Jibing Into Blackness

Friday afternoon at South Jamesport…warm and very windy.   Scott, Bill Barber, the Wolf and I had been sailing about an hour on 5.2’s/5.3’s (the Wolf should have been on his trusty 4.7 but he didn’t have it with him…who expected so much wind in late July?)  We’d switched to our smallest boards (me on 77 liters of Fanatic Freewave happiness) and were enjoying the power in SJ’s rampalicious center section, but when CD and Jon Ford arrived, the wind ratcheted up and it was time for a smaller sail.

“What are you rigging?” Jon asked.

“4.5,” I replied.   The newcomers were stoked for the wind.

But when I walked down to the water and took off like a shot from the beach, all the other guys were saying “where is he going?  What about the thunder cell warning?”

Yeah, what about that?   I did hear someone mention that John Hulse reported storms in the area, but the skies looked fine to me, and I figured we’d see anything coming far enough in advance to get in off the water with time to spare. 

That was true.

The hole in this plan was I didn’t look north when I doing my thinking.

So I took off like a shot from the beach, blasting south onto the Peconic, and life was great.  I was powered, then well-powered, then lit!  I had made the right choice rigging down, was feeling good about myself for doing so, and then considered crossing the bay to check out the flats on the other side by Red Cedar Point (which Bill Barber reported as excellent.)   But seeing as how a storm might eventually come along I decided that a crossing wasn’t the best idea.   So halfway across the bay I jibed.   Carved, flipped the rig, caught the rig, hooked in, and looked forward to from whence I’d came.

There was a wall of blackness behind the North Fork.   And the wall was moving south fast, right at me.

No no no no no I screwed up damn damn damn.

I tilted the rig back, closed the gap, beared off slightly in search of the absolutely fastest point of sail.   I was not concerned with getting back to the South Jamesport beach.   I just wanted to get off the water as fast as the wind would take me.

Ahead things were getting blacker and blacker.  Stephen Spielberg gave the cue, and low black clouds began swirling in front of the advancing wall.

I was flying like a bat out of hell towards the beach, but I knew the wind could veer or shut off any second, and me on 77 liters was going to have no chance at all shlogging to beat the lightning coming to consume me.

As it turned out I had so much power that I did sail back to the launch, where the guys had cleared their gear from the beach and were all laughingly asking me what the duck I’d been thinking.  They’d all seen the storm.

The cell passed overhead, and five minutes later we had no wind.  Jon Ford continued to put on his wetsuit, deciding that derigging in the rain might be more enjoyable in neoprene.   I whined about the lack of wind, and loaded a local radar link into my cell phone.

Comments

[scooper]

Nice story! I almost felt like I was there. In this case that wasn't a good feeling.

[Andy]

:) congrats on staying alive!

[Michael]

Thanks bro! It felt good to get off the water...how often do any of us say that?

A few years ago NEWJ had a great photo of a giant waterspout out in the Pamlico Sound, and several windsurfers could be seen sailing towards it. I believe the caption was "Questioning the wisdom of one more run."

Truly.