Old school reggae

Visiting a friend’s cottage for the weekend after dropping our daughter off at med school meant I didn’t have any of my windsurf or foil gear with me. And of course there was a decent 8-12 knot west wind.

So I dug their old windsurf rig out of the garage and cleaned off the old BIC reggae board. I’m quite sure it was the first time it was used since a visit there 5 years ago. A mouse ran out of the sail as I unrolled it - it seemed to have been nesting there for a while and made a hole at the top of the sail.

I rigged it and headed out for a half hour sail. I’ll admit that I know why windsurfing struggled in the early 90’s. That board had been sold in the late 1980’s and by the time people were trying it out at cottages it was too narrow and small at 190 litres for its weight. It would be near impossible to teach a beginner on that board.

Nice evening for a windsurf session

I think if I’d had harness lines and 5 more knots of wind I would have got it planing with the vintage 4 batten 5.7m FUN sail. But it was so wobbly to tack, and so unstable to uphaul, I’m not surprised that there are hundreds of these sitting unloved under cottages everywhere. New boards like the Fanatic Vipers that I use to teach at the Launch Pad Windsurf Academy are soooooo much better for everything except spectacular high wind days.

The board hadn’t been used in a while

A few runs where I got a bit of speed…

The sail was ok, except for the mouse hole up top!

It cleaned up ok.

Overall I think I found it about as hard to sail as heading out past the rocks at Ho’okipa. But maybe that’s because I was rusty, as I haven’t had a windsurf session in weeks… Here’s hoping my September schedule lines up with some windy days.