The Peconic Puffin Windsurfing Blog

Honkadelica: The Last Session of the Year

I'd been out of town for a week, visiting relatives.   My Blackberry spoke of sessions missed back home, including a rare winter visit by Andy Brandt and a fog wavesailing session at the Cup   So I didn't care what it was blowing on my first day back, as long as it was blowing.

It was blowing.  Honking.  Nuking.

I arrived at Sebonac Inlet just in time to see The Wolf launch on his 3.3.   He took off like a shot, and was barely sheeted in.   Jon Ford was rigging a 3.7.   I don't think I've ever seen Jon on his 3.7.   So I rigged my smallest sail (3.4) and put on my storm fin (a tiny slotted True Ames) and joined the crew (Scott, P-Jeff and the aforementioned, later joined by Fisherman, CPU John, Frank, Jan, and Bruce) on the water.

It was kinda nuts.   The gusts were consistently hitting 50 (Jon Ford talked about a 60-pluser measured at Shinnecock...apparently I'd missed when it was REALLY windy) and the challenge was to not sail upwind.   Any lull was to be used for jibing or shooting downwind.

Also challenging was the cold.  The wind chill was too silly to calculate, so we mostly concerned ourselves with the water temps...any sustained head dunking was good for an ice cream headache.

Not challenging was jumping...or more particularly, hang time.   Get some wind under your board and hovering was not a problem.

The wind (mad gusty all day) lightened up after a few hours, so the crew rigged up to 4.2-4.7's, which were frequently way too big/too small as gusts and lulls came through.   Still I was having a good time when I went for a big jump on starboard (starboard jumps rarely work for me).   Between a fortuitous gust and a half decent effort I got medium high...and then my front foot came out of the strap.

Hard flat landing.

I do a painful split as my front leg slides towards the nose.

To reduce the weight behind the painful split, I smash my face into my 4.5.

Sliding slowly off of the gear (head goes underwater, now an ice cream headache accompanies the pain in my right leg and taste of blood in my mouth) it occurs to me that I've had a fine last session of the year, and perhaps I should call it a day.   So I did.

(Top photo:  Sebonac Inlet was often liquid smoke.   More photos from the day are on Peconic Jeff's Flickr page.   The graph is courtesy iWindsurf from the Shinnecock meter.   I missed the gust of 63 but caught plenty of 50.)

Best Babble of 2008

There’s a “pick your best blog post” writing assignment floating around a bit of the sailing blogosphere in which the Peconic Puffin is a participant.  (Not that I think any of my stuff is actually GOOD, but some of it definitely sucks more than other bits.)   Having run the year’s noise through a sieve, I ended up with two posts that I like most:

Time Travel, Jibe Fest, and Is Little Red Riding Hood In Da House?

and

I Needed A Shrink On Friday, or Chasing the Wind Almost For Naught.

How to choose?     After agonizing for a week I remembered the best piece of writing about windsurfing I've ever read (an article in Forbes Magazine, of all places.)  My favorite bit in the article was when the author more or less said that to be a windsurfer is to get well familiar with humiliation.   That cleared it up for me.   So as much as I think the "Time Travel" post is a clever (for me) bit about windsurfing after a long wind drought, the “I Need A Shrink” post is simply the best because it reminds me how ridiculous a day of windsurfing (for me) can be.

Blah blah blah.

(Written in landlocked central Illinois, visiting family while good wind is blowing back east.)

A Windfest Good Luck Charm

If you want a graven image to worship (or just to dress up your back yard) Michael Jamieson is your man.    Of this stony creation Mike says "Please find my nomination for this year's Long Island windfest luck charm. It can only bring more wind and on a selfish note, better placement for me in the freestyle event."

The East Coast Windsurfing Festival is coming June 6th and 7th at Hecksher...see you there!

The Santa Puffins Fly Tonight

"Reindeer?   We don't need no stinkin' reindeer!  Though if Dasher came by he could help us with our jibes..."

(Puffin Santas by Paula Lucia at Heron Cove Art.  Jibe assistance from Dasher at Sideoff Video.  Merry Christmas from The Peconic Puffin!)

