753682/

Maui - part one of a 10 part miniseries

2011-11-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Maui made me so very lazy about blogging. The delightfully warm water and air quickly sublimated me into a cloud of "I'll get to it later". In about 26 days of potential sailing, I ended up with about 5 or 6 with that perfect combination of wind and waves. The rest of the time, it was either wavy or windy but not combined. The trip, as a whole, was a success. And by success I mean I'm a relaxed puddle of goo ready to take on the world.

It wasn't all sunshine and daydreams, though. About six days into the trip, I thought the fun part of the trip might be completely over. It was probably the best day in terms of conditions. The wind was solid 5.0 and the waves at Lower Kanaha were head to logo high, and peeling with wide open faces for what seemed like a hundred of yard. On the way out, one could score massive jumps and on the way in we were getting fully powered rides down the line, easy top to bottom, with lips peaking sporadically, begging to be hit. After about an hour and a half, I was on my best wave of the day. It was logo high and apparently glassing off. I sprinted down the line and laid my sail down for a fully committed bottom turn. I started hitting some chop and before I could react, my board was bouncing really hard. My leg locked fully extended and the board rail caught, jamming my hip so hard that I felt a pop. Pain was shooting down my leg, so intense that I suspected I did some major damage.

After getting worked by the rest of the set, I was able to sail in wincing. I got to the beach, was beat up by the shore break in my mini-agony moment, and was able to hobble over to the dune. Jacob saw me and came in. I told him I didn't think I could sail my gear back up, so he sailed it up to the launch and I went to go sit in the car. I didn't want to ruin the day for him and tell him to pack it up because it was just so damn good out there. I sat in the car for a while. My hip and upper leg were throbbing to the point where I thought I was going to vomit. Jacob came back about 45 minutes later to check on me, and I told him I thought it would be good to get it checked out. We went over to the hospital in Kahului and I waited an hour and half, popping all the advil I could get my hands on.

My friend Sierra from previous board tests is an ER nurse at the hospital, so she came over to see if she could help get me looked at sooner. After about six Advil, I was feeling an awful lot better. I could stand up and walk around on my own. I was going to be called next, but decided to save on my insurance deductible and put myself on an ibuprofen diet.

The next week or so would be light sailing. The days I pushed myself even the slightest bit would aggravate my hip. My friend Ingrid Larouche, who happens to be an excellent physical therapist, told me that it appeared I injured my bursa, which is a fluid filled sack at the top of the hip. It sits right next to a nerve, so that would explain all the shooting pains and difficulty sleeping. The program for this type of injury just so happens to be rest and advil. About 10 days after the injury, I was pretty much fine. It turns out that I'm just a wuss with no pain tolerance. Go figure.

SCIENCE CHALLENGE!

2011-10-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Can anyone name this native Hawaiian bird?

Neosporin, Surf Wax, and my old Corporate Amex

2011-10-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Just a few of the essentials of a trip to Maui after you've been laid off. I found the cold-water surf wax I was using would get awfully "ookie" when the air and water temp add up to about 170 degrees. The obvious tool to remove said wax would be your old corporate card. There's some kind of poetic justice in that.

Maui has been good to us for the last few days. Solid 4.5 and 5.0 days with mellow waves. A couple mornings with light enough wind to make the surfing worthwhile. Life has been easy and slow before the rest of the Windsurfing Magazine board testers arrive. The scramble will truly commence when I'm trying to help dozen or so people get on the water.

I've been fortunate enough to bump into both Giampaolo and Rebecca already. Both are even more kind and stoked than they come off in their respective blogs. Giampaolo made the chest high south shore look amazing using his SUP with footstrap. He is truly an excellent in wave-rider. Rebecca gave me some very useful tips about when and where to go on the North Shore as the conditions change.

Also, Sam was hinting me in to her amazing plans for the AWT in the coming year (not to mention a weekend of chock-full fun at this month's Aloha Classic). Windsurfing is so lucky to have her, particularly at this point in time. These events that she's revived have been an unbelievable amount of work. We've all been benefiting from the great coverage and palpable stoke it's brought back to the community.

What's the Neosporin for? It's shallow out there in places, as my buddy Jacob found out.

It's alive!!!

2011-09-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Oh man, the last month has been awesome. You had to be there.

I'm going to give this blogging thing another shot. I'm sad to see all my old images disappear, but I do think a lot of the value of blogging is in the "live" aspect of it.

My life has changed in fairly large ways recently, some of it hopefully is and will be blog worthy. When I first moved to San Francisco, I was belting out 10+ blog entries a month at times. I had a lot on my mind and was experiencing a lot of things for the first time. The following years I was in the grind of sailing a bunch and working. I was practicing freestyle moves that took literally months of consistent practice so my sailing life was "Drive to spot. Try 100 times. Go home beaten and bruised. Try to remember to shower. Rinse. Repeat." I had less new material, I was sailing the same spots repeatedly, I wasn't having many cathartic moments or experiences. Occasionally I would make a new move then I would probably make sure to brag about it on the blog.

Change makes for stories. Stories are good for blogging. Change is good for blogging.

I assure you, there is no element of importance to any of this. I know; I have a blog that 13 people read when they have reached the very end of the internet. After one has exhausted every blog on the topic of paraglide-sailing, they look at a windsurfing blog like mine by accident, then move along to a 13 minute video of people crashing their bicycles into various objects.

The major change for me either has nothing or everything to do with windsurfing. I got laid off by the company that employed me for five years. It wasn't just me, they laid off 10,000 people. I probably took it better than 9,999 of them. Why? Because I'm doing what any self-respecting windsurfer with no wife, kids or job would do with a severance payment. I'm going to buy airline tickets to windy locales until the money runs out.

First stop, Maui. Next stop, Chile. After that? Who knows.

Oh and -- A HUGE thank you to Mo Gunn from teamcoyote.net for drawing me a new banner. She's a talent the winds(ports)urfing community is lucky to have!

Ride with Tyson

2011-08-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

Poor abused blog readers: I'm on a road trip in the Pacific Northwest right now. Of course, the first stop was the Gorge. Lots of pictures and maybe some more writing will be coming, but for now, have this. I will say the first day I got there was described by some locals as "the windiest day all summer". I sailed the Hatchery and it was extremely intense. More scary fun than my normal sessions, but it was a fun day overall.

Tyson Poor and the other pros were, as per usual, ripping. A couple days after the "extreme" day I flagged Ty down while he was sailing and had him sail with the mast-mounted camera. He kindly humored me and here is the result.

Teach me how to Grubby

2011-08-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

I have this hope to complete the trifecta of sliding 360 moves this year, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen. I completed my first spock a year ago. I made my first flaka a month ago and now I'm hoping I can some how make a grubby or two before the year is over. I've actually had a few very close grubbies. I've water started out of one and biffed the exit a few times when I've rotated cleanly.

The move itself is sorta like a cross between a flaka and spock. Sound ridiculous? My theory is that the entry is a lot like a flaka (deep downwind, unweighting everything) and if you do that correctly the exit will be like a spock (sail steering with some slight backwinding). The actual initiation of the move is different than either of those moves. You sheet in while jumping like the vulcan, but then you hold on and kick the tail as far downwind as possible.

When I watch this video the main mistakes I notice are:

1. Not enough speed off the wind. Like the flaka, a proper setup is a big key to success for the grubby.

2. Not getting the sail back across my body during the slide and extending the clew hand (often symptomatic of the sail being heavy because you don't have enough speed).

3. Leaning the mast too far downwind during initiation. This is the crash that tends to roll me into a quasi loop.

Anything that I'm missing?

Google+ hosed my blog

2011-07-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Recently I accepted an invite to Google plus. I really didn't want to or think much of it, but it took literally two mouse clicks so I figured what the heck, why not.

The interesting thing is that when you sign up for this site, it imports all of your previous Picasa albums as well as all blogspot images. So I looked at my new "Google+" profile page and noticed there was an album called "blogspot images". My blog images are pictures of calendars, windsurfing photos and random irreverent photos that generally demonstrate a crude idea. Not really the type of thing I want people in my "google circle" to go thumbing through. I went ahead and deleted that Picasa album and forgot all about it.

A couple days later I noticed that all the images were gone from my blog, but figured it was due to some broken server somewhere in the dungeons of Google. That's not the case, apparently when I deleted that album on Google+ it permanently deleted all the images that I've been using on blogspot.

So there you have it. The hundreds of photos I've shared over the last 4 years as a blogger by uploading directly to blogspot are gone forever.

Not really sure what I'm going to do with the blog moving forward. Going back and uploading all the images I previously uploaded would take literally days (given the weak upload speeds I'm dealing with, not to mention vague and often misleading captions). Also, I don't feel like contributing content to the google empire is necessarily the right thing to do anymore. I guess I'll just sleep on it.

Playing Catch up -- June

2011-07-06T08:50:00.001-07:00

June was, as per usual, a pretty dang good month for windsurfing in the Bay.

I windsurfed 20 days and actually missed a few windy days. We had a couple of weird patterns at the beginning and the end of the month, but over all it was a winner.

My average sail size was 4.82.

Stalking Epic Sessions

2011-06-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

I'd recognize those profiles anywhere. I was looking at the Pozo News blog to see if I could find anything interesting about the Red Bull Rockets jumping contest that is being put on by epicsessions.tv.

I'm sure awesome video, photos and other media will be coming out in the next couple of weeks to cover the event. Pretty cool to get a jump off done in what is basically the mecca of windsurfer jumping - Pozo Izquierdo (sp?).

(Screenshot taken at the 1:16 mark of this video. Creepy? I know.)

This is a sample photo from this facebook album. Cool stuff!

Dirty Dancing

2011-06-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

Welp, I made a Swayze (aka flaka) and I'm feeling pretty lucky about it. Not because it was a freak accident that I made one, but because it's a move that is easy to get stuck on. Fortunately, I was able to avoid a lot of the pitfalls and ultimately win the beer. There were about 10 people who took the bet, but I don't think any of the other guys sail as much as I do. I'm planning on splitting the beer with whoever gets one this year.

Many thanks to those who gave me tips in person.

Also, a huge thanks to BRENDON from ABK for giving me the hint that tipped the scale. While it looks like I'm awfully close in the last video I made, he was able to identify my issue, which was that I was leading with my feet instead of the sail. I spent the next few sessions making sure to start the sail movement earlier and suddenly I was getting a different kind of crash that involved the sail jibing itself, a rail catching during the slide or spinning all the way around and splatting on my back from over-rotation. Eventually I got the one in the video and the next day I made two more.

Brendon wins a Ballena which I'll need to deliver to him. Sure, maybe it's a little unfair since he IS a professional windsurfing instructor. I will say this: if you have the time to go to an ABK clinic, you should. It will be the best windsurfing investment you'll make, even better than a board. I've been to 3 and although I didn't always immediately start making a new move, I was given the tools and thought process to make huge strides. So do yourself a favor. Sign up for an ABK camp, then in a year, look back at today and laugh at how crappy of a windsurfer you used to be.

Commentary on Pistol River Results

2011-06-20T10:10:00.001-07:00

Nathan Mershon is kicking ass and taking names. Nathan who?

I'm probably not alone in looking at the top 10 list for the Pistol River Wave Bash and being somewhat surprised to see Mershon's name on top. I'm a pretty avid fan of high-level wave sailing and for sure Nathan has been on the radar with videos of him doing huge clean backloops in the gorge, but for this relatively unknown guy to come out and win the first two contests of the American Windsurfing Tour over names like Kevin Pritchard, Boujmaa, Kai Lenny, Kai Katchedourian, Graham Ezzy and Josh Stone is surprising.

Surprising, in a pleasant surprise kind of way. I saw the single elimination final with Pritchard vs. Mershon at Waddell. I think at the time I thought KP won because he had a very memorable (and large) one footed backloop, but when I think back on it, the set waves weren't very frequent and Mershon did catch a bigger wave and get a couple of nice off-the-lips. It is a wave riding contest and the rides count for more than the jumps, so I can see how it would have went that way in hindsight. I'm looking forward to Mershon getting more coverage from the windsurfing media outlets in the future, he's obviously proving to be one of the most consistent rippers in the US. Kudos!

Another interesting placing is top US Freestyler Tyson Poor getting 6th overall. Ty is a super talented guy, but if you were to press him he'd tell you he's a freestyler much more so than a wave sailor. I know he's got to be pretty happy with his result. I guess that week or so at Punta San Carlos this year really paid off! It also makes you wonder what would happen if he moved to Maui for a little while?

Another cool thing is Ingrid Larouche competing in both Women's and Amateur (Men's and Women's... but mostly Men by a long shot) divisions. She secured another top 5 placement and obviously is proving that a woman can rip just as hard as the guys can, particularly a woman that has been dominating North American windsurfing for a few years now.

In the youth division you see a pretty typical top 3 line up in Morgan Noireaux, Bernd Roediger and Zane Schweitzer. These three young guys were born and raised on Maui and just absolutely rip as hard as anyone else. It's awesome to see such youth performing the way they do, particularly when given the advantage of being from the best place in the world for wavesailing. I'd like to give a shout out to "our" guy Nick Dudet. Just a couple of years ago I saw Nick at 3rd avenue crashing on vulcans and trying forwards. He seemed like the kind of kid who would go for it, but I didn't think too much of it. Last month when I saw him sailing Waddell, it was like I was seeing a different sailor. HUMONGOUS end-over-end forwards, amazing down-the-line style, aggressive lip destruction. It's exciting to see a local kid coming up with obvious passion for the sport and achieving great results.

