Toronto Windsurfing Club dinner and awards

I have never managed to attend the Toronto Windsurfing Club annual dinner until this year. It was a bigger event than I expected! I shouldn't have been surprised that 3 of the 6 of us from the recent Hatteras trip wound up being there.

The club is in good financial shape and taught hundreds of beginner lessons this summer. What a committed bunch, the next day a few members headed to Lake Erie to sail! I wound up getting a medal for 3rd in the Kona Silver fleet. Part of winning at life is just showing up apparently!

A lot of happy windsurfers in Toronto.
And worth noting that there were many youth and women!

Speeches were short and sweet!

Andree winning the president's cup

With my hero Chris - at 81 he came 2nd - beating me in the Kona Silvers

I came in 3rd among the few silver (haired?) Kona racers 

Last day - Hatteras & 2019

There wasn't much wind predicted Saturday so I did a bit of work on the trailer. I watched Steve foiling with the wind wing which was cool.

Steve out on the wing foil

I thought I might try the ocean instead and headed to the lighthouse but wasn't comfortable going out alone. I collected the last trailer fuses and headed back to the house. It was only 13c but with the sun and light wind it wasn't too cold.

I took the Skate 108 and 5.6 Idol and got planing 3x. I did get some lightwind upwind 360s, two duck tacks and a bit of backwind and switch stance. I was glad to be out on the water even if I missed the slightly better wind from the morning.

Light wind freestyle on the Skate 108 and 3 bits of planing

Not much planing and no complaining....

Short windsurf then longer foil session

Steve then let me try his foil which was the perfect way to end my 2019 windsurfing season. I quickly got the hang of the Naish Hover 120 with the huge 99cm wide 2000 square cm wing. I was using the shorter 55 cm mast to avoid hitting the muddy bottom in the sound. It took a moment to get used to the smaller board, but I went for over 30 minutes without being catapulted. Even without a nose on the board it stays above the water when you overfoil and drop down. I did quite a bit of up and downwind riding which was fun.

Steve's Naish Hover foil saved my afternoon!

Even without footstraps the foil was pretty steady

Foil GPS - with some upwind and downwind!

Way more time at speed on the foil.

So that counts as my 72nd and most likely last session of the year!

After that we started packing up and enjoyed the sunset. A last seafood dinner at Pop's with oysters, hush puppies, crab cakes and more left us all ready for an early start the next morning for the 14 hour drive home.

Hatteras day 4&5 - 0 to 35 knots

Thursday was completely wind free, filled with work emails, getting fuses to repair the lights for the trailer and making dinner including banana boats for dessert. The energy in the house was definitely good - everyone getting ready for a big day.

23c and sunny - during the snow in Toronto

The glassy water on Thursday was about to become quite active on Friday!

Well the north wind that had been throwing snow in Toronto the day before was certainly strong on Friday - as predicted. 35 knots or so!

We all woke up and waited to see who would go out first. Several windsurfers from the houses next door went out, but only did a few runs. Clearly it was those on the smaller sails that were doing ok.

I put on my santa neoprene cap and 3/2 wetsuit because suddenly it was only 10c. I took the 4.7 for a few runs, and then came in to rig the 4.2. That was a bit better. I was glad to have rented a smaller board, an 84l Exocet from Ocean Air Sports. I managed to do a good number of runs and started getting high speed normal and duck jibes right in front of the house.

Glad to have rented a small board for the big wind

I did a shorter and a bit exhausting morning session, then turned my sail and board over to Chuck. He proceeded to do some forward loops and even a vulcan attempt. Later I would hear the neighbours complimenting "the guy in the santa hat" but I think that credit goes to Chuck!

The morning session - getting used to the 35 knot winds

Chuck looking good on my gear

Chuck on the way to throwing some forwards!

After lunch I started feeling more comfortable on the board. By the end of the session the wind had backed down a bit more, and I was having great fun surfing the swells. Chuck was on his kiteboard again and I were shredding together. I hit 47.6 km/h and was planing 71% of the time.

Heading out for my afternoon session - with the Santa hat

Getting to the wind line

And I'm off! With kite buddies to share the wind with.

Shorter morning session and longer faster afternoon session!

Some great swell riding in the middle of the runs

Speed chart from the 2nd session

Windspeed chart for the day! Pretty consistent and strong.

After a great rib dinner we dropped into the party next door where Rich was staying. I got to meet freestyle legend Mike Burns! Many of the gang knew the Toronto Windsurfing Club regulars who often rent the house next door during the OBX windsurfing race. Some of the gang knew Vanessa from Bonaire. We left in envy of their house - complete with a home theatre. Maybe next year.

A good party two doors down

Back at the house we watched a few windsurfing videos and reviewed photos of the day. Everyone had a good tired on and we headed to bed hoping for maybe one more day on the water.

.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!

Hatteras day1 - Float and Ride

We arrived in Hatteras at 1am Monday morning, after 17 hours of driving! A great crew of 4 enjoyed the ride in the Traverse, and there are 7 of us in the rental house. Some road trip shots below, the windsurfing report starts now!

I never would have gone out windsurfing in 10-12 knot winds 10 years ago. Even less so in the Atlantic Ocean. But since spending time on the International Windsurfing Tour, I'm crazy for the waves. So I rigged up my 6.2 Duke and got on the 116 Freewave and headed out near Frisco, NC. Here are some photos in reverse order.

Oh yeah, a good late afternoon session

It was a good session in the small waves. Thanks Chuck for the photos.

A pre-session photo

Windsurfing in and out - view from the east, as the wind was S/E.
Convenient parking!

Really only got planing once - but the little wave rides were worth it

While recently watching the Sylt PWA event and the IWT/PWA Aloha Classic, I heard the commentators talk about "floating and riding". This is where you take a bigger board, and slog out upwind, and then catch waves. You maybe get planing on a wave, but at least you get to ride it with some turns. 

I was channelling my best imitation of float and ride IWT windsurfer Jeff Albright, and spent more time out there than I expected. Lo and behold, I did get planing once toward the end of the session even though that wasn't the goal. The air was 20c, the water a pleasant 21c. The only issue was the grapefruit sized jellyfish that I surfed past every 10 seconds / 10 meters or so!

Here are some more photos from our drive, in reverse order:

Stopping in Breezewood for Arbys. Trying to imitate the image below.

Ed Burtynsky's 2008 image of Breezewood. Click for more to this story...

A bit earlier in the drive we went through the remnants of some lake effect snow...

Snow in upper NY on Nov 3rd

And it was cold!

And from the start of the trip.

Ready to roll

14 hours became 17 hours with stops and traffic in Washington

Looks like some great wind on Wednesday...