Faster Than A Kite For A Moment...Then Le Désastre

Word is they wound this puppy up to 61 knots, but couldn't quite hold it down.    No points were awarded for the dismount.  

Originally spotted on Sailing Anarchy.  Photo credit Gilles Martin-Raget/Hydroptere.

Solstice Session Slapdown

Apparently we've been having too much fun for Mother Nature, so she shut us down for her holiday weekend.

Friday's forecast had seemed promising, but we never rigged.   Surely Sunday wouldn't disappoint!  The Bowl was the call, and there was so much wind that the first man on the water (Bill B) was nuked on a 3.7.   Bill being a larger fellow, if he's nuked on a 3.7, nobody is sailing (iWindsurf.com later called it as 40 gusting to 50).   So the new call was South Jamesport.

4.5's and 4.7's were rigged.   We were lit one minute, shlogging the next.   After twenty minutes of the on-off it just died.

So we (Bill, Scott, the Wolf, Jeff and yt) stood on the beach and exhorted the wind to blow anew.  It did not.   After awhile Bill noted that standing in near-freezing rain for half an hour on a Sunday with no shredding to show for it was less than grand.   Soon enough the Men Who Do Not Grumble were all grumbling, and so we derigged and went home.

Word is that a few hours later the wind came up, and a few mid-Island windsurfers actually got some, but out in Peconica all you could find were long faces.

Friday Blew, Maybe Sunday Will Blow?

The forecast for Friday was outstanding...a fine day at Ponquogue seemed certain, but between late arriving wind and terrible visibility, it didn't happen.  I left early, but Peconic Jeff toughed it out with the Wolf.   Later I heard from Jeff:  "By the time the wind looked 5.8, the precip was an icy mix that no one could take on the face at 25mph."

So now we pin our hopes on Sunday.   As of press time, the coastal marine fantasy speaks thus:

Sun

E winds 25 to 30 kt...becoming SW with gusts up to 40 kt late. Seas 2 to 4 ft. Snow in the morning. Rain. Vsby 1 to 3 nm.

(Top photo:  The view from the van.  Jeff and I have windsurfed with 50 yards of visibility at Mecox (fully enclosed shallow bay) but it seemed a fabulously stupid idea to try in the ocean.   Bottom photo by Jeff:  Skippers meeting)

2009 East Coast Windsurfing Festival Returns to Long Island

It’s back!   Following up on the success of the 2008 festival, the organizers are thrilled to announce the second annual East Coast Windsurfing Festival, taking place June 6-7, 2009 at New York’s Heckscher State Park in East Islip, Long Island.   

Presented by last year’s master of ceremonies Thom Hering and “King of the East” Mike Burns, the 2009 event will once again feature racing, freestyle, and speed trial events, with sport, competitive, and junior classes.     And once again, the focus will be on having a good time and getting everybody on the water.   “Any time the rules preclude fun, we change the rules,” says MC Tom.

The Peconic Puffin will have updates in early 2009 as they are announced.   To review all the fun of the 2008 event, click here.  

Photos by Bill Doutney

Cupskunked?

When is a session a session?    And did I have a session on Monday at Cupsogue?

Time on the water?  Check.
Time in the water?  Check Check Check.

I did no wave riding. 
Several waves rode me.

And so on.

It had been shaping up to be a fine session.   Sunny and breezy, we looked out on large waves...well fed and muscular, with some beautifully sculpted six to eight footers on the outside.   But the wind was just not enough.   Scott and the Wolf got out briefly on 5.2's but then were seen shlogging, as was Bill Barber and a fellow named Halsey.   I hit it with a 5.5 and Jon Ford came with his 5.8, but one planing run was about it before a whole lot of near planing and falling.

I had one highlight...shlogging and semi-planing over increasingly large walls of whitewater, I ultimately got steamrolled by the biggest wad of foam I've ever met shlogging...four feet of white.   It was a thrill I need not repeat.

Size Matters

How long is your longboard?

Originally spotted on James' blog.