Also congrats to Atilla Tivadar, a local guy who lives in Pacifica for scoring 2nd in the Masters. He's a super-big, super-nice guy who simply rips. Also congrats to Royn Bartholdi for winning the masters division. I still visit his webpage, roynbartholdi.com, as I work on Freestyle moves.

Lastly, kudos to Samantha Bittner for running another successful event and Kevin Pritchard with Maui Nerd productions for making some really slick videos of the event. The fact that the event is alive not only for people who attend the events, but for people who will only get to check out one or two stops makes such a huge difference.

All hail the AWT!

Other links:

An awesome facebook photo album from day 1.

The local news picks up the story.

**top photo stolen from the AWT website in a very non-malicious way.

Pistol River Wave Bash!

2011-06-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

It's coming ladies and gentlemen, in just a couple days heats will begin for the Pistol River Wave Bash.

In preparation for this huge, badass affair, I've (finally) shared an album of pictures that we took during our last visit.

Go there now!

The forecast for this year's event is even better than last year, if that's even feasible! Unfortunately I won't be in attendance this year, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing the photos and videos.

All the best of luck to the competitors, spectators and hosts! Should be a doozy!

SWM seeks Flaka help

2011-06-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

One of my main goals this season is to make a flaka, also known as the Swayze. It's a move that, when performed by someone who knows how to do it, looks pretty easy. (I guess that could be said for any maneuver, but this one is one that people really get dialed.) I'm not counting the number of attempts this time, but I am trying them a lot particularly because there is a case of beer on the line (specifically, Mexican Pacifico Ballenas). Whichever of the dozen or so of us that are trying them this year gets it first wins the beer.

I've gotten to this point where I'm getting the nose down first and rotating, but I can't seem to get the move to go all the way around. Can someone who can flaka please help a brother out in the comments section? I'm looking at you Brendan, Chachi, and the rest of youse guys!

**whoever gives me the tip that unlocks the move will WIN one of the beers from the case.

***I filmed this using Sergey's Mast Mounted Cam previously discussed on the blog -- it worked like a charm!

**** using my 86 Freestyle Wave in the video due to some "damage" to my freestyle board, which might not be ideal for learning, but I've always thought practicing things slightly handicapped is a good thing.

***** I just like asterisks. They're cool, huh?

Carl gets a Vulcan

2011-06-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

Some kook, Francisco Goya, and Carl

If you haven't been following it, you probably should be.

Carl Spiess, an extremely friendly Canadian who I met through Windsurfing Magazine's board test started a blog to document a year that he's been living in France on a work/live vacation of sorts. He's written about all the windsurfing launches he sailed, the people he's met and his other experiences living in France. His most recent posts have been fantastic stories of making his first Vulcan and sailing Defi Wind, a race of 1000 windsurfers.

I congratulate him for his vulcan accomplishment. I think it is one of the most difficult things to learn in windsurfing, and he did it in an ASTOUNDING 155 attempts. It took me more than twice as many and it takes many people 10 times as many to get that bugger-of-a-maneuver. He said he studied the move quite a bit, which I believe. A lot of people can think really hard and visualize a move then accomplish it, particularly if they have a background in some sort of athletics (I believe Carl played volleyball at a high collegiate level, so I think of him as a superior athlete).

I don't consider myself an athletic person per se, at least not gifted in a coordination way, so everything I've learned has been from repetition and frequent practice. Now I can make most vulcans I attempt and I'm still only making one or a few spocks per session, but it took me over a year to get here. If I was limited to sailing less, I definitely wouldn't be close to any of these achievements. Hats off to Carl and all others who sail locations that aren't frequently windy!

My advice to Carl is to keep on practicing them until perfect, and even start planning for the spock sooner rather than later (meaning try them further off the wind with more speed and on flatter water than your initial attempts). It took me 17 days after my first 4 vulcans to make another, so don't be discouraged. I'm saying that, but thinking you're the type of guy who might get a couple the next session out. Don't put too much pressure on yourself though. Freestyle moves are not a destination! Pat yourself on the back now then try to figure out how to make them consistently -- that's the real test!

Badass Gadgetry

2011-06-05T18:04:00.001-07:00

One of my good buddies Sergey is a badass tinkerer. I, on the other hand, can't tie a bowline.

He's been making a ton of videos on his site videojibe for years using multitudes of mounting mechanisms, optical options and compression codecs.

His latest iteration is a super simple mast mount for the GOPRO camera that is lightweight and easy to set up. I'll give it a test in the next couple weeks to share with you all. The coolest thing is that this is a mount that you can buy. Check it out here!

April and May were Windy in the Bay

2011-06-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

April and May are two of the most dependably windy months in the San Francisco bay for strong wind. I calculated my average sail size and it was 4.520929459. We get a lot of 3.7 and 4.2 days to offset our more typical 5.0 to 5.5 days. I sailed 20 days in April and 22 days in May. I only pulled out my big sail (5.6) three times.

I was looking through the blog and realizing I had been posting a lot about wavesailing. I guess those sessions are more memorable or I feel like they're more worthy of posting than freestyle sessions. I don't really consider myself much of a wavesailor, I actually prefer freestyle, but I guess wavesailing sessions feel like more of an event.

Anyway these are some pictures from a recent FREESTYLE session a large group of us shared at Candlestick. It was super fun, I even sailed away from a couple body drags for the first time. Always wanted to do that one (it took something like 20-40 attempts, I wasn't really counting or really focused on it).

Top Caption: Mike Z from New York turns hard -- he tells people this blog motivated him to move to the bay area. Seems like it's working out well for him.

Leonard Nimoy, doin' his thang.

Jacob getting serious about coming full circle on the spock.

Asma and Sofy on Mauisails? They must read the blog.

Can you name this crash? (all who sail with me are disqualified)

I'm off to Florida for a wedding this weekend and I'm bringing gear. Looking forward to light wind freestyle in boardshorts!

DOUBLE SECRET COASTAL SPOT

2011-05-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

This guy, he got an aerial, then tweaked it.

At the end of last month a few of my "flatwater sailing" buddies and I headed to a spot whose name I dare not reveal. I will tell you it rhymes with "Schmavenport Glandings". It was a month ago, so I don't remember very much about it. The pictures tell me that the waves were occasionally head high, it was sunny and a bunch of my friends made it out. I'm pretty sure this was the day I buckled my freewave 86.

Anyway, I'm sure you don't care about anything I write here, so I'll just link you to the rest of the photos, if you're the kind of dude who likes looking at windsurfing photos.

Tubamania

2011-05-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

One of the sort of legendary windsurfing spots in the bay area is called Tubamancha. It's a legend for a couple reasons:

1. It's difficult to get there.

2. The wind is more offshore and the wave rides are longer than anywhere else around here.

On Sunday, about 20 people made the 2 mile trek (or upwind sail) to the spot to sail the Point Reyes river mouth. Sail sizes were 3.7 to 4.7, with the people on the smaller sizes wavesailing more happily and the people on the larger sizes making the upwind journey much more happily. The waves were between waist and head high mostly, the wind was extremely offshore. The most difficult thing was staying on the wave you caught and not getting blown off the top (wind on the wave face felt like 40).

My sailing was underwhelming, but I still had fun. I was getting cramps from the long walk on my first time out so I had to take a long break. Fortunately I brought a 3.7 too (with much difficulty, since I don't own one of those sweet backpacks), which was nicer to sail. My amazing girlfriend took the hike with me and brought her nice camera into 30 knot sandblasting conditions. The beach there is no fun to hang out on when the wind is blowing that hard, but she hung like a champ!

Below are some of the photos she took, more are here.

Top photo caption: Derek Lueck wins best wipe out. We were all watching and it was a beautiful aerial until the wind ripped the sail out of his hands.

some of the crew

Crissy regular Peter draws a pretty line.

Jeff getting a little under the lip. I really like the way this photo looks

Kevin aerial.

Lee getting sandblasted.

Ants carrying pretzels.

Elliot skies one. Plenty of chances to jump if you had the stones.

The Punta San Carlos Video

2011-05-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

These have been done many times with many awesome angles. Hope you enjoy mine.

We took like 50 gigs of video and this is what I came up with. Lots of awesome stuff from each rider didn't make the 6 minute version. If I had all the time in the world I would make each individual a yearbook of the waves they caught.

Hope you all enjoy watching it a hundredth the amount I enjoyed making it.

Windsurfing is Front Page News

2011-05-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

If you're on this blog, you're probably pretty well-connected to windsurfing web content (because this is virtually the end-of -the-internet). So, it's probably not news to you that the American Windsurfing Tour has kicked off this weekend at a spot close to my home, Waddell Creek. I just got home from spectating on Friday and Saturday night and I've just been blown away by the level of sailing, the stoke in the air, and the efficiency the contest has been run with. Heat after heat, nearly all the single and double elimination has been completed on two consistently windy days save the Expert Men's Double.

This event has been great for the exposure of windsurfing. As you can see, Russ Faurot got the front page of the local paper with a beautiful backloop shot. The coastal highway that passes by Waddell gives thousands of people a front seat view of what high-level windsurfing is all about. As a person whose inspiration to learn windsurfing came from seeing a pro freestyle contest (Calema Midwinters 2001), I love to see a huge crowd of inspired people watching badass windsurfing.

Speechless

2011-04-29T07:52:00.001-07:00

(photo by KK)

The trip to Punta San Carlos was probably the best windsurfing trip I've ever taken, and I've taken quite a few. I've given a little thought as how to summarize the trip, but I haven't been able to cohesively put together thoughts that express just how good the trip was. I sailed 3.7, 4.2, 4.7, 5.0 and 5.6. I rode all of my boards. I sailed and surfed 2 or 3 sessions a day. It was awesome.

I've got lots of photos to share and lots of video to edit. Unfortunately when I get back from trips I'm too busy to do the little extras like blogging until I can get settled in. In the mean time, Kevin Kan from Sunset Sailboards put up a facebook album (many, probably most of the photos were taken by yours truly).

Looks like it's windy everywhere this time of year. Hope everyone is scoring.

A few photos submitted by Brian Watson of the LA area... thanks!

some size out there, even at the beach break at times

Lots of chances to try to hit lips, etc, and no real fear of anything getting broken or getting injured.

Not many jumping opportunities, but now and againThis is what happens when a good wavesailor hits the lip.

This is what happens when I try to.

Lucas and Aaron go to Mexico

2011-04-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

A short story:

In 2004 I moved to Washington, DC after finishing college In Florida. I was an intermediate windsurfer: I could plane in the footstraps, I was getting my waterstarts dialed and I had survived a jibe or two. I sent out an email to the Baltimore Area Boardsailing Association listserve introducing myself and asking "does anyone windsurf around here? Where and when?"

Lucas sent me an email saying, "I'm about the same level as you and I live in the same town of Falls Church, we should probably go windsurfing together." We set a date for the following Saturday and drove to the Belle Haven Marina, which is located on the Potomac River a few miles south of Alexandria, VA. We pulled up to the Marina at exactly the same time, got out of our cars and eyed each other quizzically.

We both were driving 1997 Volkswagen Golf 4-door GL's. We both had these big wide boards strapped to the top of our compact cars. We were around the same age and we both were starving to get on the water. We paid the 5 dollar launching fee and made our way down to the dock to get out there.

It was immediate and obvious that Lucas and I would become great friends. We spent the next few years getting probably less than 10 sessions a year around DC with its light and fickle winds. We would take vacations down to Hatteras and escape for weekends in the Dewey Beach area. We would get maybe 25 sessions a year at the most and it was hard to make drastic improvements in our sailing. He got me into whitewater kayaking for a season, then I picked up and moved to the Bay Area. Eventually we both agreed that windsurfing is way more fun. I'm working on getting him to move out this direction.

Lucas is getting married this summer to an awesome girl (who has been learning to windsurf ?!). She's planing and harnessing like a champ, I think her waterstarts are soon coming as well. He asked me to be in the wedding party so of course the first thing that came to my mind was "BACHELOR PARTY!!!" But it's neither Lucas' or my style to hang out at strip clubs blowing money on lap dances and $10 beers. Instead, we're going to Punta San Carlos for a week of surfing, windsurfing and living like cavemen.

Kevin and Juan are joining us. I'm bringing many, many cameras. Hopefully I'll have a couple things to throw up on the blog when it's all over with.

4.7, 3.7, 4.2, 4.2

2011-04-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

Those were my last four size selections which means it's early spring in the bay area.

Saturday was a party at Candlestick. In the morning we did a beach clean up, then in the afternoon we were treated for the deed with some strong winds. There were probably 20 small sails on the water. The water state was pretty messy, so there were a lot of freestyle tricks being attempted, but not a lot of tricks being made (except by super skilled Sofy).

I put some more photos up here if you're interested.

Nucular

2011-04-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

April 6th was one of those 3.7/75 kinds of days. Winds in the 30s. 3rd Avenue was littered with ramps and juicy swells. Everyone comes in shaking their head around 6:00, blown off the water.

It. Was. Awesome.

By my estimation we get 12 or fewer of those days a year, but the money spent on your teeny board and teeny sail still feel well worth the price.

Lots of smiles coming off the water.

A little bit of carnage.

