Labour day gale

This was the windiest day of the year for me - so far! I took the Seadoo out to the Launch Pad as the tin boat would have been too sketchy in the wind and waves. I still got soaked and wondered how big a wave the nose of the Seadoo can go under without swamping the air intake?

I was so excited by the prospect of clearing skies and a super solid west wind after a night of intense thunderstorms that I forgot a whole bunch of things. I put on my wetsuit and lifejacket and took the board to the point and realized I didn't have my harness. That was ok, since I needed to get the sail. I launched my tiniest sail the 4.2 Ice and my old Tiga 257 wave board. It was perfect for the 25 knot west wind.

I'd forgotten to start my GPS though, and had a brutal time trying to set it with one hand. After 2 runs I came in anyway to raise my boom. I also had to figure out whether to stop windsurfing as the quite heavy simulator board needed rescuing after blowing right off the point. I decided the rescue could wait and started the GPS which did record the rest of my session.

I was already making most jibes on the tiny board but went too far behind an island trying to find smooth water to jibe on. Of course there is a wind shadow there - something else I forgot and which I also repeated later. While slogging, I realized one more thing I forgot, a volcano pad to keep me from stubbing my toes on the pointy single nut mast base. Oh well.

The water was quite warm at 19c, the air was 17c then by the end of the session it was down to 15c despite the nice sun. The wind gusts were up to 32 knots.

Post session selfie!

My 29 km GPS trail with wave rides on the runs back downwind

Speeds during the session - not quite as fast as 2 years ago, max 48 km/h

I've only used that Tiga one time so far at the Launch Pad, a September Gale in 2018 when I was using a 4.7m sail. Today I was on a 4.2. And other than twice in Hatteras, I haven't really used that sinker board in the last 20 years. The board is now 26 years old, and I still love it when it it super windy, even if it gets used so rarely.

I was pretty comfortable for the whole session. I didn't have any catapult falls which was nice. I did one rather involuntary jump on a super steep wave out by Wedge Island. I must have been 10 feet in the air. It wasn't "see your shadow on the water below" high (I've had a handful of those) but still the highest jump I've done in several years. As I was coming down I said to myself "don't land flat" but of course wound up landing pretty hard and had to waterstart to get going again.

A highlight was getting up wind and finding some nice swells. The wind was from the west, so the swells weren't as good as after a SW wind by Dokis, but still fun to ride. I had some long good rides on my way back downwind which are visible in the GPS trail.

I started getting pretty tired and took a quick break to send a Spot "I'm having fun here" satellite message. It was nice to see that all but one of the nearby wind turbines were working for a change. I was pretty warm in my 2 mil XCEL Axis long leg wetsuit but after 1.5 hours I was done. 

Post session wind stats - max gust 32 knots 

The weather system from the night before!

Then it was time to figure out how to rescue the simulator. I took some rope and went out on the Seadoo to the point where it was lodged. I jumped on shore with the rope and tied it to the board. I pulled the board over the rock to the leeward side and pulled the Seadoo back and climbed aboard. My heart was racing but the plan worked out perfectly despite the wind that you can see in the photo. I think the new rule is that the windsurfing teaching equipment has to come off the rock by the end of August.

Rescuing the simulator with the Seadoo

That is the end of 4 straight days of windsurfing and #52 for the year. No wind in the near term forecast which is good as I have a fair bit of work work to do over the next few days.