When I arrived at 11am, the water was glassy. None of the north wind had materialized. So I waited a while, drove around looking at the parking lots and grassy areas, and finally decided to rig. While Marseilles is a city of 4 million people, the beaches are empty in early April, so empty parking lots were easy to find.
7 knots of wind is actually enough to get going in a flat parking lot, so I started having fun on the Turfdog. A bunch of guys came by to check out what I was doing, and I had some nice conversations in my broken French. One guy even asked if he could try the Turfdog and I was happy to share. In 5 knots of wind I kind of even did a slow motion Vulcan, but I'm not sure I'm going to count that.
I did enjoy making figure 8 loops doing tacks and jibes while going back and forth in the empty parking lot next to the beautiful blue Mediterranean.
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| Parking lots and lots of grass at the Marseilles waterfront |
Then the wind started building. Soon it was white-capping out in the water, and I was getting too much speed in the parking lot. The Turfdog's front wheels can generate quite a speed wobble. I headed to the grass, and found it was ok too. I can see that is where the Turfdog is good for practicing freestyle. Eventually I was getting pretty tired and when I found I could "grass start" from a sitting position using a 4.7, there was definitely too much wind to be on land. Unfortunately it was now close to 2pm and I had to head to the airport to greet a guest. North of Marseilles at the airport I could see people out ripping it up at Le Jai. In hindsight I wish I'd headed there.
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| The windsurfer has been on the roof and not in the water for too long! |
I definitely need to get out on the water soon, but the weather looks sunny and windless for the next week.
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