April - North American Windsurfing Month

2011-04-04T21:23:00.001-07:00

April seems to be "in season" for most of the country. Over the years I've had numerous conversations with folks about what the best time to visit their spot is to get wind. Almost always April enters the conversation, and almost always I think in the back of my mind: "There is no way in hell I'm leaving (wherever I'm living) during April. It's too good here!"

April is North American Windsurfing Month.

Photo of Pedro, all smiles last April. When the photo was taken he had never made a vulcan. Last session, I saw him make 5 spocks with my own eyes. Unbelievable.

April Fools

2011-04-01T12:57:00.001-07:00

Well? Did I trick you?

I'm staying here indefinitely. Job or no job.

Email responses from my friends:

Me: Sad news, check out the blog.
(1 minute later)Kevin: you misspelled Manhattan
(2 minutes later)Jacob: Congrats! Sad to see you go! You've got gear to borrow here!
(3 minutes later)Steve: Go make some money and sail HIHO with me! We'll miss you!
(4 minutes later)Sofy: You guys realize it's almost April 1st?
(5 minutes later)Jacob: *******
Steve: I take it everything back!

I can't pull a prank on these guys to save my life.

Sorry to the folks that legitimately wished me well! To heck with the rest of you!

An Odd Twist of Fate

2011-03-31T10:19:00.001-07:00

Just when you've got it all figured out, things change.

It turns out that I've been offered a job within my current company that will be a huge career advancement. It's one of those moments when I really have to do the right thing to keep growing now, or else I could be stuck doing the same thing (that I'm not totally stoked on) for many more years.

The new job has me relocating to the NY Metropolitan area. My home base office will be on Manhattan, but I'll be able to work from home at least a few days a week. On one hand it's sad to leave San Francisco, since it's been so good to me. But otherwise, I'm pretty excited for the change and the big city life. The wind and people have been great out here and I'll forever cherish those memories and relationships, but I'm super excited to see what Long Island has to offer in terms of windsurfing. I can't wait to sail all those -auks and -amptons with the Peconic Puffin crew.

The move is at the end of April. Excited!

Any suggestions for where I should settle that's close to work and windsurfing?

(photo of Ray Armas, NY City Windsurfer catching the subway)

Mount My Mast

2011-03-25T20:03:00.001-07:00

Those of you who know me personally would probably agree that I have a pretty crass sense of humor. Something that I got a kick out of that I heard on a television show was:

"Listening to someone's dreams is like flipping through a stack of photos. If you're not in them and no one is naked ... what's the point?"

I sort of have that feeling about windsurfing videos of normal folks. They're coolest to the person who went for the ride so they can relive the moment. There are some good ones out there, particularly if they have decent action and good music.

Nevertheless, I bought a GoPro HD in the hope of making some videos of me and my friends this year. At least they'll be fun to us. Dave from epicsessions gave me a good tip about the mast mount and I tried it out on a gusty day at Haskins this week. My recommendation is to start the video then start multi-tasking on your computer. At least the music kicks ass.

GoPro HD Mast Mount from Catapult Media on Vimeo.

As the season pushes on and gets more consistent, I'll get some better sailing and more angles on these videos.

Thoughts?

March Madness

2011-03-24T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's blowing 30 out there, but my team is still in the tournament playing at a time that I know will kibosh any windsurfing I could do.

I'm choosing to watch basketball over windsurfing.

(go gators)

What would have happened...

2011-03-18T11:46:00.000-07:00

I woke up around my customary time of 5am this morning to hop on a couple conference calls with folks from the east coast. Of course, before I did that, I checked the wind. By 9AM my calls were over and there was a window of opportunity for me to go windsurfing. I decided to be a good boy and continuing to work, crossing my fingers for the storm to last into the afternoon. Otherwise my morning would have went like this:

9:00 AM - Stop in donut shop to refuel, begin the drive down to Half Moon Bay in terrible stormy conditions.

10:00 AM - Arrive at Half Moon Bay, change into wetsuit.

10:05 AM - Decide to rig 4.7 and 97L board.

10:10 AM - Wind ramps up to 30 average. It's gonna be a big day! Rig down to 3.7/75.

10:15 AM - Derig bigger gear so it doesn't blow away.

10:20 AM - Get to water. Immediately begin slogging but expect that it's just a lull. Denial Stage.

10:25 AM - Continue slogging, commence four-letter dialect use. Anger stage.

10:30 AM - Slog a bit more, consider rigging larger. Bargaining stage.

10:35 AM - Lay in the water waiting for a water start after a failed pivot jibe. Spit up mouthfuls of storm water. Depression Stage.

10:40 AM - Begin swimming back to the beach. Fire copious snot rockets into the sand and hack up chunky bits of runoff for the next 15 minutes. Acceptance Stage.

10:55 AM - Long, slow drive home on wet roads after an unproductive morning. Grief complete.

So I missed this morning, but at least my wetsuit is dry and ready for the next chance.

Aguadilla, Spanish for Waterdilla

2011-03-10T19:47:00.000-08:00

The second part of my winter-Caribbean vacation was in Northwest Puerto Rico. We flew into San Juan and drove the 2 hours to get to the surfy town of Aguadilla. The drive along the north coast of Puerto Rico was just as adrenaline filled as driving on Tortola. Traffic laws aren't taken too seriously in our Spanish speaking territory.

Again, this trip was going to hopefully be a chance to surf more while it was still winter and the wind was light, but it blew 20-25 almost the whole time we were there. Unfortunately there is no place to rent windsurfing gear in all of Puerto Rico. Even if I was forward thinking enough to get some gear in San Juan, the shop that rents gear there says on their web page that they "no longer offer advanced rentals". I'd be lying if I said it wasn't excruciating at times, sitting at Shacks beach watching the wind whip across waist to head high waves.

Shacks beach itself seemed like an outstanding spot for windsurfing. The guy in the picture below has a house there, but is originally from Long Island. He said it's a tricky place due to shallow reefs, but in general it works pretty well. It reminded me an awful lot of Uppers at Kanaha, except the waves were breaking 30 yards not 300 yards from shore. Note to self, pack gear next time you go to PR. I may have been there during a particularly windy few days, but I sure wouldn't mind spending a few months there to see.

He did get some good down the line rides, but by the time I got the camera out, he was going backside. Probably underpowered and trying to get upwind to an apparently small gap in the reef to launch and land.

Even though it was windy, the surf was pretty fun. It seems like the forecasting is pretty inaccurate. My last day was forecast at 1-2 feet and had waves that were 3 feet overhead. (Of course some Hawaiian dude would tell you those were 6 inch waves, but we'll get into machismo and wave height description for a whole different conversation). In any case many of the locals were surprised by how big the waves were.

Another awesome place to visit in NW Puerto Rico is the Camuy Caverns, which is one of the largest known cave systems in the world. The tour group was massive, but it is definitely a pretty amazing place.

The main spot I surfed is called Wilderness. It was freaking awesome, waist to overhead peelers the whole time I was there. There was some wind so you had to paddle a lot to stay on the peak, but that kept the crowd from sticking around for hours. Above is one of the many very good local surfers hitting the lip on a small inside wave.

And now, another laugh track moment:

Two nights on Tortola

2011-03-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

This February I was lucky enough to escape the chilly SF winter to check out Tortola and Puerto Rico. My intentions around this trip were mainly relax and practice surfing. I haven't been posting about it much, but I've been trying to surf as much as possible this winter. My original hope was for surfing to help me with my wavesailing, but as it turns out I've been catching the surfing bug in a bigger way than I imagined (primarily because the first year you surf, it's a full-on exercise in futility [unless you have, ya know, talent or athleticism {which I wouldn't know anything about}]).

These last couple months have involved a lot of cold water and cold humble pie, which is a dish actually best served warm. Enter, trip to the warm Caribbean.

Traveling to a minor island like Tortola from the west coast is one heck of a journey. One whole day of traveling, an overnight layover in San Juan, then a puddle jumping prop plane to hilly BVI's. The trip was originally set for Puerto Rico only, but I figured I may as well check out another island while we're making the trip. My research indicated that Tortola was a good choice for a two night trip to score some beach time and potentially a little bit of surfing time.

As it turned out the surfing was only marginally good, mainly because there was too much wind!

My next obvious course of action was to scour the island for windsurfing gear. I went to a tourist info center (which had previously rented me a surfboard with a huge crack in the nose) to try to figure out the windsurfing situation. They were somewhat puzzled by the idea windsurfing on the island which was a bad omen. There were some outdated looking brochures sitting around hinting that there were some places that offered windsurfing on the windward side of the island and one spot on the south side which apparently would only rent gear by the week.

We made the journey back toward the Northeast part of the island, first to a town called East End. I say "journey" because even though the island is only 15 miles long, getting up and down huge, steep switchbacks on sketchy roads surrounded by anarchy style driving etiquette on the left dadgummed side of the road... well let's just say the adrenaline was flowing.

We found no sign of windsurfing in East End, so we ventured on to the final hope -- Beef Island -- where one finds the Tortola Airport. Passing by the airport into what seemed like no-man's land we discovered a parking area and a couple of shops visible from the road. One was clearly marked "HIHO", which is the name of the inter-island race held in the Virgin Islands, so I immediately knew I was in the right place.

What I discovered was a spot called "Trellis Bay" which has a large protected mooring area and some very friendly beaches with a nice outdoor seating area for eating and having a drink. Some cool little artsy stores where local artists are working on their craft right in front of you sit next to a full service internet Cafe. The Cafe's specialties include the "Awesomest Fish Sandwich" and a wide selection of cold beverages. It's the perfect kind of spot where a guy-water-enthusiest and a girl-who-wants-to-hang-out-on-the-beach combo can go to each be fully satisfied.

The host of this joint is a guy by the name of Jeremy. Turns out that Jeremy runs a blog about the goings-on of his joint and Trellis bay. Full moon parties, live music, he's got a good gig going. Jeremy also has tons of great stories if you get him away from work for a moment: sailing from SF to Indonesia, teaching Finian Maynard how to windsurf, getting on a windsurfer himself and just going places. He's one of those guys you meet who seems so inspired that you doubt he ages a day.

I windsurfed two days at Trellis Bay. The first day I rode an 8.5 and a 120L board. I admittedly was pretty nervous to use this kind of gear. I haven't sailed anything bigger than a 6.0 in literally years. I wasn't sure if I could even do it. The 120 felt absolutely ginormous. I can't remember the feeling of carving through a jibe on a board that large. Come to think of it, I don't think I had really started making a lot of jibes until I moved to the bay area a few years ago. The sailing was fun but exhausting. It's almost like you're using a whole different set of muscles with that kind of rig. I could ride it, but every transition felt really draining. It was incredibly fun cruising over the bright blue water but it's definitely something to which I'm not acclimated.

The second day was 5.4, same board, smaller fin. I was enjoying some speedy short reaches inside the jetty, blazing through jibes. It was super fun. If I had my freestyle board, it would have been perfect conditions to work on all those little spinny things the rust has been building upon.

I could definitely see the draw of the HIHO that everyone has been raving about for years. I don't think I'm ready to go for it because honestly I'm just not a long-distance (or racing) guy. For me, I'd like to hop around the islands with big wave or freestyle gear, exploring rarely-sailed reefs and protected freestyle lagoons.

Someday.

I have forgotten the art of turning a board this wide.

Nature Boy's Wilderness Bar

The ever-famous Bomba Shack with photos of actual topless women.

Carib is a very nice beer.

Clean, steady 8.5 wind in the channel.

Trellis Bay is a funky and fun place to hang out.

Local Artists built all kinds of cool sculptures. They light these things on fire for the full moons.

Cane Garden Bay hides a very well known point break. We stayed down there too... a very nice family beach.

(insert laugh track)

Another sunset session surfing alone.

Best Post-Cold Session Food

2011-02-19T11:37:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was 4.2/75L at Half Moon Bay. Crankin', fun, and lots of rust getting kicked off.

Post-session food is a matter of taste. Lots of folks seem to love to go for that red meat protein injection with juicy hamburger. I have another friend who likes a milkshake after a day in the water, to satisfy his sweet tooth. When I was living in DC there was an IHOP we used to visit to gorge ourselves on breakfast-for-dinner.

But here in SF after getting out of the cold water, the best thing I've found is Vietnamese Chicken Soup (pho ga). Your runny nose releases all it's fluids, you reverse the bone chill from the inside out, you get rehydrated on the savory broth. A little sriracha sauce gives you a kick of spice to accelerate this process.

It's a little bit of heaven.

What's your favorite post spock snack?

When You Mess with the Bull

2011-02-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

... you get the horns. I broke my first mast the other day on my first ocean sailing session of the year. The wipe out wasn't particularly spectacular, the wave not particularly big, the swim not particularly harrowing. She was a good mast, lasted me two seasons. Her life probably could have been much longer had I just used her on flat water. But can you really call that living?

In any case, it was a pretty expensive day. I had a few memorable down-the-line wave rides that *almost* made it worth it. The thing that is creeping around the back of my mind is if I continue visiting the coast, how many masts could I break this season? At $500 a pop, these things are a pretty expensive speeding ticket. At what point do you take away your license?

Anyhow, here's a quick video from that day. Jacob getting worked, a couple local heroes doing their thing, and a huge dead elephant seal.

ps. yes, I know this video doesn't fit here, but I don't have the time or patience to fix that right now, so just click through to the youtube link and save your concerned email for a late rebate payment or something not punctuated properly in Windsurfing Magazine.

