Bitter Acrimony at ABK Napeague Clinic (not really)

The accusations flew.

“You ruined me!”  George accused Pete.
“You Vulcan like a starfish!” Pete hurled back.

It got ugly fast at Friday’s ABK clinic.

Okay not really, as Pete and George are good friends and were having a great time during the introductions at the windsurfing clinic on Friday.    Still, the talk did fly.

Pete:  "And he does his starfish Vulcan on both tacks!"
George:  "You gotta…if you don’t practice on both tacks you end up like Mike Burns!"

If you don't know who Mike Burns is, he's the 2008 King of the East festival champion, the best freestyle windsurfer on Long Island.   He may only throw certain moves on certain tacks, but “Ending up like Mike Burns” was kinda the reason most of us were at the clinic (us being Jason, Wilson, George Pav, Peconic Jeff, Buddha Mike, The Mighty Larry Hoff, Rich Simons, Voytek and your editor.)  So George's comment had us all crosseyed.  George knows how to be funny.

Anyhow this was just the freestyle mob, a small part of the clinic who were enjoying the sunny, windy, and warm conditions, of which ABK’s Ed, Tom, Brendon and Andy Brandt were exclaiming how they’d never seen Long Island be windy AND warm at the same time…where was the howling misery?  

But soon we were punished, as the forecast of windy building to windier did a 180 (hey there’s a freestyle group at the clinic) so the afternoon ended up as strictly light wind nonplaning…except for Mike Burns (the cautionary tale) who was planing and throwing roto-spocks and whatever, but only on one tack.

I’m excited about tomorrow.

(Photo:  ABK-meister Andy Brandt with Long Island's finest, Mike Burns, who may not be able to perform miracles on both port and starboard.)

Comments

[mike burns]

It was so great seeing so many people not only listening, but hanging on every word of Andy's looping instructions when I pulled into Napeague. While I was rigging, everybody was raving over the tips that they got from Andy and how they improved already!

And yes, I'm one sided. I'm perfectly happy being one sided. It's true many of the harder moves I can only do on one tack. But step back and think. It takes just as long to learn to vulcan on port as it does on starboard. Why not try vulcans on port and shuvit's on starboard? It will double your trickery in half the time!

Here's some proof that being one-sided, isn't necessarily one-sided at all. And yes, every single move in this video, I can only do on the tack I'm doing here, but if I wasn't doing it on only one tack, then half the moves wouldn't be there in the first place: http://vimeo.com/4840967/

[Dennis]

It was only windy AND warm because I wasn't there. Not that much wind this weekend because I can go sailing this weekend.

oh well, hope you all have fun and learn alot at ABK, I did last weekend (no wind then either).

[Chachi]

I want to be like Mike! I personally don't see the appeal in swinging (vulcans) both ways.

[Michael]

No wind, Dennis? Were you at the same clinic that I heard all the racing stories from? We're going to have a special report on that clinic soon, and wind will be in it ('cause that's what people told me they had for the slalom races!)

And of course we had wind this weekend too...

[Dennis]

Michael,
There was wind for the racing clinic weekend on Friday. Of course, I could only make it for Sat and Sun. But, it was fun because the light wind called for tactical light air racing.
Glad you all had wind for the freestyle weekend.