Perfect Bay day - 85 km in 4:45 hours

Wow, I’ve been waiting all season for a day like today. 85 km - likely a record day for me on Georgian Bay?

19-20c air, 20+ water, just a 3/2 wetsuit. SW wind starting 12-14 knots and building through the afternoon. 

I initially decided to go winging. But noticed that the tape job I’d done on the Stingray 140 deck was bubbling water out when I put it in the sun - so it was time to fix that board a bit better than I had done. So since winging wasn’t an option I decided to try the 9.0 on the Fanatic Ray 122 - a combo I haven’t used in a long time. I did get going on it but it is such a beast to tack. And it barely goes upwind even when I got going in a gust. I did 4 kms and called it a windsurf session.

Trying to get the 9.0 working on the 122 Ray

Definitely a southwest wind!

A little bit of windsurfing on the big gear

So back to the Launch Pad and I put the 76 cm foil under the old Techno 148. With the 27 year old Neil Pryde V6 and 20+ year old mast and boom.

What a nice windfoil combo! After the long foil races in Kingston, I was able to get upwind and realized I do have stamina to be on the water for several hours. Especially since the 6.5 is so much lighter and easier to use than the 9.0 Kona sail. 

I started heading upwind and said hi to Scott and OJ.

Quite the 81 km windfoil up and down the small craft route

Lots of time on the foil, one 15 km section from kms 22 to 37
 without really falling in or even a major slowdown

Then I headed out to the small craft route and got almost all the way to Bekanon island and Free drinks passage. I had managed to windfoil for almost 2 hours without falling in as I was doing so much tacking! 

At that point I figured that an equipment breakdown would be an immensely long slog or swim. So I headed back north on the small craft route to Bigsby. It was a long smooth downwinder and I was standing on the board with my feet almost next to each other and feathering the sail without the harness. Eventually I hit a few wind shadows. From there it was time for several very satisfying wave rides down past Wedge Island. Then back upwind. Then back downwind riding the waves.

Some very satisfying wave rides out by Wedge Island

I saw Scott out on the Dart catamaran sailboat and sailed back upwind to chase him. That was fun and I was able to just barely pass him but it was even more fun to sail next to each other and actually be able to have a brief chat as the foil is so quiet. That was also a good spot to set a new foil speed record, 33.6 km/h, up .2 km/h from my last record. After they headed in I went back downwind for more wave rides.

With the nice sun and polarized glasses I was able to sail into new areas pretty comfortably. When I did spot a shoal I was able to quickly adjust course as in this screen shot.

Lookout for that (currently submerged) shoal!

My jibes finally started getting better, even with the narrow old board. Max’s tip to over sheet the sail really helps and my footwork is getting smoother all the time. I was tempted to stay out a bit longer and log the 100 km day that I’ve set as an goal for the year. But my legs were getting wobbly and eventually I did start falling in. 81 km of foiling and 4 hours 15 minutes on the foil is definitely a new record.

What a great wind - I was out at 2pm for
the first session, from 3-7 for the second

4 hours and 45 minutes total time on the water is a day record for me over the last 20 months. Only my 100 km 4 hour day from Hatteras is close. Here’s hoping for several more “Bay” days like this in August and September.