Friday's Tides Are Gonna Get Proxigean On Yo' Ass

"Gonna take you higher!"  -Sly Stone

Friday's high tide is going to be very high.  Here comes the proxigean tide!   The moon is going to be exceptionally close to the earth (like 220K miles...about as many miles as Andy Brandt puts on his van in a year) and with the corresponding full moon,  La Luna's gravity is going to tweak the tides to the max.   At least that's what they tell me.

"The Proxigean Tide occurs when the Moon is at its closest point in its orbit to the Earth and in its New or Full Moon phase."

-from astronomycafe.net

After this Friday's proxigean tide, the next one won't arrive until January of 2010.

I learned about this in a post from Bonnie, Queen of the Kayak Bloggers.  

Gale Warning for Wednesday

Satellites detect increased emissions of the desire to play hookey.

(from Weather Underground's Marine Forecast for Long Island.)

Whipped at West Meadow

I am the Last Windsurfer On Long Island to sail West Meadow.   What was I waiting for?  Perhaps less of a thrashing!

Got there around 12:30, saw George Marr and Pete Roesch on the water, and  George Pav and Jean in the parking lot.  Half an hour later I had a rigged 4.5, my 77 liter board, and advice to "watch out for the sand bars."    I think I'm pretty good at spotting shallow water,  so after walking out about 50 yards I jumped on my board and headed out.

Kapow.   

Then another kapow a minute later.   I spend the next 45 minutes imagining shallow spots everywhere...I'm sailing in a perpetual state of "I'm about to get launched".    Finally I get settled in, and sail to the far corner where there are some excellent rolling ramps.   I see George Marr pull into shore so I go over to say Hi...I figure I'll sail behind him and get a guided tour of the tastiest spots.   But George isn't sailing anywhere because he snapped his board in half.
 
"The last couple runs it was REALLY feeling soft,"  he explains, theorizing how the board was broke before it broke, "and then it broke in two in the middle of a jump!"   George is stoked.  Me, I'd be a little bummed if I broke a good board in half, but George is stoked about his board, about the jump, about the day, about the football game he's going to go home and watch.   He picks up his gear and starts walking back to the launch, stoked.

I head back out.    The gusts are mighty and I should probably rig down, but I don't.   I'm grooving on the ramps (though still imagining sand bars wherever the water flattens.)  The place is going off, and I'm having a fine time lit alongside Pete, Pav, Jean, Steve (thanks for the photos!)  Mustang, Marty, Rich Simons (thanks for the directions) and Frank, with whom I have a near collision.   That seems as good a reason as any to head in and rig the 4.0, but when I see Pete heading out on his 4.0 (Pete takes a lot more sail then me) I worry that I'm not rigging down enough.

And that's pretty much how it was.   Even though I'd have been much happier on a 3.4, it was still good to get back out there and get pounded.   I look forward to a return to West Meadow!

(Top:  George Pav negotiates some serious white water.   Bottom:  George Marr describes his mid-air board break.  Heard on the beach: "George breaks a board or two every year!"  Photos courtesy Steve Domjans.)
 

My Cupsogue Runneth Over

This morning we sailed Cupsogue.   The day's theme seemed to be me vs. the water.  You know how that works out.   At least it was an educational experience for this budding wave sailor.   What did I learn today?

I learned what it was like to have a large wave take my gear for a long ride, without me on it. For extra credit, this included the bonus lesson of how to swim long and fast in a drysuit.

I learned that if the current is keeping me downwind, a long reach to the outside will not help me get back upwind if the current extends to the outside, as it did today.

And I learned that when the impact zone is large and unforgiving, it's better to jibe early and head back out, and not sail too far in.   I spent PLENTY of time in the wash today.

Other than that it was a fun session while it lasted.  4.5-5.5 conditions, with Jon Ford, Frank, Jimi Sobeck, Bill Barber, Fisherman, the Wolf, John Natalie, Jan and Bruce, and John Hulse on a kite.
A few posts ago I was still wrestling with my issues about Cupsogue.   Now I look forward to sailing there!

"Scariest Looking Wave" is "The Right"

It turns out that this monster is in southwest Australia, and is called "The Right".    I'm intrigued and fearful of the wall of water that seems to ride on top of the wave.  

This photo is from Riptide, found in a post in the Seabreeze surfing forum.