Family Windsurfing in Bonaire with ABK

We had a great week in Bonaire windsurfing. Here is a quick video from day 1 of our ABK clinic. I managed to land my SECOND ever vulcan - on camera in front of the instructors!  (Correction - in the video it says 190 vulcan attempts, I'm actually at around 240 now).

Our 2012 Bonaire ABK family windsurfing video from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

ABK instructors Andy, Derek, Brendan and Meredith helped everyone improve and we are all still a bit sore even after getting back home. One of my son's blisters is still healing!

My Windsport mag article :-) Windsurfing mag sadness :-(

My article in the Fall 2011 Windsport Magazine 

I was pretty excited to receive the Winter issue of Windsport magazine in the mail the other day.  Here's a scan from the article I wrote about the huge 700 person Defi windsurfing race.  Thanks Pete for including that in your magazine.  :-)

I've always enjoyed getting both Windsport and Windsurfing magazines - I've been a subscriber to both for the last 20 years? In the last 5 years I've gotten to know a fair number of people in the global windsurfing community and it is fun to see their names, articles and pictures in print every few months.

So I was pretty bummed to hear that Windsurfing Magazine is suspending production for the next year. :-( Josh, it was great meeting you at the HiHo in 2007 and great fun being part of your board tests in Maui in 2008 and 2009.  I loved your stoke for the sport and wish you all the best for the future.  I'm hoping that the excellent Windsurfing Magazine web site keeps going in the interim!
http://www.iwindsurf.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23829
http://windsurfingmag.com/

One in a million in Toronto

There was one weekend in October where the weather forecast was looking promising for Toronto harbour. Strong west winds were building all week and Saturday was predicted to be windy. It was indeed windy and for a change, I had some free time.  I packed up the car, drove down to Cherry street and walked out to the beach to see what people were sailing on.

There was one single windsurfer to be seen, and he was smiling as he returned from his session. He'd had fun on a 5m sail and suggested I rig my 5.4. It wasn't even too cold, maybe a bit gusty, but really, why wasn't anyone else out?

I had a great session. The Lake Ontario waves were providing nice gybe surfaces, and I managed a few downwind carve 360s.  It was misting a bit, but wasn't raining. I didn't push things to much - did I mention I was the only person out sailing?



My windsurfing GPS trail out on Lake Ontario with the Toronto downtown and CN tower in the background


To be fair, there were two sails that I could see going back and forth from the Toronto Windsurfing Club launch around 1 km down wind. That bay provides the best launch in Toronto when the wind is SW or W. With 4 million inhabitants in the Greater Toronto Area, I would have thought there would be more than 4 sailors out over 2 hours mid day on a Saturday at the best launch on a day with solid predicted wind.

If this was a launch near Marseilles, also a town of 4 million, there would have been at least 100 people out sailing at any of the 5 or so decent launch sites that I visited over there in France.  No, there weren't any kiters out either, they do tend to launch from a different beach though.

While I didn't land another vulcan in the three good freestyle sessions I've had back in Canada, I'm still trying. I'm over 220 attempts now, and still just that one lucky one to my name. 

I could see a helicopter hovering over the city watching the first day of the "occupy" movement. I doubt that kept many people away from the beach though. Any thoughts?

Fall ABK roadtrip report

The gear is all loaded!

I loaded up the car and trailer in late September and started on a road trip to Long Island. Here's a quick and belated report on the long weekend.

I picked up my buddy Paul in Oakville and we headed across the border. 12 hours and one great steak dinner later, we arrived at the Briney Breezes hotel.

The ABK camp was very similar to the ones we've attended in Bonaire. There were a lot of regulars there (a.k.a. repeat offenders).  We all had fun listening to the lectures and getting onto the water.  The weather was much warmer than I expected. Many of the participants were in shorties, which is pretty good for the last weekend in September. Some of the instructors even stood in the water in their shorts. There were more young women (5 out of 25) at this camp than other clinics I've been to. I did finally get to meet and admire the windsurfing skills of "Larry the Legend" and others.

Lecture time on the beach

Unfortunately the wind never materialized. We did a lot of light wind and listened to the lectures.

The Saturday night dinner was a great opportunity to get to know some of the other participants and swap stories about various windsurfing destinations.

The drive home was equally long but uneventful. I was glad to have Paul along to help share the driving and for good conversation. I'm thinking it will be time to head to Hatteras some time in the future.  I'll be keeping an eye on the ABK school schedule.

A long drive that would have been worth it
even more if there had been wind!

Summer highlights from Georgian Bay

I finally got around to editing a quick video some friends shot near our cottage and I thought it was about time to update my blog with some windsurfing thoughts about returning to Canada.