The California Coast Welcomes You

2011-01-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

The nice thing about Northern California is that when windsurfing season ends, surfing season starts. Those regular prevailing westerly winds that blow 8 months of the year that we wind-folks love draw the ire of the local surfing community. But during the winter, we get into weather patterns that give a week or so without wind, then storms that bring wind, rain and snow to the Sierra Mountain range. These periods without wind are what surfers thrive on, since it takes only a little bit of wind to make waves less fun and more difficult to surf.

But there is a catch to surfing many of the spots in NorCal. It can be really, really difficult. The picture at the top of this post is a snapshot of someone getting ready to go out on a typical Double-to-Triple-Overhead-Plus (10-15 ft + waves) day at Ocean Beach, which is a few miles long, down the west side of San Francisco. The current moves extremely fast and the head high walls of whitewater batter surfers back toward the beach as they try to paddle out. No easy channels present themselves to get to the waves breaking a quarter-of-a-mile or more offshore. Often when you visit Ocean Beach on a big day, you can't even see the surfers out at the break. They are just specks on the horizon through a thick fog generated by sea foam. It's amazing that anyone even surfs these kinds of conditions.

The type of person who surfs Ocean Beach on a big day needs to be fit to get out to the breaking waves. Typically it is said that it takes 45 minutes or more of paddling and duck-diving to get out to where you can catch these giant waves. After that, it may take just as long to get back in, so you have to be ready to paddle for about an hour and a half. Just paddling, not catching waves. So in addition to being in great paddling shape, you have to be extremely confident in your ability to survive. If you get half way out and lose confidence, you're going to be in a pretty bad situation. The third attribute I would give an OB-big-wave surfer is to have a screw loose. You might catch one huge wave, get creamed by it and held down underwater for a minute before you start your paddle home. The reward was that 2-4 second drop. Two hours of paddling, one big adrenaline filled drop, then paddle back with a big smile.

These guys are crazy, and there's seemingly hundreds or thousands of them.

The good news? It's not crowded.

Best Year so Far

2011-01-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

I moved to California a couple years ago with this idea that I would be able to windsurf a little more than the dozen or two sessions that I was getting while living on the east coast. I wasn't geographically or employmently set up to windsurf on the weekdays, and only occasionally on the weekends. The Northern Virginia area where I was living was an hour away from good potential wind and water locales (on a rare no-traffic day). I had the opportunity to move to a windy place and I pounced on it. My working hours stayed the same (Eastern Standard, that is) so I was also amazingly afforded long afternoons every day I could pull my carcass out of bed before sunrise.

After a year of settling in and tuning up, I was really ready for a season with a lot of time on the water. I learned how to make the right decisions about where to go and when to catch a lot of sessions that I otherwise might have missed. My best friends became the people who had the same obsession and ultimately my starvation for the sensation of planing was only fortified. Here I sit, a man whose thoughts are maniacally overrun with one, singular and repeatedly redundant thought:

ME WANT WINDSURF

And me windsurf indeed took place, more so than I ever imagined.

What more fitting word to describe the lusting infatuation I have for windsurfing than "a gross".

In 2010 I windsurfed 144 days.

Planing. No gear over 100L board or 5.6m sail.

An Unusual Session at Linda Mar

2010-12-06T10:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was forecast to be a solid winter storm heading toward the bay area. This time of year, there are only a handful of sailable days every month. About half of the good-wind-forecast days end up panning out to be planing conditions. Usually the storm winds last about a half hour, and are strongest at sites that are an hour drive from San Francisco in Half Moon Bay. That's why people pack their gear up for the winter around here. Not because they are wind snobs, but because chasing fickle storm winds can end up being very frustrating.

By 11 AM we had gotten a "spike" on the meter. Half Moon Bay's wind meter hit 20, then immediately backed off. For all we knew, that was going to be "our storm". A couple hours went by and the meter hits 20 again, then drops 20 minutes later. We were being toyed with, it was certain. I catch up with Jacob and decide maybe we should go surfing at our favorite kiddie-pool, Linda Mar. Linda Mar is located in Pacifica, California. It has a reputation as "bozo beach" for surfing because it's one of the few places around where the waves aren't always completely and systematically humiliating to an inexperienced surfer. The downside is that it's always really crowded and catching a great wave is difficult because everyone paddles for every wave. Party wave city, forget about going down the line.

Jacob and I got there and it actually looked kinda windy. Hardly any whitecaps, but tons of spray coming off of the tops of the 3-4 foot waves. We always joke about windsurfing this spot. A couple times I've seen it be windy there after storm sailing in Half Moon Bay, but was already too cold and tired to give it a go. This time, we had arrived with the intentions of surfing but ended up rigging 5.0's and 100L boards. There were a few dozen surfers out along the half-mile long beach, much less than usual. They were working pretty hard to stay in the line up because the offshore winds were pushing them out to sea.

I heard the surfers cheering on my way out. I guess seeing someone blasting along on a windsurfer added to their self-validation of lunacy for surfing on such a stormy, ugly day. We got some strange looks, but no one seemed to be too bothered with us. The wind was super gusty. Lots of waiting for waterstarts as well as getting the back hand ripped off the boom.

The wind itself was borderline scary-off-shore. The water outside the break was butter flat. It would have been perfect for freestyle had I had any mind to not be worried about losing ground upwind.

The waves were sometimes 4 feet, maybe a little more. The stronger ones were closing out and throwing pretty hard with all the offshore wind. I didn't endure any terrible over-the-falls experiences, but when I did I was underneath my gear in very shallow water.

The following photo is either the Loch Ness Monster, or me riding a wave port tack. Odds are with the former.

The following photo was a pretty common site. Once you took a wave to the inside you were pretty much at the mercy of the wind shadow and shore break. Also, lining up a beach start is difficult when your gear is being pushed upwind. Hard to explain, but we kept getting back-winded in the impact zone.

There was a walk-of-shame to be done. The only place we could make it in was near the north end of the beach.

My girlfriend took these photos with an iPhone (some through the eyepiece of binoculars). Not too shabby! I'll definitely come back to this spot again to check out the off-shore winds. This session might have been pure luck, or maybe just nobody TRIES to sail here. It was challenging, but at this point I think sailing gusty storm wind on flat water is mainly frustrating. Sailing gusty wind with the odd chance ad a full powered wave turn, now that's fun.

This is what happens when I leave town...

2010-11-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

I'm in an office in the middle of windless Florida. You're welcome to my bay-area comrades.

Corrections and Updates - Cabo Verde predictions

2010-11-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

So I found out that I didn't have my bracket set up right. Although they do 4 person heats, they are scored on a 1v1 basis (if I understand properly), so my bracket is all wrong. Oh well, at least the spirit was there. Maybe next year I'll get it right.

In other news, the PWA released exactly how the world title race plays out.

For Kauli to win the title, he would need to win and
- Victor Fernandez would have to place 6th or below
- Campello needs to end up 5th or below

For Ricardo to win he'd need to win outright and
- Victor places 5th or below

For Victor to win, he just needs to place 4th or above.

There are a lot of other scenarios that involve all three of these guys not doing well. Imagine if Robby Swift won currently in 6th place. I think we would need Ricardo, Victor and Kauli to all place outside of the top 10 in order for him to win it all. Given that, my internal computer model tells me that Victor Fernandez has a 73.22001% chance of winning the title.

My forecast for the final top 10 ranking is:

1. Victor
2. Kauli
3. Ricardo
4. Swift
5. Mussolini
6. Pritchard
7. Voget
8. Koster
9. Bruch
10. Skye

Would you change anything about that list?

Bracketology

2010-11-15T09:39:00.000-08:00

Lo and behold, a bracket for the single elimination for the final PWA contest in Cabo Verde. I put this together with my rudimentary excel skills because something deep inside compelled me. I'm a fan of sports and speculation in the normal world of football, soccer (for my euro readers) basketball, and sometimes baseball. I've always felt like there is no reason that my obsession and over analysis shouldn't reach into the pro windsurfing world. In this post, I'll be revealing my picks for the Cabo Verde event based upon what I've seen from countless hours of watching windsurfing video and my intuition about the sailors involved and the site of Punta Preta in Cabo Verde. I will probably play favorites based upon sailors I've met, and give them the benefit of the doubt over those I haven't. My American homerism will likely be quickly sniffed out.

So let's first discuss how the spot of Punta Preta Cabo Verde affects the potential outcome of this event. Here's what we know about Punta Preta. This is a point break with Large to Extra Large waves. The wind can be strong, but also not super strong. The wind is very offshore which makes it a little better for wave riding rather than jumping. If someone wants to correct me on these facts, please do! Punta Preta favors starboard tack sailors who are especially good ON the wave. This is an interesting fold because many of the top ten wavesailors on the PWA rankings are there because of their skill on port tack side-on to onshore wave contests, essentially JUMPING contests, not wave riding contests.

What we typically have at Punta Preta is a wave-riding contest. Wave-riding is a very subjective thing to judge. Why? Because a lot of the scoring doesn't circle around the number of turns, or the amplitude of air on an aerial. The judging is mostly about the style. Sure, being around the critical section of the wave is very important. All of these guys can be in the right place, but still a huge question is would the judges rather see a very fast, drivey wave where the sailor covers a ton of ground, lays down big bottom turns and airs out across big lips, or will they be more interested in those slashy top turns, slowly progressing down the wave , but staying very vertical? In my mind, I'm seeing yet another final heat between Josh Angulo and Kauli Seadi that will be pinning those two exact styles against one-another. For first place, yet again.

A bracket is more than a list of names. It's a chance to imagine some of these heats going on. Let's take a look at a couple very interesting first round heats.

Here are two heats in a particular that strike me as very interesting. The top heat with Ojeda, Albeau, Swift and Porcela has some interesting things going on. I'm going to put Ojeda in the "happy to be here" category, because just getting to the event and getting to sail that wave on the sponsor's dime is enough to make anyone happy. He's a Pozo guy. A port tack jumping guy. I don't see him doing much compared to the guys who sail Ho'okipa. He's ranked in the top 10 right now, but that's because most of the tour so far has been jumping contests. Swifty on the other hand is a shoe-in to advance. He's got some of the best stuff for down the line wave sailing of anyone on the tour. The interesting part of this heat is Albeau vs. Porcella. Porcella has tons of experience on starboard tack wave sailing from living on Maui for all these years. He's a fearless, amazing jumper. That said I think of him more of a "soul surfer" type. I can't think of an contest where he's sailed an incredible heat. On the other hand, you have Antoine Albeau, who LIVES for competition in all kinds of sailing. Although he isn't as focused on waves, he can nail backloops with a lot of consistency and he definitely knows how to ride a wave. My brain tells me to pick Albeau for his competitive pedigree, but my heart is going with Porcella on this one.

The next heat is Skye, Lenny, Koster, and Polakow. Wow. Skye is ranked 11, and I think deservedly so, so I'll give the top spot of the heat to the Brit. He spends a good amount of time on Maui, so I think he's a no brainer to advance. What we have otherwise is Lenny and Koster, current wonderkids, and Polakow, former extreme wonderkid. You have the think that Kai and Phillip have got to be thinking of each other as rivals. Kai was the main kid we've been seeing via the Windsurfing Movies, then last year, out of nowhere Koster busts onto the scene landing double forwards seemingly while yawning in the Canary Islands. Koster has won first place in Pozo! Kai hasn't had any competition results that come close to that, so I'm sure he'll have a chip on his shoulder to beat Philip in conditions that perfectly suit his Maui experience. That said, I think they will be competing for 3rd place given Polakow's hefty experience advantage. Neither of the young guns will advance this year. It will be interesting to see how the double elimination bracket will sort itself out to see which one of the two will end up on top for the final standings of the year.

Now I will reveal my final single elimination bracket:

A couple other things to note:

I like Pritchard to have a good outing, that might be me being a homer. He's ridden 10 bajillion starboard tack waves, so you have to like his chances. Marcilio Browne could be out early, and for sure by the 2nd round. I think his recent foot injury is going to be too much to overcome. Bad luck for him, considering what a pleasure he is to watch. The title race is for sure very interesting. Campello in 2nd in wave? Am I seeing things? Victor in first, due to all the port tack jumping. I think Kauli will high-step to the endzone for the victory, but will he get enough points to hold off the kings of jumping and win the championship? Kauli needs to hope these two guys do bad in addition to winning the event!

I believe there will be video broadcast here: http://caboverdeworldcup.com/

Also, if you'd like an excel version of the bracket, email me at catapulting.aaron@gmail.com.

If you pick more brackets correctly than me, I will mail you something San Francisco or windsurfing related.

And to make the post at least somewhat visually interesting, here's a picture of Punta Preta that I did not get permission to use.

I want to go to there.

2010-11-13T12:26:00.001-08:00

Mauro2010 part II from Lorzelek on Vimeo.

Looks like Maui but port tack with much longer rides.

Can you name the spot without googling? I couldn't.

Top Ten Twenty-Ten Maui Memories

2010-10-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

I just got back from my 3rd trip to Maui to test boards for Windsurfing Magazine. It, as per usual, was awesome.

10. Luggage tag on boom. My flight arrived at 5pm Maui time. I was given a ride to Kanaha, set up on a MauiSails legend 5.0 and a board they just knew I would like. A 30 minute session after a 5 hour flight is definitely a mood enhancer. All I did was switch to my boom, which still had the luggage tag attached to it.

9. Getting body slammed by Jake Miller in a parking lot. I won't say I didn't deserve it, but Jake got the best of me, and both of our elbows were oozing nicely for a few days following.

