The Peconic Puffin Windsurfing Blog

Blogfest

A sailboat blogger named Adam (Messing About In Boats) and I transcended Web 2.0 or whatever a few months ago and had a few beers.  We gabbed mightily about our blogs, and speculated on the true nature of some other waterpeople whose blogs we knew (Horse Joe and Lord Tillerman...did your ears burn?)    Then we did it again...it was great fun.  But a third time called for new blood.  So we invited Bonnie of Frogma fame, the fate of whose sailing soul was once bitterly fought over by the Horse and the Tiller (it had something to do single vs. multihull).  I had a vision of three people.

But not for nothing is Bonnie Queen of the Kayak Bloggers...she suggests inviting Tugster Will and Bowsprite Christina (a wonderful new blog) and A Moveable Bridge Brian and Karen (who own a boat named Puffin!) and before we knew it there was quite the gathering in the works.   I brought Peconic Jeff (Peconic Windsurfer), Tugster brought an actual tugboat captain (Towmasters) throw in a few more bloggers, and duly assembled at the Ear Inn (an ancient nautical bar built when god was a pup) we had an outstanding time.

There were fine stories and tales told that I'm not going to try and retell.  But I will say that it was spectacularly obvious what stoked the fires of this blogging fleet:  It's not about the websites.  It's about the passion and the desire to share.   We should do it again!

(Top photo:  Christina (Bowsprite,) Will (Tugster,) Joel (Towmasters,) Elizabeth (Sex in the Public Square...perhaps not a sailing blog but partner in crime with Will) and Bonnie (Frogma.)   Bottom photo:  Christina, Joel, Elizabeth, Adam (Messing About in Boats) Will, and Peconic Jeff (Peconic Windsurfer) with my head rising behind Jeff's.  Photos courtesy of Tugster Will Van Dorp.)

Is Demo's Break Broke?

I highly doubt it, but I got a scare when Billy T (who I met on the ice at Bellport last month) posted in the Yahoo Long Island Windsurfing Group that shifting sands had wrecked the break at Democrat Point, or Demo.    This would be terrible not only for all the people who love sailing the place, but for me personally (feel my potential pain!) as sailing Demo is my #1 New Years Windsurfing Resolution. 

In all likelyhood Demo is fine.   Last year my beloved Ponquogue didn't seem to be working for a day, and in a panic I posted concerns which were disproved (by a fine session) the very next day.

Sands do shift, though.  The darn things should stay put and keep everybody happy.

(Want to read a gripping tale about sailing Demo?  Check out "Almost Lost at Demo:  The Mike DaBaker Story.)

Sunday Heartbreak: The Forecast is Gale, We Get Goose Eggs

Zeros.    Actual Zeros.   This is not 25 knots.    It's windsuffering.

Argh ack boo hiss.   I'd been looking forward to watching the Oscars feeling pleasantly spent.  

Growl.

(Long Island wind(less) snapshot courtesy iWindsurf.)

ABK Debuts Racing Clinic on 2009 Tour

You want windsurfing instruction?   You want ABK.    The dates of ABK Boardsports' 2009 instructional tour have been announced, and the Peconic Puffin is happy to tell the world that a new specialty group for advanced students has been added, and its world premiere will be at Napeague!   

“We’re adding a racing clinic,” ABK’s Andy Brandt told the Puffin “for those advanced students looking to further push themselves, but who aren’t interested in pursuing freestyle windsurfing.”

Not interested in freestyle?

“Hey, different people like different things about windsurfing,” said Andy, who is also quite the racer in addition to his career as freestyle evangelist.  “Some people want to blow their friends off the water, some want to do tricks, some love the waves, and many, many windsurfers just want to cruise.  We’re here to help people get better at any and all of it, because every day sailing is a great day sailing.”

You know it is!

ABK will hold three clinics on Long Island in 2009.  All three will have full programs for skill levels starting at “never before windsurfed” to “I’m ripping through my jibes…now what?”   All at Napeague, they are:

Fri May 15- Sun, May 17 (the Spring Spectacular…tune up for the season)    
Fri Sep 18- Sun, Sep 20 (including the Racing Clinic for interested advanced students)
Fri Sep 25- Sun, Sep 27 (including the Freestyle Clinic for interested advanced students).

(Photo:   Even if you don't know which side of the sail to stand on, Andy Brandt
 and his crew of merry instructors can help.)