There is nothing like windsurfing back home. Even though I really only had 3 good windsurfing days in August, they were all memorable.  The third day resulted in the video above, which was pretty fun on my 6.2 duke and skate 108. I nearly landed vulcan attempt #190 but I think I'm turning upwind too much before jumping?  I got some nice regular and switch foot gybes. I'm always a bit amazed at how straight, stiff & upright my stance is when I get a chance to see myself on video. (Thanks Scott & OJ!).

The second memorable day had me out on my slalom board, racing back and forth, upwind and downwind and really enjoying being out on water where I know every shoal.  It is a real hoot to scream past rocks and down narrow channels while working on going up and down wind. From the track below, it is harder to go upwind (8 tacks) than downwind (2 gybes).  Totals 27min, 12 km, avg 25km/h, max 44km/h.

Slalom through the 30,000 islands

But the absolute highlight of the summer sessions was watching one of my sons out on the JP Young Gun board with his 4.2m sail. He had worked his way upwind a bit and was hard to see, since the 15-20 knot wind was picking up. I squinted into the sun and saw his sail poking up above the rocks in the distance.

Suddenly my son was in full view, and he was moving quickly. Really quickly. I could tell he had sheeted in nicely using his harness during a gust and was basically tailwalking at a very high speed on the back of the board. Then WHAM, a huge spray of white mist rose in the air when he was pulled (catapulted) over the front of his sail and board.  My wife and my hearts stopped as we contemplated that he might be hurt. I began mentally preparing the plan to go rescue him, but before we knew it he was uphauling again. He completed his 8.5km of sailing and got major high 5's from us for his first fully powered planing catapult session.

My son's first major catapult!

It is neat sailing here: Unless I'm out with one of my kids or a neighbour, I don't even need to look over my shoulder when gybing. The solitude is fun - a bit more soul surfing than some of the crowded places I've sailed. When it blows, the west wind on Georgian Bay is so consistent - there is a famous painting with that name. 

There was only one other session to be had on Georgian Bay in the fall, a quick 90 minute slalom session after my wife and I had shut down most of the cottage pluming in October. The slalom gear is now safely stowed for the winter but I've got a few more blog posts to write...

The last thing I have to say about Club Vass

I was downloading some GPS data from my watch, and found these files from the summer in Greece. Uploaded into Google Earth, it helps to give an idea about how unique the wind at the destination of Vassiliki is.

It is amazing that the wind comes up over the mountain and comes right down the other side of the mountain. You then get super smooth water, and a sideshore wind from the beach launch.  Here is a shot of my afternoon on a slalom board:

Club Vass sideshore (down the mountain) wind

It is pretty neat to be zipping along, getting closer and closer to shore, and still have the wind coming down the hill at you.  (You would think that it would funnel down the valley or something?).  Yeah, it is a bit gusty, but really, considering it just came down a hill, it is really quite laminar.  You can also see the gusts super easily, since the water is glassy smooth the closer you are to the foot of the hill.

The wind is also an afternoon thing.  In the morning it is light and onshore.

Here is the GPS trail from my son's 12km sailing adventure.

My son's 12 km windsurfing adventure

I think that is it now for reports from Europe. I'll be adding a few posts from my Canadian summer and fall sessions sometime.

Club Vass Greece Windsurfing Photos

The family photo shoot

Ok, we are back in Canada now and I'm way behind on trying to catch up on lots of things. Here is our Club Vass Windsurfing recap:

Our week at Club Vass was fantastic. By the end of it I had the whole family asking if we could stay a second week. We couldn't, but it is great that everyone was enjoying the windsurfing and beach vibe.

Vass had great instruction for the kids, totally new NP and JP kit, and a great location on the beach. It is possibly the best windsurfing operation we've visited. Like Vela and Jibe City and Club Mistral locations we've been lucky enough to visit over the years, they have nice people, lessons and rigged gear right on the beach. But the unique thing at Vass is that since all the guests come for a week at a time, the lessons are more like an ABK clinic for the whole family. You have daily morning and afternoon lessons, with the same instructors. The lessons (and parties) are included in your stay. So you really get to know people. (Kind of how I remember Sailboard vacations in Aruba years ago.)

We bought the photo CD and DVD that the nice photographer Jay of Globalshots.uk made. Here are some highlights: (Yes I know this post is 2 months behind - we've been busy getting settled back into life at home.)

Vulcan attempt 160 or so...

How far did I windsurf dad?

Chophop in the gusty wind

Kid sailor!

Walking back upwind

The whole family was out

Great instruction

Mom sailed a lot too!

Goodbye but can we come back again?