8. Wine straight from the box. It pours much faster than you'd imagine.

7. Criss-crossing wave ride at Lowers with Josh Sampiero. You might have been able to squint and mistake us for Polakow and Naish crossing at Jaws. Or not, but it was just as fun.

6. Best wave. Being a sub-mediocre surfer means that getting a head high drop and a 10 second ride right along the peeling section pretty much one of the best things that could happen to you.

5. The long paddle to Lowers. The break at Lower Kanaha seems pretty close when you're riding a windsurfer. It's not. But to surf overhead, peeling waves without a crowd, some sort of payment must be made.

4. Dreamy conversations with beginner-hood heroes. When I was a wee-waterstarter in this sport, Kevin Pritchard and Ricardo Campbello were two guys that I aspired to sail like. In one night, I got to chat with both of them for a few minutes. It was awesome.

3. Surprisingly awesome 2011 boards. This year there were a handful of boards that blew my mind. You'll have to get the magazine to find out which ones they were.

2. Levi pretending to recognize me. I helped out with a beach clean up on the North Shore in a program that was help run by the +H2O team. I have maybe briefly met Levi Siver once a couple years ago. In any case I said "what's up", shook his hand and he said, "It's been a while since you've been here." It had been a year, and realistically we hadn't really met. It's ok, he has better things to worry about. Ya know, like being the rockstar of windsurfing.

1. Geordie reunion. My friend Chris from Tynemouth England came back this year, along with his friend Laurence. About a year and a half ago I was swilling ale at a local pub in North England with these two, telling dirty jokes and making fun of each-other's accents. It was awesome to hang out with them and lots of laughs came along with it. It reminded me that windsurfing, for me, isn't about personal achievment. It's about sharing stoke and laughs with good friends.

"Last Month of the Season"

2010-10-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

It's the last "official" month of the season, so anything from here on out is the bonus round. I figure if my blog was going to be anemic this year, I'd at least put my session logs up.

This was an El Nino year, which are supposed to be wetter and less windy. The early season was relatively not great, but our summer delivered pretty well and September was also good. I was out of town for work and dealing with real life stuff, so I missed quite a few sessions this month. Also, the trip to PSC cost me a few windsurfing sessions, but it was still fun.

In terms of bay-area sessions it goes like this:

4.7 3
5.0 3
5.6 3

In PSC I got three days on 5.6 and one on 5.0.

September total: 13 sessions

YTD total: 128 sessions.

Early October seems to be set up for wind, let's see how long the bonus round lasts.

Punta San Candlestick

2010-09-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I made my first pilgrimage to a place called Punta San Carlos. All windsurfers have heard stories. Wave rides lasting over a minute on both a surf board or a windsurf board. Easy access to a friendly wave that won't crush you if you slip up. Living in a tent for a small part of your life, when nothing matters but the waves that are rolling in at that moment. The wind steadily blows from the perfect direction. The water stays smooth and flat between perfectly spaced sets. It's all true -- well, most of the time.

I made the journey with my buddy Rob, who is the president of windsurfing for the Cal Sailing Club. It's a really long drive. Probably over 20 hours total, including a crazy dirt road at the end of the drive. We camped on the bluff, along with some other folks who've made their temporary homes in this beautiful, yet desolate place. I can see why people go with SoloSports. If you don't have sturdy vehicle, it can be tough to get there. Even my cargo van is making some funny squeaking noises that it didn't used to after the trip.

The week we went was described by the local squatters as "the worst week of the season". We had several days without wind in a row and the waves, at the very biggest, were chest high. The bigger ones were very infrequent. Even though it was flat, I caught waves every day on my 8' surf board when the tide was right. A bigger longboard or a stand up board would have been the weapon of choice. When we showed up, the wind was cranking. I was overpowered on 5.0 and 75l. It was the evening we got there, so we sailed for 45 minutes and decided to set up camp before the sunset, ya know, since we'd be sailing 5.0 or smaller for the whole trip. That was a mistake. The rest of the time there, I was mostly underpowered on 5.6 and my 97L freestyle board. Only 4/8 days we were there had planing wind.

I'm not bitter, but I was on a the verge of insanity after a few days with not much to do in the desert. It's hard living down there. Hot and dry during the day. Cold and wet at night. Beautiful scenery, but it doesn't change very much. Fortunately the people around us were great, we made great friends and ate like kings. It felt like we were part of the 20 or so people who were living on the edge of the world somewhere.

The sailing wasn't all bad. On the last couple of days, I went out slogging for waves on my big board and a 5.6 and caught some memorable down the line rides. I had never had that feeling of being powered up on the wave face quite like this. I can say that "I get it" now when it comes to wave sailing. Instead of being a normal flat water or jumping session in the bay where I'm pushing myself the whole time to make a new maneuver, I was getting out there... waiting for a wave, then screaming down the line with a gigantic smile on my face. No frustration, no high self- expectations about my performance of a specific move, just pure pleasure of combining the things I've learned in surfing and windsurfing the last couple years.

Wave sailing in Punta San Carlos is joyous. I can only imagine what it's like when the conditions are good. I will be back to find out.

Lots of Ink on August

2010-09-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

August was good to me. I learned to spock, and started getting them in consecutive sessions. No serious injuries and consistent wind at the spots that are located conveniently for me.

4.2 - 5 days
4.7 - 8 days
5.0 - 5 days
5.6 - 4 days

22 total days of sailing.

I leave today for Punta San Carlos, Baja, Mexico. I'm terrible at wave sailing. Just terrible. I hope to come back with some ability to go down the line. At the beginning of the year I declared one of my goals to get an aerial-off-the-lip. This was probably an unrealistic; I'll be happy if I figure out how to ride a wave properly.

Hope everyone gets some great wind, and my friends on the east coast stay safe from the hurricane, but also get to have some fun with it.

An Unusual Catapult Blog Guest Appearance

2010-08-25T12:08:00.001-07:00

My nipples.

Pardon the strange attire, it was a rare scorcher in the bay (especially for this year) and all I had was some neoprene short layers, and one booty to cover a cut on my right foot. Perfect 5.6 butter flat, table smooth water. Happy to not be making spocks to get a chance to cool off. Well, sorta happy about that.

100.

2010-08-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

(photo by Asma A, freestyle badass)

Yesterday was my 100th day of sailing this year.

That's a lot of windsurfing.

It's also an easy number to run a quick percentage count of what sails/boards I was using this year. Keep in mind that I live and work in a situation right now that allows me to sail nearly every sailable day in the bay. I take days off to rest, injury or if I'm not feeling well, so by no means am I sailing EVERY sailable day. Probably a majority, though. Also, I didn't include the handful of 2 session days in my analysis. That would change things a bit, but not a huge amount.

3.7 - 3 days
4.2 - 9 days
4.7 - 32 days
5.0 - 15 days
5.3 - 26 days
5.6 - 15 days

97 L Fanatic Skate - 72 days
86 L Fanatic Freewave - 18 days

My weight most of this season has been about 170 American pounds (77kg).

I was a little surprised to see how much more I use my bigger freestyle board than my smaller freewave. I attribute this partly to it being a lighter wind year than normal (el neenyo) and partly to my complete obsession with freestyle windsurfing (something I just started this year).

**Disclaimer: I'm not writing this to brag, or put anyone else's sailing region down. I just think it's somewhat useful information for people who visit or are considering moving to this location. Yes, it's windy here, and if you have a flexible schedule you could sail a ton.

***Disclaimer numero dos: Here's the part where I brag. I made my first spock during my 100th session of the year.

Hamburger A or Hamburger B?

2010-08-06T10:28:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple of vulcans that I attempted a couple of weeks ago. The question is, which one is a better attempt?

The second one was dry, but I contend that the first one is the better one for a couple of reasons.

A. I went boom to boom on the first one, and kept the mast vertical. I probably would have made it if that big piece of chop didn't come and eat the front of my board.

B. I do a huge arm sweeping motion on the second one before going to the mast with my hand. The mast fell far to leeward and I was lucky to recover from it...

The boom-to-boom vs. pole grabbing on a vulcan or spock is a pretty hotly debated topic. Many of the best freestyle windsurfers in the world grab the mast when they spock, but most instructors say going boom to boom will ultimately give you a more consistent spock, and a better shot at the spock 540.

I guess the question is, does it matter? Maybe it does. The only people that can tell the difference are the people who are into freestyle. To everyone else, it may as well be a grubby/puneta/other spinnyslidey move.

Or the even bigger philosphical question is: What's better a good miss or a bad make?

I think a good miss is better, a bad make is how you start forming bad habits (see, jibing).

A Symphony of Crashes

2010-07-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

There has been a ton going on here I've been wanting to write about. I've got a bunch of nice photos from Pistol River. US Nationals happened 5 minutes from my house. There was a pro freestyle competition in the Delta. I've been wanting to share some thoughts on my progress windsurfing. But alas, I haven't had the gumption to get all of that out there.

In any case this morning I threw this video together real quick of a session at Haskins. We were mostly on 4.5/4.7, but probably should have been on 4.2's. I grabbed my camera after I was completely exhausted, and all of my friends were exhausted as well. Usually, we are all much better than this.

As always, excuse my crack-head shaky camera work.

The REAL Wave Bash Winners

2010-06-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Guess Who Won the Wave Bash?

2010-06-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

(Wave Bash Coverage, part 2 of 50 skrillion.)

Press Release for Pistol River Wave Bash

2010-06-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

Just pitched in to help out with the event by writing this. The final day is upon us. Good luck to the competitors:

PRESS RELEASE

6-20-2010 10:00 AM

This summer marks the official return of the Pistol River Wave Bash, which was on a ten year hiatus. Under the management of Samantha Bittner, the event's first year back greatly exceeded expectations in attendance. Over 75 windsurfers hailing from as far as France and England traveled to compete in the legendary conditions wind and wave conditions offered by the Oregon Coast. The conditions for competition have not disappointed. Head judge Matt Pritchard described the conditions as "epic". He went on to say, "After having been around the world traveling with the Pro Windsurfing Association and searching for waves and wind for the last 25 years, this place goes in the top 5 in the whole world."

On Thursday, the wind ramped up into the high 30s which made the competitors choose their smallest sails and boards to deal with the extreme conditions. Huge aerial moves and wave rides were judged in Single Elimination heats. Veteran pro windsurfers Kevin Pritchard and Francisco Goya came out on top of the expert men's division, allowing them to skip competing in the Double Elimination heats on Friday.

Friday brought winds that were slightly less strong but were described by pro windsurfer Russ Faurot as, "excellent for a competition.' The judging was based upon scoring one jump and two wave rides in 8 minute heats. Huge push loops and back loops were standard fare. Clean landings and jump height were the determining factors in jump scores. Wave selection and style would play into the scoring for the wave rides. Throughout the day, parking crowded the highway from passers-by enthralled by the action. Many walked long distances to reach the competition area as heats were run late into the evening.

The women's division ran heats on Thursday and Friday as well. Four of the best women in the world competed in the challenging conditions, scoring big forward loops and back loops along with silky smooth wave rides. Canadian Ingrid Larouche pulled out first place on the podium, followed by Tanya Saleh.

The future of windsurfing was on high display as well as competitors Zane Schweitzer and Bernd Roediger duked it out in back-to-back heats to determine the winner. The juniors, who are 16 and 14 respectively sailed well beyond their years, nailing push loops and back loops in rapid fire. Their wave rides were stylish and had huge aerials, as well as sliding through freestyle moves on the wave faces. The rest of the competitive field were blown away by the level of the junior's competition and many commented that they had the most entertaining heats of the day.

Going into the final day, one last heat is left to run between Kevin Pritchard and Francisco Goya to determine the overall expert Men's winner of the Pistol River Wave Bash. Reports of the final heat will be published later.

The best catapult ever in the history of the universe

2010-06-09T07:39:00.001-07:00

I bow to thee, yellow clothed helmet guy.

The Tricktionary Guy

2010-06-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

... said, "it's ok to be one-sided".

I met this guy at Candlestick the other day with sail numbers on his sail and a van emblazoned with Tricktionary logos. It's pretty rare that we sail with sail-number folks. Apparently he's visiting the US for a wedding in Santa Cruz and is checking out our windsurfing spots here in the Bay, the Gorge, and coast. His name is Michael Rossmeier, but he goes by "Rossi". He and his wife created these Tricktionary books and videos (of which I own a book, and need to get my hands on a DVD).

We had a short conversation after a crummy session at Candlestick Park. "Usually, it's much better", I explained. I think he believed me because there must have been 10-15 freestyle windsurfers splashing and spinning at the ends of reaches in the few-and-far-between puffs.

We talked a little about the windsurfing in his home country of Austria, and his main windsurfing spot of Lake Garda. I think he, like me, is from a place that isn't very windy. He seemed to think there weren't a lot of windsurfers in California. I think he might be right, considering how ideal the conditions are here.

The burning question I had, after having seen the book was... "Is it ok to be one-sided?" In the book you can see very detailed pictures of him doing tons of moves with perfect form and execution. But can he do them all on both sides? He said, "yes and no," in that order. He's primarily a starboard trickster. He can do certain moves better on port, but for the most part his bag of tricks starts with his right hand forward.

So as my weak port vulcan attempts come along, I wonder if it's an act of futility. I can feel real progress now, so I'll continue on. But now I know it's ok to be stronger on one side.