It Gets Big On Lake Ontario

 

When I hear "upstate New York lake sailing" I'm thinking I should bring my longboard.   Some guys in Rochester straightened me out with this photo.   Rock n' Roll!

(Thanks to Doug from Rochester Windsports for sending the photo.  Photographer Mark Robertson, windsurfer is Rick Griffin at Webster Park on Lake Ontario.)

Watch Your Friends Windsurf Online While You Can't. Hell.

 I couldn't make the session.  Not even at Meschutt, which in my opinion is heavily underrated for NW winds and for which I am always advocating as our next launch.   Johns Ford and Vanderwolf, along with Frank B and Peconic Jeff were headed over, though...I told them I'd check in on them on Meschutt Cam.   If I couldn't sail this day, the next best thing to do would be to watch my friends.

What was I thinking?  I hardly got any work done, so obsessed was I by trying to catch glimpses of the guys having fun.   Jeff later described conditions as 4.2-5.2 throughout the day.

(photo from the Meschutt Cam...why am I not in this image?!)

Carbon Extensions as Breakaway Mast Savers?

I finally pogoed a mast.  It was at the Pier two weeks ago.   I'd never seen the phenomenon before...mast pointing towards beach in the shore break, a wave catches the board and while raising it shoves the mast tip down into the sandy bottom, then the force of the wave drives board into mast like a pole vaulter until something...usually the mast...breaks.    I'm told that oftentimes the broken mast will then tear up the sail's luff sleeve, making the pogo something you really want to avoid. 

I knew about the dreaded pogo, but I'd imagined that they took place in big shorebreak.  In my case it merely required a two-foot wave to do the trick, but I caught a lucky break (sorry) when my mast base extension broke, sparing the mast and sail.

I didn't think of myself as lucky at the time.   I probably pouted.   But it has since occurred to me that the breaking extension is desirable in pogo situations...the damage is to a much less expensive piece of gear than a mast, and any chewing up of the sail would take place at the foot, if at all.   So I had been lucky.

Then more luck...with the break occurring where the extension entered the mast, I appeared to have enough of the lower extension to create a stubby extension.   I measured the remaining unsullied carbon and compared it with a manufactured stubby I already owned.   Indeed I had enough length, so out came the hacksaw to clean up the top, out came a pair of pliers to pull the plastic plug from the broken piece and insert it into the sawed off tip, and voila! I was back in business for sails requiring less extension.

So I was very lucky.  I'd be grinning except for the pain it causes the lip I ripped up a few days ago.  And as I've seen aluminum mast extensions bend, I'm thinking that carbon extensions are the call for wave sailing.  Because given my skills (or lack thereof) in the surf, the odds are decent that my gear is going to get worked in the break some time in the future.

(Photos by Remy McFadden)

Top Ten Reasons For Women To Date A Windsurfer (Valentines Day encore presentation)

Ladies, are you still searching for that special someone?   Consider looking amongst the windsurfers:

10. The ratio of men to women is 4 to 1.
  9.  They can talk about something besides football.
  8.  They don’t smell too bad because it’s a good bet they’ve gotten wet recently.
  7.  They have another interest besides sex.
  6.  You know they’re rich enough to afford windsurfing equipment.
  5.  You always get the latest weather report, several times a day.
  4.  They are capable of commitment, at least to their sport.
  3.  They have no issues about wearing rubber.
  2.  You always know where they are, at least when it’s windy.
  1.  Windsurfers are generally fit, tanned, and have cute butts.

Non-windsurfing men should NOT...repeat NOT...pursue windsurfing women, unless they are prepared to immediately throw themselves into the sport.  Otherwise such men will be surrounded by angry windsurfing men who all seek the great and rare prize:  the girlfriend or wife who windsurfs.    To squander such a find on a landlubber is an offense to those of us who sheet in!   

(There is the opinion held by a small minority that it is a drag to be a man whose significant other windsurfs...you probably have to rig for them, they use your equipment etc. but generally speaking the willingness of such wahines to make every vacation a windsurfing vacation, to understand why the garage needs to be packed with tons of expensive wet gear etc. outweighs the rigging/sharing concerns.  Discussion of such matters is encouraged.)

