Pistol River Wave Bash!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.