You know who told me? The guy who wrote the book on windsurfing.

37 Days

2010-06-02T08:07:00.001-07:00

(photo by Jacob L)

I made my first 3 Vulcans on April 23rd. I made my next one on May 29th.

Sure, I've been sailing a little less than usual due to a variety of reasons, but it's amazing how I could have something working a month ago and completely lose it. Ok, that's not entirely true. In the last month, I've probably had 50 near misses. Get to the other side of the boom get a good hold, then something goes wrong. Typically sinking the tail whilst landing.

It's a fickle move. And I'm an inconsistent windsurfer. We'll see if "dialed" becomes a reality some day.

Friday Flick: More of the NEW Perspective

2010-05-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Sergey built a new toy, and now it's in High Definition. Spocks, Flakas and Push Tacks, OH MY!

CLICK

A Streak to Remember

2010-05-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

(photo by Sofien Sehiri)

19 days in a row of windsurfing. Planing in the straps, every day.

It could have been 20, but I just didn't have the heart to make the drive to the east bay yesterday. Too much windsurfing. My vulcan muscles are twisted out. My jumping muscles are grounded. My jibing muscles are over steered. My planing muscles are just plain done. My drive to loop is in reverse. I've got bay water on the brain and I just couldn't windsurf anymore.

My last session on Saturday at Treasure Island, I was riding a 4.2 and 86L board. The conditions were sloppy, but still pretty good and I was thinking to myself, "this really oughta be more fun than I'm having." I hadn't JUST hit the wall. I had beat myself against it with no mercy.

The laws of diminishing returns are real, at least in my non-athletic world. I wonder if those guys that live in Bonaire just take a few days off so their bodies can recoup? Brendon? Are you out there?

What's your longest streak ever?

For me, the last 19 days will be remembered, but I'll probably never repeat it.

After Session Report Waddell Creek

2010-05-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Waddell was fun yesterday. While we were rigging up 5.3's we saw some logo high (+?) close-out sets come through and we both were a little concerned. Every 10 or 15 minutes a set like that would come through, but the usual waves weren't jacking up like that (maybe chest-head mostly?).

Jacob and I both made it past the shore break without issue, with a little bit of patience. 5.3 was the right call... we could power through with no issue. Jacob plays alpha male and goes out first and throws a huge back loop attempt. Impressive, although he claims that it wasn't his intention. We sailed upwind to try to catch some waves away from the kiters. We both had some success, although I doubt we'd be confused for Levi and Angulo on our respective sails. Getting worked a little was part of the deal, but there was nothing that felt like a nightmare.

I mistimed one set and ended up inside of it. I went to jibe but got hooked into the wrong side of the boom as I was exiting. I took a whole set of 6 waves and popped back up to head out. I realized there was one more wave coming, but I had some power and I thought I could make it before it broke. I didn't. I ended up pretty much in the armpit of the wave and it clamped down on me, sending my boom to give a rough greeting to my right cheek. In onomatopoeia that moment would have translated loosely as "ZONK!". I saw a couple stars but all was good. Sailed in to assess very little damage, other than my pride. I was feeling done for the day.

Ocean sailing lesson #1: Know when to fold 'em.

Jacob went back out but the wind was getting a little too light for comfort. It was a confidence building day because some of the locals were describing it as "crunchy", but I think we both had gotten rolled much worse over the winter while trying "lay on belly" surfing. Feels a little unfair having this big sail to help you blast through to the line-up compared to the ice-cream headaches and ocean-drinking associated with surfing.
This was one of the waves we saw come through while we were rigging. Probably mast high and closing pretty dang fast.

Looks like there's tons of kites at Waddell. I counted 15 kites and 13 sails on the
water. Not the exactly kite-topia people make it out to be... at least not on a Thursday.

oof.

Quick video of getting out (after the wind had gotten lighter)

Bay Area Windsurfing is like Pizza

2010-05-06T07:22:00.001-07:00

...even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

This was not a great April by bay standards, at least not at first. It was a very slow start to the season. Usually by April 1st, we are in a full swing of very consistent wind. Instead we started out with some strange stormy weather and unusual wind flows. Normally I expect to mainly be riding 4.7, but April was more of a 5.3 month. Nevertheless, the weather soon straightened up and we ended up getting a pretty decent month. To be fair about these stats, I have a pretty flexible schedule and I'm willing to drive everyday for wind. Most people have a more time-sensitive life and good reasons for not driving across the bridges to catch good sessions.

April Stats:

--23 Days of Windsurfing on 5.3 or smaller
--5 days that could be considered "bad days" where I was pretty underpowered, or planed only a few times.
--8 different locations
--10 session at Candlestick Park, where the tide doesn't matter and the wind is slightly stronger.

5.3 - 14 days
4.7 - 6 days
4.2 - 1 day
3.7 - 2 days

239 Starboard tack Vulcans attempted.
25 Port tack Vulcans attempted.

Jacqui Kuni will Forever Live in our Hearts

2010-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Last Friday something very tragic happened as I was preparing to leave Candlestick Park after a nice session. One of the spot locals was found floating in the water unconscious. Dr. Juan was windsurfing nearby and jumped in and immediately began swimming the windsurfer to shore, calling for help. I reached for my phone and dialed 911. Pedro jumped into the water and assisted in the rescue effort, Kevin alerted another windsurfer who is a doctor to assist. When I first dialed 911 it was unclear what was going on, all I could tell is that someone in the water was distressed, but after a couple minutes I realized that our dear friend Jacqui was in a lot of trouble. The 911 operator offered to give me instructions to perform CPR, but I told him that we had two doctors on the scene already working on it. It seemed like an eternity before the ambulance finally arrived.

The EMTs were able to restore a pulse and blood pressure before she was returned to the hospital. I believe when she arrived they ran further tests and a brain scan that delivered results that were not positive. She was removed from the ventilator Saturday night and passed away a few hours later. The doctors revealed that she had a massive stroke or an aneurysm on the water and was immediately stricken unconscious.

Jacqui was one of the first windsurfers I spoke to when I moved out here. She was very positive and easy-going. It seemed like every time I saw her at Candlestick, she always had a little joke to tell, she always could make you smile. She would carry a big stack of paper cups in her van which she would distribute filled with wine to everyone around.

I later found out that Jacqui was 66 years old. This blew my mind because of how much younger and full of life she seemed. It is very, very sad to see her go, but she has forever left a mark in my life and all the lives of the people around her. I hope that we can all carry her warm, sweet attitude and spirit around with us in our daily lives and in our sailing.

Sail on, Jacqui. We love you and miss you.

Photo by Kevin Kan

This photo says a lot about Jacqui. She got stuck down wind as the wind died and had a tough climb up the rip-rap ahead of her. Her response? Big smiles and thumbs-up.

A Little Carnage on the Coast

2010-04-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

This is a little embarrassing to admit. It took me almost 2 years here to sail the coast of Northern California. There are a couple reasons for this.

1. Most windy coast days are windy in the bay, which is right in my backyard. The drive to the coastal spots are an hour and a half away.

2. I was a little scared, and that made the first argument in my mind more valid.

Granted, my first season here was great for getting tuned up. I got my jibe solidified and started learning how to jump. The swell on big days in the channel was plenty challenging and helped me get my confidence up. My second season I just wimped out. I was a little injured, working on new moves and just always found an excuse not to go. Finally, last Saturday I made it down to Davenport.

When we got there, I gotta admit, it was intimidating. Some sets came through that looked just huge to me. It didn't matter, I was here, so I sailed. 4.7 was pretty overpowered, which was fine since staying upwind is pretty critical at this spot. The swell in the channel in between the sets even seemed big to me, so I spent the first hour or so just getting adjusted to the ocean sailing. Toward the end of my session I started eeking over to the upwind break and playing on some of the shoulders and ends of waves. It's amazing how different wave sailing looks from how it feels. It looks really smooth and mellow when you watch people who know what they are doing make turns. On the wave, it feels like you're going mach 10, with the forces of wind and wave accelerating you to whole new speeds. Very, very exhilirating.

I didn't end up getting creamed or beat up at all which in retrospect I'm a little disappointed about. I'm sure those lessons will come some day, I just want them to come on a day with slightly smaller waves. Overall I had a great time and I can't wait to get back this year. Next time I'll try to have a better "getting worked story" for the blog.

The overlook

Somone who seems to have a clue

There's really no better place to watch windsurfing than on a coast, overlooking waves that break at a beach.
It is said that the upwind break apparently doesn't beat you up as bad, but those head-high walls of whitewater made me wonder just how bad it is on the downwind break.

An unusually rainy winter and spring has really made the sunny days beautiful in NorCal.

Kevin broke his boom on a bad landing catapult. It didn't break all the way at first, which was lucky so he could sail in. He probably has a few hundred sessions on the boom which is pretty good value, in my humble opinion.

Matt buckled his board on an endo-loop he did right in front of me. This is going to be a tough repair, lots of understrap mushiness.

Friday, 3. Sunday, 0.

2010-04-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

It takes humility to be a freestyler. Just when you think you've got it, you don't. All my buddies showed up for our Sunday session at Candlestick. I didn't sail away from a single Vulcan. Everything was the same, except for me. Ha!

I've got to put up another post soon to detail my first windsurfing trip to the California coast.

Got one!

2010-04-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Well, three actually.

Yesterday set up as the ideal Candlestick day. I stopped by the beverage store to grab some beers for the friends I would sail with on the way over, then on a whim decided to get myself the "congratulatory beer". This is the beer that I was going to set aside for when I actually complete my first Vulcan. I found the perfect bottle: a $10 bottle of "vintage" fuller's beer. The shelf sign said something about how drinkers are encouraged to store the beer to see how it matures over time. I was amused at the thought of how much better the beer will end up tasting once I made one, how ever long that would take.

I arrived to find powered up 5.3, potentially 4.7 conditions. Reliable rippled ramps separated by a patches of silky smooth surface set up splendidly across the whole sailing area. I understand why so many pass up the swell and waves and splendor of some of the other launches. This place is freestyle heaven.

My first 5 attempts were decent, but a bit rusty and under committed. A few more attempts and I could feel things coming together. I was sailing relaxed and confidently, and I wasn't worried at all about making one. It will come. Then I went for one right in front of my friend Juan. Juan is a fluent Spocker, so I'm always looking to see if I can get another Vulcan tip by showing him an attempt or two. I popped the board out of the water, got the nose down, spun around and started sliding. Surprisingly, the new side of the boom was staring back at me invitingly. I grabbed hold of the boom, careful to keep my weight over my feet, but ready to lean forward to counterbalance the sail in this awkward position. Next thing I knew, I was still dry, and going the other direction. I wriggled my feet out and switched them to normal position and hooted like a wild man. It was one of my top moments as a windsurfer, for sure.

I looked around and remembered that Juan was right behind me. He was beaming with enthusiastic smile. He had seen me personally go for a hundred attempts over the last couple months, and he knew well the struggle involved with becoming a freestyle windsurfer. As the session progressed, the water got more messy and I was forced to rig down a size. I sailed away from a couple more over the rest of the session.

My estimation is that it took me something like 350 attempts to sail away from one of these buggers. It sounds like a lot, but realistically it took me way more attempts to plane out of jibes. If you're reading this and you've got some interest in getting into freestyle windsurfing, just think. You are some hundreds of attempts away from making a Vulcan. The sooner you start trying number one, two, three, twenty, fourty... the sooner you WILL sail away from one.

So what now for me? It's another fun, long road to get one on port.

Three-Seven Heaven

2010-04-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

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!

Vulcanmaybepossiblysomeday

2010-04-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, it's been a weird sort of spring so far in the bay area. When I began my vulquest, I was thinking I would be getting 4 sessions a week with 25 attempts per day. Yeah that hasn't happened so much. I've been getting a bunch of sessions where I was pretty underpowered, only getting maybe 5 attempts which were underpowered attempts. Doing the vulcan underpowered is more difficult because a lot of the rotation you try to achieve involves using the sail's power to whip you around, both by sticking the nose and by sheeting in and popping you off. When you're underpowered, you sort of heave yourself sideways, hope you have time to get the nose down and (if you're me) splash down in an awkward display. I still go for them when I get the chance because I think at least you'll build some of that twisty jump muscle that will hopefully have value later.

I have had somewhat of a breakthrough, though. My first 250 or so attempts truly felt like an exercise in futility. I jump sideways, a rail catches, I splat. I jump sideways, a rail catches, I splat. I jump sideways, a rail doesn't catch, then I just end up sailing along the same direction I previously was. But I was trying really hard! I couldn't seem to get the nose down at all. Now I'm getting the nose down sometimes, which makes everything make more sense. Occasionally, I get spun all the way around, and a couple times it seemed almost like I could have sailed away from one if I had my faculties together once I got to the new side. Pretty cool, and encouraging!

Sofien said to me after one session, "you seem like you're torturing yourself out there." It wasn't all that bad. It's still a lot of fun going for it, to me. You really have to mentally reward yourself for those tiny increments of progress, like even just getting the board to 90 degrees was a really good feeling part, then getting past 90 made me feel proud, then actually feeling the fin spin out rather than the rail catching. You have to make those mental notes and give yourself an internal pat on the back to keep your sanity. It's a long merging lane to become a freestyle windsurfer.

Friday Flick: Windsurfing and Butts

2010-04-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Is there really anything more to life?