One Hit Wonders at Sebonac Inlet

Usually when planning a session at Sebonac Inlet (primo in west winds) you aim to arrive at mid tide ebbing, when the reef goes off and the wind against tide ramps are stellar.    But that wasn't the concern today.

"We gotta jump on it right away!"  (Scott on the phone out east.)

"I can't get there for two hours.  What's the rush?"  (Me on the phone, leaving Manhattan.)

"Have you seen the forecast?  When the winds come in full we're gonna get blown off the water!"  (Scott.)

Damn.

When I arrived (near high tide and still rising) I found 4.5 conditions, and was told I'd just missed the liquid smoke.  Joining Scott, Jeff, Frank, Mr. vanderWolf and Jon Ford on the water, there was a surprising number of fine ramps to fly from, though scattered and difficult to predict.  "One hit wonders," Jonathan dubbed them.   The jumping was good, the honking wind  was warmish (45 degrees) and the water was frickin' cold (38.5 according to Peconic Jeff's thermometer.)

The winds built over time (3.8-4.2 sails in the afternoon) and it started to get cold.   Jimi Sobeck arrived and was sailing way overpowered ("my smallest sail is a 4.2!" and Joe Natalie showed up and got half a run in before a gust wiped him out mid-jibe, torquing a shoulder.

By the time the tide finally started going out, I was toast and a few of the guys were leaving, though Jeff, Frank and the Wolf remained to work the reef for as long as they could.

"We should have started later," Scott said as we left.

Probably.   But we had a ripping good time anyway!

(So what did the lucky few who stayed get when the tide got low?  Peconic Jeff emailed me:  "The waves  kept getting better and better, with some nice 3-4 ft ramps, lined up with a good 15-20 ft of smooth water in between. And ramps were everywhere!")

Thursday's forecast rocks...can you take a long lunch?

Thu:  W winds 25 to 30 kt with gusts up to 45 kt. Seas 4 to 6 ft. 

That's according to the Coastal Marine Forecast.  Some other models have it blowing more SW.

What Vintage Bill Barber?

That's a fine shot of Bill Barber, flying his trademark Gorge Animal in a one-handed jump on some recent gnarly day.    Worthy of a magazine cover, it turns out.  CD had a copy of the magazine, which he showed me, promptly eliciting a WTF so puzzled was I by the title:  Senior Source Book.

Beg your pardon?    Was Bill jumping over a senior citizen?   Perhaps the one-handed jump in order to carry an old ladies groceries through the shore break?   I was confused.   Bill is just a teense older than me...part of the "social security will run out of money before we get there" set.   Lest there be any doubt I will refer you once again to the photo.  Seniors jump the surf, sure, but they do it with two hands on the boom.  It's a dignity thing.

I will not be offering to carry Mr. Barber's gear down to the water, nor attempting any other form of humor.   I'm pretty sure I'm faster than Bill but at some point I'd need to return to the parking area, and then I'd be toast.

Nice photo, Bill!

(The Senior Source Book is an otherwise fine publication of the Times Review newspapers.)

Who REALLY wanted to sail on Sunday?

It promised to be a great day in February, with 25mph winds and 50 degrees forecasted.   But by the time it was done, six of nine windsurfers were rejected, discouraged, turned away, left dry or otherwise unable to enjoy any shreddage in the star-crossed session I’m about to describe.   Brace yourselves (not really)…

The nine windsurfers: Frank, CD, CPU John, Jon Ford, the Wolf, Scott, Jeff Shlecter, Peconic Jeff and your editor.

1.  Where’s the wind?
After an aborted drive to West Meadow (the Wolf arrived first and found suboptimal conditions…a dozen cellphone calls later we were all headed to Iron Pier)  nine windsurfers arrived at the Pier to find barely a whitecap.    Never mind that while driving there our cars/vans/pickups were all being buffeted by big winds…it was blowing maybe fifteen on site.     The Meschutt cam showed the Great Peconic is blowing strong, so we leave the Pier and head for Sebonac Inlet.     Jeff Slechta drops out…now we are eight.

