.25 km of Kiting, 113 km of Windsurfing

Reporting from Hatteras!

Day 2 in Hatteras was light wind so I tried a bit of kiting after the rest of the crew had their morning fill kite boarding and kite foiling. I got up right away on the 12m kite and had a nice run on the twin tip Naish board. 250 metres according to Google earth! Then I dropped the kite while turning and couldn't get it back up in the suddenly declining wind. By the time I'd walked back upwind it was glassy and the other kiters were all dragging their kites back too.

250m of kiting (yellow arrow)

I then managed to get quite a bit of work done and investigated getting the lights working on the trailer. I bumped into Rich who I know from Bonaire which was fun. Back at the house we all enjoyed a hot tub and another good dinner together. I was on the winning euchre team which was a nice way to end the day.

Day 3- My friend Bob from the 2009 HiHo came early in the morning to sail with us. Sadly the water near him is now often in a wind shadow from the new bridge construction. So he was happy to come sail from our launch. He's 74 and a great inspiration to keep at this fun sport!

Construction near Bob's place in Rodanthe

I wound up having a 4 hour session before lunch. The air was 18c but I was a bit chilled by the end in my 2mil wetsuit! Here is the board and sail breakdown by hour.

• 6.2 Duke - Fanatic Freewave 116 - a lot of work overpowered even with lots of downhaul and 2cm neg outhaul which made it less back hand heavy
• 4.8 Idol - Skate 108 - weed fin - blasting using just 2 fingers on the boom! But leg cramped up after 1.5 hours (said goodbye to Bob - figured the wind would drop, rigged the...)
• 5.6 Idol - Skate 108 -  weed fin - a bit of work as I was overpowered
• 4.8 Idol - Skate 108 - 26cm fin - awesomely comfortable and could go upwind!

Speed chart of the 4 different board sail combinations.
The 4.8 Idol and Skate 108 with the stock fin was the fastest.

Max speed was 46 km/h. I was planing 73% of the time. 

99 km of windsurfing, 3 km (arrow) at a time
Wind from the N/E

I stopped for lunch and the GPS watch said 99.17 km. Well I knew I had to go out again. 

The wind had indeed dropped to 20 knots so I went out on the 5.6 Idol & Skate with the 26cm fin and was very comfortable. The wind started dying even more after 40 minutes so another 14 km and thus 113 km total for the day. Whew. I was in my shorty wetsuit for that 2nd session and didn't fall in once in the 40 minutes otherwise the session may have been shorter.

Another 14 km after lunch

Sun setting on my 113 km day!

The crew had returned from kiting and we enjoyed some beers in the hot tub. Dinner was a nice meal at the shark themed Pangea Tavern where Andy stuck a new pin in their map as he is the first to visit from Sydney, Australia.

Dinner with the crew

Card Shark for the Euchre champions!

Tomorrow looks light, warm and sunny. Friday should be some good wind again!