I Finally Took Home a Windsurfing Girl

2010-04-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

At first she seemed nice, but she was being fake.
It was ok cause she was always so stoked on the lake.
Her jibe left something to be desired
Only back-and-forth, never jumped higher.
Compared to the other ladies, She was a cheap date
I thought she meant "Aaron" as she cried double A.

A six inch wave took her away.
Perhaps she'll sail back to me some day.

Nuclear.

2010-04-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

April is considered one of the most consistently windy months for the Bay Area, but it hasn't completely delivered on its reputation, thus far. Mostly light/marginal winds in between huge storms. I think in the last 30 days I've used my 5.3 in marginal conditions more than I had all of last season. It seems like I'm seeing more and more large slalom gear being used around here than I ever have before.

It's almost like we're in an extension of winter, with just as many , if not more storms than we saw during the normal "storm season" of November through February. Storm sailing can be a mixed bag, but yesterday was full-on power in Half Moon Bay.

Sunday morning was a big, nuking session.

I'm always hesitant to rig a sub 4m sail, because it's a sure way to kill the conditions, but yesterday it just built after I rigged my tiny 3.7. Fully sheeted-out survival planing in the gusts with a iddy biddy sail. One doesn't need to go fast to get air time, just scoot along, throw your gear forward into a ramp and "voila", you will be floating through the air for a few seconds. Sure, it's fun. Just a different kind of fun.

I long for the steady 4.2/4.7 April days of last year, but I'm a windsurfer. I'll take what I can get.

Thanks George for the video and graph capture!

Hey Beach Telegraph, Da News, Windsurfing Mag, etc etc

2010-04-09T06:40:00.000-07:00

Link to this for heaven's sake!

http://videojibe.com/videos/the-grind/

My buddy Sofy (RRD) doing some freestyle on a lightwind day. He usually sails away from these Spocks, Vulcans, Flakas and Grubbies more consistently if he's powered.

NWS has an Attitude Problem

2010-04-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

STRONG NORTHERLY WINDS WILL INCREASE TODAY THROUGH TONIGHT AS A STRONG PRESSURE GRADIENT DEVELOPS NEAR CAPE MENDOCINO. GALE WARNINGS HAVE BEEN POSTED FOR MOST OF THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL CALIFORNIA WATERS. THE WINDS WILL SLOWLY SUBSIDE NEAR SHORE ON FRIDAY BUT STRONG WINDS WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE OUTER WATERS. WINDS WILL TURN SOUTHERLY ON SATURDAY AHEAD OF THE NEXT STORM WITH ANOTHER ROUND OF RAIN...STRONG WINDS AND BUILDING SEAS ON SUNDAY AS THE FRONT PASSES OVER THE REGION.

WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SCREAMING AT ME!!!??? JUST TELL ME HOW MUCH WIND THERE WILL BE!!!

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

2010-04-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

I had to say goodbye to an old friend last week, my Fanatic Freewave 104. This was such an awesome board to progress on in the bay. Plenty of volume to slog to the wind lines, easy to handle in the chattery chop, a dream to jibe. I've moved on to using a dedicated freestyle board as my large board, but am happy to have found a good home for this old boy. I sold it to my friend Heidi, who is a member of the Cal Sailing Club. She and her son are going to share time on this vessel. I'm certain they are going to be able to progress the same way I did over the last two years.

I have mixed feelings about selling gear. On one hand, I always feel weird about attaching a monetary value to an object that has brought me great joy. On the other hand, I can't buy new toys until I have money and space. And finally, it seems selfish to hang on to gear that I no longer use when someone else in the world could be enjoying it.

Every end is a new beginning. My new big board is a Fanatic Skate 97. I'll share with you the details sometime soon, dear reader.

Blast from the not-so-distant Past

2010-04-06T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sergey of VideoJibe.com is one of those creative/technical types. He is both into the aesthetics of a shot and the science behind it. Usually when I make a video, I try to make sure I have batteries in the camera, try not to hold the dang thing too wobbly, and spend 90% of my editing time choosing my favorite soundtrack. Sergey innovates on how the camera is held or mounted, changes the camera every few weeks depending on his latest experiment, then meticulously edits the video before trying a myriad of video compression methods to best suit his taste.

This particular video has sections filmed with his custom mast-mount camera, seen below. The video was from last October.

Kevin Kan is riding in these shots. Kevin is just starting to get back on the water after elbow surgery.

This is a photo from his arthroscopic surgery. That drill bit was spinning around and removing windsurf-inhibiting pieces of bone from his right elbow. Kinda gross, but amazing at the same time what modern medicine can do.

I Pity the April Fool

2010-04-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

I pity the fool who didn't sail yesterday in the San Francisco Bay. The sun was out. The wind was 4.7 to 5.5. The tide was ebbing. The tour boats were touring. Big rolling swell steamed across the bay, begging to be sliced and diced. The set up was as ideal as it gets, to me.
The above sailor, Fares, is a pretty amazing hardcore waterman. He sails Crissy any time there is a slight breath of wind, and he's happy to be the wind dummy basically all the time. Always the first one on the water. Here he is taking his new twin fin out for the first time.

The multi-fin boards were out in force. I'm really interested to see how they do on the bay. I'm fortunate to have ridden several multi-fin boards, but my jury is still out.

March Wrap Up: A Charmed Life.

2010-04-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm stealing a page from some of the other windsurfing bloggers abroad and trying to get a little better about gathering season/session data. My dream has always been to sail 100 days a year, and I'm not sure if I've ever done it. Last season, I found myself trying to find balance between work, life and windsurf. This year, I've got a bit of a renewed spark for windsurfing. I'm looking for that perfect imbalance of windsurfing, then everything else I have to deal with. It's not that I'm unhappy with the other parts of my life. Everything is going pretty dang well. I'm just at a stage where I can see a next level and a path to it, I just need to focus on it to get there.

Anyway, here is how my month of March went:

13 windsurfing sessions in which I achieved planing in the footstraps.
-2 sessions where I planed on 3 or less reaches.
5 days LOB Surfing (Lay On Belly).
3 days of snowboarding in Utah.

So all in all, I was doing some kind of boardsport on 21 of 31 days. Not too shabby.

A few sessions of significance were:

Sunday, March 8th: 5.3/97L, overpowered. Felt like the real season opener at Candlestick Park, and more than 20 sailors were on the water. The excitement was palpable and no one seemed to want to go home when it was over. I feel so fortunate to have so many windsurfing buddies to whoop and holler at, and share in post-windsurfing brag sessions.

Tuesday, March 9th: 4.2/86L. Coyote Point (the wind hath cometh day). A very chilly (by bay standards) day where the wind and water conditions were so good. Ramp after ramp stretched out across the bay as far as one could see. Sofy and Juan from the east bay showed up to freeze with us. Sergey took some video and caught this cool still frame of me getting a little chop hop.

If you go to his site and watch the video you'll see just how minor a jump it actually was. The other awesome thing about this session is that I got this year's loop monkey off my back. I went for about 10, but couldn't get a clean landing. There is still a lot of work to be done between "did loop" and "am a looper".

Saturday, March 13th: Brighton Ski Resort, Utah. I'm not huge into Snowboarding, but this was by far my best day ever. Snowed 1.5 feet throughout the day, and I rode from 9am until 8pm since they had slopes open for night skiing. It was the perfect kind of day to make some progress with riding powder, since it just got deeper and deeper as the day went on. The crowd seemed extremely light compared to my normal Tahoe fare.

Monday, March 22nd: 5.7/5.3 and 97L. 3 hour session of freestyle practice at Candlestick. Not frequently do I get a session this long. The hunger to make a Vulcan grew more and more this day.

Saturday, March 27th: Pacifica, CA Probably my best day ever of LOB surfing. The coast of Northern California often isn't beginner friendly, but this was the perfect kind of day. I probably caught more than 10 waves and my paddling rhythm and endurance really started feeling like it was coming together.

So there's my March wrap up. Lately it's really been setting in that I am an extremely lucky individual. Just a couple years ago this was me. March 2nd, 2008. The only thing that is the same is the wetsuit. This season I hope to harness that very same gung-ho attitude in my sailing and blogging.

Is hard the Vulcan?

2010-03-26T09:34:00.001-07:00

Someone is ahead of me on this thing.

Vulcan't

2010-03-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

(skip ahead to about 40 seconds in)

For better or for worse, I've decided to pursue the path of freestyle windsurfing. I'm using a dedicated freestyle board now, using words like "pop", and my ankles always have some level of pain or discomfort. The true entry level trick of New School freestyle is the Vulcan. The maneuver is an aerial 180 degree turn that, if performed properly, involves sliding backwards to a stop and continuing on in the opposite direction from whence you started.

It doesn't look all that hard or even particularly radical, but it's probably one of the most difficult things to learn in windsurfing. It's as humbling as anything I've ever tried. When you're practicing vulcans, you look like you're the worst rider on the water. You crash awkwardly over and over. The casual observer will firmly believe you are obviously the worst windsurfer they've ever seen (frequently true, in my case).

Still, it's an important step to get pretty much anywhere with "new school" freestyle as we know it today. The basis for a few more tricks involve initiating a vulcan, and the other "spinny" tricks involve some sort of twisting jump that ultimately ends in a slide. There's really no way to avoid it. Learning freestyle must begin with a trial-by-fire. A grueling period of many attempts and many failures. The mindset has to stay positive. "I will get there." "All this is temporary, the reward will be great."

On to the data. It is said that it takes 800-1000 attempts to land a windsurfing vulcan. Scary? Yes. If I do 25 per day, 4 times a week (a real possibility living in SF during windy season), then it will take me 8-10 weeks to potentially land a one of the suckers. That sounds less scary. I've put up with 7 years of being humiliated windsurfing, I'm sure I can stand 8-10 more weeks. The other huge thing working to my advantage is that I have many friends who can do a vulcan, are getting close to making a vulcan, or are in the same exact boat as me in pursuing this accomplishment. The freestyle scene here in the bay is thriving.

Here's my chart. I'll try to update it every couple of weeks, so you can track my progress. Wish me luck!

The Wind Hath Starteth

2010-03-09T13:42:00.001-08:00

And Natureth hath returneth to orderth.

REJOICETH WITH MEETH!

Spring is Here?!

2010-02-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

If yesterday didn't feel like a spring day, then I'm a pro windsurfer.

It was awesome. Well sorta. It was flooding pretty much everywhere so I ended up at Candlestick on a 4.7/97L combo. Lots of friends showed up to play in the warm air and cool water. I have been working on some new tricks, the kind that take a very, very long time to learn. I'll get into more detail on that one of these days. I've sailed 3 days in the last two weeks, which is pretty darn good, all things considered. This winter I think I've gotten about 5 planing windsurfing sessions, 15 LOS surfing sessions (Lay On Stomach), and 6 snowboarding sessions in Tahoe (snowy this year).

There is a lot of chatter about what "el niño" will mean to the West coast wind scene. Lots and lots of nay-sayers claiming it's going to be an awful wind season, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Who knows, maybe it will be even better and longer?

FAIL!!!

2010-01-19T13:54:00.001-08:00

I hate to be gone from the blogosphere for a few months, only to come back to complain, but well...that's what's happening.

Winter windsurfing in the bay area is all about timing. I've been fortunate enough to snatch a few sessions this month mixed in with weekend trips to the mountains, but it's all about luck. Luck and information, that is. You have to be able to know where it's blowing and when it's picking up in order to score any sessions at all. I'm not one to throw any company under the bus, it's not really my style. That said, the amount of outage iwindsurf.com has had this year has been nothing short of ridiculous.

I have no problem spending $100 a year to access these wind meters, nevermind the questionable in-season human forecasts (oh really? It's gonna probably blow 18-25 in July here???). But if I'm paying for them, I want to be able to see the readings. Like, all the time.

I understand if a wind meter somewhere breaks and it takes a few days, or even a week to fix (although 3rd avenue was down for like a month last summer, and it probably serves 1000 windsurfers), but errors that appear to be involved with the ISP or hosting are simply unacceptable.

Apologies for the diatribe, just needed to get some whinesurfing off my chest here.

It's freakin' Maui, alright?

2009-10-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

I've been back from Maui for a week now, and still haven't been able to muster up a post about it. I can't figure out exactly what I can say about Maui, or how I can offer some insight or perspective about it. It's freakin' Maui. It's this tropical paradise that's a 5 hour flight from anything. The water is transparent and teal blue. Giant sea turtles are all over the place. You cruise over big white UFO shaped pieces of coral. You can sail to a variety of reefs where waves pitch and break, or gently crumble, depending on your cup of tea. These waves often jack up on your starboard broad reach so you can fly through as much airspace as your courage can handle. Point towards a flat part of the wave for distance. Point toward the pitchy part if you want to go straight toward the heavens. No need to think about technique for jumping. Just go fast and target something steep.

It feels like windsurfing on a movie set. Maybe that's because of the ingrained images of chase helicopter shots bearing down on Robby and Laird cruising at Mach 1. Maybe it's because you really feel like you've crossed into another dimension of existence. A dimension with warmer, clearer, water. Organized waves bombard all shores a few at a time, but take breaks so you can paddle out to surf them. Unrelenting wind that just finished a 2,000 mile journey fills your sail, accelerating at the finish line stretched across Haleakala and Mauna Kahalawai, Maui's towering twin volcanic mountains.

It's freakin' Maui. Windsurfers talk about it all the time, mostly complimentary, with some squeaky wheels who love to point out so-called shortcomings. The conditions are just like what they look like in the pictures. The weather changes more than you've heard. There's more to do there than you've heard. The locals are nicer than you've heard.