2.  Roadblock!    
One hundred yards from the Sebonac Inlet launch, Sebonac Inlet Road has a fence blocking the road.   Apparently the end of the road is getting washed out and the town has closed it.   They’ve left a narrow passage apparently intended for 4WD’s to access the beach, and we’d use it (even P-Jeff and I with our 1WD vans) except for…

3.  The Case of the Poly-Screwed Fisherman.
In the aforementioned passage apparently intended for 4WD’s is a fisherman’s van.    The van is stuck in sand buried almost to its axles.  It’s also wedged against the fence post, which has put a healthy dent in the side of the van.   Standing outside the van is the fisherman.  He’s standing next to his stuck dented van because he’s locked out of it.  Did I mention that the engine was running?   “He is screwed in so very many ways,” observed Jonathan.   All agreed.

But we had to sail, so by and by the fisherman got in his van and we pushed and towed him out of the way, so we could drive through and windsurf.   All except for CD, who got on the phone and was talking about god knows what for hours.  “You know, that’s CD,” said the Wolf.  Now we were seven.

4.  The Wind Dummies Disappoint.

While Bruce, the Wolf and I rigged, the rest of the crew (Scott, Jeff, Frank and Jon Ford) stood around to see just how we’d do.   When the Wolf planed away on his 5.8 (followed shortly by CPU and I) the gallery seemed unimpressed.   And it wasn’t long until a big lull set in, and the three of us semi-planed back to the beach.   As we landed, Scott and Jon Ford had seen enough and said ta ta.  Jeff decided to rig anyway (“I came all the way out from the city for this session”) and I thought the departure of S&J might work as a wind sacrifice.    Five windsurfers remained.

5.    Who Trusts the Gust?
Sure enough the wind came back up a minute later, and the Wolf, Jeff and I went back out into the stiffening breeze.     CPU was all but derigged, and Frank decided that it wasn’t gonna be good enough, and soon they too left.    Now we were three.

And we got about 2 hours in!     There were small but playful ramps, and we nearly had to rig down as the wind settled in.   The promise of epic conditions never came to pass, but the three of us had some fun.   We really wanted to windsurf!

Windsurfing Sunday?

The forecast as of Saturday evening:

NW winds 20 to 25 kt. Occasional gusts up to 35 kt in the afternoon.

With air temps in the mid 40's!

To quote Scott from an email earlier today, "I need it bad!"   So repeat this windsurfing prayer with me: 

"Please please please please please let conditions be good on Sunday and let me get out there!"

Amen. 

I'm in the "Four" game

There's a viral/ponzi/don't you have something better to do with your time?/bloggy thing going around where someone tags you ("tag"=calls you out in a post) and you're supposed to find the fourth photo from the fourth foulder from the fourth god knows what from your blog, repost the thing, then "tag" four other bloggers to do the same.   It's made its way to the water blogs...queen of all kayak media Bonnie seems to have had fun with it, whilst the granddaddy of sailboat bloggers Lord Tillerman seems thoroughly annoyed.  I got splatted by Adam "Messing about in boats but only when its warm because I don't like the cold".   I was of two minds:

1.  This is dumb.
2.  There are lots of good photos amongst the windsurfing blog community.

As any regular visitor to the Peconic Puffin knows, I "do" dumb.   Hell yes.  "Dumb?  What size sail should I rig?"

So I'm tagging OBX Bill (who always has outstanding photos of Hatteras action,) "Giampaolo (who takes ridiculously good shots in Mecca...I mean Maui,) James (special assignment for James...your fourth piece of technical illustrations...nobody does them like you) and of course He Without Whom My Blog Would Be Almost All Text, Peconic Jeff.

You are all cordially invited...

(Photo at top:  Fourth photo from my fourth month of blogging, taken by me in icy waters at Mecox Bay.  The ice looked slushy, and I imagined I was going to sail through it like planing through a margarita.  A few seconds later my board had long slits cut through the bottom by the ice.)

Winter Rules: Special Puffin Report to Windsurfing Magazine

Coming soon to a mailbox or newsstand near you:  The April issue of Windsurfing Magazine, featuring their "Winter Rocks!" coverage of what windsurfers on Long Island have known for some time:  there's some great windsurfing to be had when there's snow on the ground.  There are articles on sailing by glaciers, sailing Lake Superior in winter, sailing on snow, profiles of some heavy duty neoprene, and the jewel: a piece on winter do's and don'ts, written by the editorial staff of The Peconic Puffin and includes photos by Long Island legends Pete Roesch and "Peconic Jeff" Schultz.   In particular check out Pete's tremendous shot (page 24) of Brook Cuddy wading through a field of ice to catch some north shore (Long Island) action!