(I missed it on Sunday...family obligations had me on dry land. But Peconic Jeff caught it.)
"oh man, hate to say it, but you missed a big one
yesterday at New Suffolk - winds well into the 20's, cloudless skies,
warm water/air - the only part that didn't line up was the tide, since
it was outgoing for most of the afternoon. Jon Ford had sent Jimi
Sobeck, Adam and some other young guns to Mattituck Yacht Club, but the
Wolf sniffed out higher winds further East at New Suffolk. Bill Barber
was the other sailor in attendance -- he was driving behind me on New
Suffolk Ave, and said I hit the gas when I got to that house with the
windmill where you can see all the whitecaps on the bay... no doubt! I started with 5.9 and JP 93 (Bill on 5.8 and Wolf 5.2),
but we were mostly fully to waay-over-powered, so I rigged down to 5.2
and was fully juiced for speed runs and the occasional jump. The other
guys stayed with their setup, but took more breaks, and ended up
leaving early. According to my GPS, I sailed 51 miles (is that even
right??) over 4.5 hours. At the very end, the tide had finally turned,
so I got a couple moderately sized jumps, but it would have been much
better had the tide turned earlier." |
The next day Jeff was all about the new callouses on his hands...how stoked he was to be fried from sailing. He's merciless.
Sunday was a really good day. At heckscher we started on 4.7 around 2:00 then 4.2 shortly after and could have sailed 3.7 from about 7 until dark but I couldn't bring myself to rig another sail. Really really good day.
The 2009 Joker 99 is the sickest freestyle board I've ever sailed. Shakas and ponches were so easy it was silly. It's like the board arrived knowing how to do everything. I also sailed it with a 5.9 on friday and it planes up considerably quicker than last years board. Maybe we'll get some more today and tomorrow.
Posted by: mike burns | July 23, 2008 at 10:16 AM