It's mecca for us. If you haven't been there, go. Don't let anyone tell you it's not worth it. If you feel so compelled, face west and pray toward it. If not, hitch a ride on your own one hundred fifty ton interdimensional flying steel tube, sit for several hours and see for yourself.

It's freakin' Maui.

Here are some pictures, since I know that's all most blog browsers look at. I have an addiction to hemorrhoid medicine. See? I'm not afraid to admit that because I know that no one actually reads windsurfing blogs. You're just here for the pictures.

This was a SUP race put on by Naish called the "doggy paddle" for obvious reasons. I drove down to check it out on a windless morning, and it 'twas rather fun.

A sample of what the conditions look like, with blur, at the spot we sailed at Kanaha beach state park. This was a windy day, 4.2 for me. We got a few of these and that really help us learn a lot about which boards ride big vs. small and are controllable overpowered. That's huge for most people because we can't all afford to also have a 70 liter board for nuking conditions.

Windsurfing babe Sierra returned for the 2nd year. She and a few other Mauians helped out with the test, which is very fortunate, since it takes a lot of work riding a ton of boards when one could be going out there just to ride and have fun for yourself.

Ultra-friendly financial guy Canadian Carl Speiss also returned. He's wearing his "I looped today!" smile because I believe this was his first day hucking them. He says I had something to do with inspiring him to go for it, but I think people mainly are telling me that because they say "damnit Aaron sucks, I can do it if he can!" Which is just dandy by me.

I sometimes see some exotic things going on with windsurfing gear in the bay, but if you really wanna see some crazy stuff, check out the beach at Kanaha. Windsurfing tinkerers are everywhere, but Maui has got to be the most concentrated place for these types.

My really great friend Dave Harrell, who flies for American Airlines.

I'm always skeptical when meeting windsurfing legends about what they're really going to be like as people. Francisco Goya is one of the coolest and most friendly people you will ever share a slice of pizza with. Write that down.

The last windy day, and I went back to my old devices. I had a pretty nice Starboard loop attempt on a gusty 23-35 day... went to waterstart, and just was too lazy to get planing before hooking in. Results above, and actually more painful than it looks.

Even better than going to Maui is enjoying it with good friends. Jake helped with the video work and Russel Faurot guest tested from the pro's perspective despite a dinged up ankle. Silly good times are what it's all about, to me.

Lefty Gomez must have been Thinking of Me

2009-10-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

...when he said "I'd rather be lucky than good".

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Maui for the 2nd consecutive year to help with the Windsurfing Magazine High-Wind* Board Test. It's a lot of fun, as you would imagine, but it's also a LOT of work.

I'll do my best to make updates -- the short term forecast is for very light wind. Maybe I'll get some surfing practice in and work on my sloggability ratings for the test boards...

September 29th, 2009 - The Exclamation Point

2009-09-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

There has been a sense I've been getting of the windsurfing season winding down this month. The common wisdom in the bay area is that if there was a date to pack your gear up for the winter, it's Oct 1st. Normally as that date approaches, sessions are fewer, further between, and a grade less windy than our normal sessions. Think 5.3 or 5.7 instead of the usual 4.2 to 5.0 days. Then mother nature giggles at our hopeless understanding of her and we got one of those fronts yesterday that felt EXACTLY like a really strong spring cold front.

The best place in the bay, from my experience, to catch a big NW is 3rd avenue. The shipping channel isn't too too far, and the water surface gets BIIIIG out there. Estimations for yesterdays' swell size have ranged from head high (from a local gorge snob) to mast high, or double box car high (from a 3rd channel first timer). Another 3rd avenue vet claimed it was the best he's seen in 18 years of windsurfing the spot.

I don't think there is a picture or video out there of really big swell in 3rd avenue. I think only the people who have been out there have any idea what it's like. I considered for a minute taking my waterproof camcorder out there, but there was no way I could sail out there one handed. Even if I strapped it to my arm, I would have been scared sitting in the middle of the chaos out there, just because people were flying all over the place and it's really really easy to lose track of where the other sailors are. It would have been begging to get landed on.

Bay sailors get a lot of grief for their love of "flat water", but let me tell you, the SF Bay can be anything but flat on some days.

What to do while you're injured...

2009-09-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've been only windsurfing once or twice a week for the last month or so due to a nagging shoulder injury. I've been going to physical therapy a couple times a week to strengthen my left shoulder in preparation for Maui, but my windsurfing days have been very laid back and short. It's a major bummer to be injured at the end of the season, right as I was getting a hold of the forward loop, but I'm finding other ways to distract myself.

When someone is injured, it's really easy to disappear into the abyss of Matlock marathons and competitive eating... but the best thing to do is get out and hold the camera for your friends. Here's a video I put together from a bunch of sessions at Candlestick this month. Late in the season the wind gets lighter and flukier and only a handful of spots work on a regular basis. Candlestick is one of the only spots that works on warm late-season days, so you'll find a healthy crowd there when everything else has more or less shut down. Like every good thing, seasons must come to an end, so it's best to look at each late-season session as a gift. October and November are usually the lowest wind months before our winter storms come through.

September Sessions from Aaron Vieira on Vimeo.

**In this video, I captured Sofy going for a move called the "Toad", which is akin to a clew-first forward, and Kevin grabbing his first on film shakas, and leche (aka switch stance kono). He's been doing those tricks for a year, but no one has been holding the camera. It's awesome to get to sail with skilled freestylers so much, and it's been a huge reason that I've been able to make so much progress this year.

ppps. For the record... "squishing" people is far from being my original concept... for a good laugh: I CRUSH YOUR HEAD

Feels like losing your virginity... without the guilt and awkwardness...

2009-09-16T10:11:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of highs in windsurfing, which is ultimately why we windsurf. We are substances abusers just like any crack head. The primary difference is that the source of our sensations isn't a dirty meth lab or the jungle of a 3rd world country. The source of our drug is within us. It probably looks like little drops of fluid being released from tiny glands hidden in different parts of our skulls that feeds a rush of feeling through the soluble contents of our bodies. It's a feeling we call "stoke" and it unites us as windsurfers.

Just like they say, there is nothing like your first high. Most people can distinctly remember their first day planing. If you've ever planed out of a jibe, you will completely remember that feeling, too. Two of my friends recently completed some very impressive firsts. Juan learned to do a spock 540 and Asma learned the grubby. I captured them doing so last Friday at Candlestick Park.

Jacob, aka "Lofty" lent me his camera to snap these photo sequences, then went the extra mile spending his time stitching the pictures together... outstanding work.

Also, he put together a goofy little clip from the same day of some true "buttsailing":

Regarding that Windsurfing Magazine Stuff

2009-09-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dearest Blog Readers (aka: the other bloggers and my mom),

Thanks for your courageous support during this trying time in the world of windsurfing. The printing press at a nationally syndicated magazine known as Windsurfing Magazine made a terrible error and mistakenly published a piece that I wrote. Kiteboarders everywhere rejoiced this aquatic apocalyptic event that would surely end our sport forever, opening up endless oceans and lakes of dangle-room across the world. The lawyers of the international shark coalition are looking for loopholes in order to assure my eventual consumption by chumming for what I've done to the supply of their food source. The American Red Cross has deployed Disaster Mental Health (DMH) Counselors across the country in local windsurfing stores, who are on hand with anti-depressants.

OK OK OK.

Yes, I'm the guy who wrote the "Confessions of the Human Catapult" article in WSing. It's been a year in the making, and editor Josh Sampiero had to threaten my family in order to get me to finally get something done on it. In addition, I have to give him a lot of credit for making it somewhat readable and qualifying as the "English Language". Thanks to everyone who enjoyed it to some extent. For me, reading it is like coming home to cat vomit on the floor and deciding to pick through it with a needle to look for a newspaper clipping you had set aside earlier. I guess that's what they say about reading your own writing. Actually, "they" probably don't use the cat vomit analogy because "they" probably have manners.

In any case, the positive reactions from my efforts make me feel encouraged to focus a bit more on the writing on my blog and the other outlets. Stay tuned for some slightly less sucky prose.

Yours in Robby,

Aaron, the catapult

ps. James Douglass, a far better windsurfer and writer also had a sweet article about jibing published in the same issue.

pps. The issue in the picture above is not the issue I'm in, but I used that picture instead because it had a cute girl in it.

ppps. Dude, nobody cares, shut up.

pppps. Hey, this is my post-script dammit! Who's typing on my blog?!

ppppps. This is your conscience.

pppppps. Oh, you again, yeah a lot of good you've done me so far.

ppppppps. Shut up and book your ticket to Maui.

pppppppps. FINALLY something we can agree upon!

Getting Home at Treasure Island

2009-08-28T07:50:00.001-07:00

Treasure Island is probably the best and most consistent windsurfing on the San Francisco Bay, ESPECIALLY late in the season. My friends have been religiously going there for years in August and September because when other spots start shutting off or becoming more intermittent, TI becomes the "epicest*". The fetch at Treasure Island is 4 or 5 miles. The swell has that same amount of space to organize, space out, and otherwise become beautiful.

But before you wipe your drool and grab your gear from this description, I must inform you of dear old caveat emptor. Treasure Island has the worst launch of the whole bay. A 25-30 yard u-shaped wind eating jetty from which you launch in the downwind armpit. Launching goes straight downwind in annoying fickle wind. Thus, coming in requires going directly upwind in garbage wind. Also, if you're sailing TI, you'll probably want to be on a pretty small board so you can make the most of the conditions beyond the shadow. Most of us choose to doggy-paddle home at the end of our session, but a handful feel as though they must SAIL their SAILBOARD in. I've never seen a shadow sailor beat a swimmer, but they sure are fun to watch:

Untitled from Aaron Vieira on Vimeo.

The other thing to note is that if something were to go wrong, it could go pretty darn wrong. A couple days ago a few guys went out at TI, then got swallowed up by fog. They all made it home, but they all also had pretty scary experiences finding their way back.(Link to those stories) If your gear breaks down between Treasure Island and Angel Island, it could potentially take you a very long time to get back to dry land in any direction. Not to mention the large tug boat traffic, bridge construction traffic, and 25-knot-traveling commuter ferries.

TI is the best spot in the bay, but ya gotta respect it.

*epicest is a term coined by the German Shepherd for "most epic". Pronounced with a hard "c".

Extended Loop Attempt Video + Thoughts

2009-08-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on looping, and I'm not going to describe the technique for doing one because there are tons of places on the internet to learn about that. I even recommend taking a lesson if possible (an ABK Freestyle clinic worked for me). I will, however, share with you the facts behind my loop experience thus far. I also wanted to include some of the best philosophical tips I received as I was learning the trick.

Me and Looping:

I still get nervous before my first attempt of the day. After I get through it (and invariably eat crap but sail away unscathed), I'm ready to try them until I'm exhausted.

The forward loop is the one move I've wanted to do since the first day I saw a windsurfer. I saw spocks and vulcans that day, but didn't find them nearly as impressive.

I'm not particularly fast, I'm not a particularly good jumper, and I'm not particularly brave. Many would agree that I have a bit of weakness in all three of these areas.

I had many days this year where I told myself I'd go for a loop but chickened out. I drove home mentally beating myself up. This has probably happened to you too if you've ever wanted to loop.

I sail with people who loop for about half of my sessions. On days that people are throwing loops, there's never a question in my mind about whether or not I'm sailing loopable conditions.

Taking a lesson helped me a lot (ABK). It was a windless day and I didn't get to make an attempt, but understanding how the physics worked and trusting in science really helped me overcome the fear.

Sailing "angry" would sometimes help me go for them, but I didn't get close until I was sailing relaxed.

Getting spun by the sail for the first time was as exhilarating an experience as planing for the first time.

The next day I attempted loops after the filmed one, I didn't waterstart out of a single one.

Best tips I've recieved:

"Sometimes you have to pick your days." --Kevin Kan

"There is no perfect time to go for your first loop." -- Kevin Kan

"Don't do it unless you're ready. And if you're gonna do it, move your hand way back and just freakin' do it!" --Sofien Sehiri

"Don't be angry at the move. Go take a couple more tacks, get your favorite song in your head, relax and try again." -Sofien Sehiri

"You are totally ready to loop. Piece of cake. You got it." -- Matt Case

"The only reason you aren't looping is because you aren't trying them." -- Andy Brandt

If I Can Do It

2009-08-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Then you can do it.

The video is funny because I had a serious "early celebration" situation. I was so excited to have landed in the straps that I biffed my waterstart. It's so me, it's ridiculous.

I've got a lot to say on the topic of looping, so stay tuned for me to gather my thoughts.

Do you wish you were here?

2009-08-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.mauiwindcam.com/streaming/kanaha/

I know I do.

October can't get here fast enough.

Racing isn't my Thing

2009-07-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

But this video is AMAZING!!!

This is the type of coverage that windsurfing needs more of. Accessible, easy to watch, easy to understand what's going on. The low angle helps capture the speed, but a high angle from a tower would be really compelling on this sort of race as well.

Mo is Funny

2009-07-27T09:08:00.001-07:00

Check out teamcoyote.net to see a recent cartoon that Mo' drew of me. It's a graphic depiction of my early years windsurfing on lakes in Florida.

Hilarious! Thanks Mo!

It's inspiring how well Mo has done keeping fresh windsurfing content on her website for years now!