The Peconic Puffin Windsurfing Blog

“We’ll be talking about that session for years!”

Driving home following the most magnificent session I’ve had in recent memory, I felt high.   I go to yoga classes these days, and after a good one there’s a distinct blissfull buzz and a heightened awareness of life.   After Saturday’s wave session at Tiana I felt that way x5.

No less that John “he only sails when it’s perfect” Natalie said “we’ll be talking about that session for years."  Bill Barber said the same thing.    On 4.2-4.7 sails (me on a 4.5) the waves were clean and organized, four to five feet.   The inside was forgiving, the outside was serving up perfect swell to jibe off of, the outbound ramps (starboard) were so well mannered that port-jump only chumps like me were catching good air, and it all hung together beautifully.   We don’t get WSW winds often, but it’s a good bet that the next time we do, we’ll be at Tiana.

This will be a short post because I’ll nauseate readers with more “it was so freakin’ beautiful man” blather.   Some personal moments of note include having Scott say “nice jump” after one of my starboard jumps.     I’m not being humble…I suck jumping on starboard.   I was thrilled to catch what seemed like decent air, but I thought it might have been mostly in my head.  

Of course there was another jump, after which John Natalie asked what unusual freestyle trick was I attempting, because he’d never seen such a prodigious mess.  I told him “no, that’s just me trying to fly the board on starboard."  A reality check.

Lastly, I had one jibe off of swell on the outside (I’d swear it was eight feet, but I’m sure it was five max) in which the wind went away but a year of SUP surfing (and Fisherman’s advice: “get out of the footstraps and work that board”) lead to my surfing down a steep, muscular wave that sent me shooting  down the line.   Adrenaline stoked bliss.

The sesh was exquisite.   In a state of near exhaustion I said “one more run” no less than eight times.   Who caught it?   The blessed, in alphabetical order: Bill,  Bruce, CD, Fisherman, John N, Jon Ford, Peconic Jeff, Scott, and your humble editor.  The Wolf came by with his fractured rib to watch.     

Sometimes the wind and wave gods giveth most generously.  Thank you thank you thank you.

Andy Brandt...Happy Belated Birthday!

Yesterday was the birthday of the mighty windsurfing instructor/guru/obsessed lunatic/freestyle evanglist/racing master and chief cook and bottle washer for ABK Boardsports, Andy Brandt.   We wish him a happy and healthy one.  In his dotage Andy has begun to forget which side of the sail he belongs on.

The Sebonac Bounceback

A story is told

From days of old

How the wind comes back at Sebonac.

If it dies around three

You’re a fool to flee

‘cause it’s gonna crank late at Sebonac.

Bill and Scott were telling me about this phenomenon as we warmed up in the van.   It had been pretty darn windy (right before it died I was fully lit on a 4.5 and 77 liters of love) but then the wind dropped big time.   After an hour it slowly began to creep back, and the assembled sailors (Frank, Christian, Peconic Jeff, Jeff Slechta, Fisherman) began pulling out big boards and tried to sail the small sails they’d had rigged.   I got on my JP 109 with the 4.5 and had two thoughts: 

“I don’t know about this,” and

“I’m cold.  I’m gonna call it a day.”

And thus I became the wind sacrifice.   As soon as I was changed, and the 4.5 in its bag, it began honking.  4.2 was the call as Sebonac became whitecap city.    I still had the shivers, though, and as I’d had a decent session already I left with a smile, knowing I’d done my wind sacrifice duty.

Jan is Up, the Wolf is Down

“You could say ‘one Jan is back on the water, but the other is off,’” the Wolf said to me, shortly after telling me he’d fractured a rib.   The Wolf is Dutch, and while we call him John (when we aren’t Wolf talking) his first name is actually Jan.   And Jan busted a rib in a hard fall two weeks ago…he’s off the water possibly for the rest of 2010.   The Wolf gets fidgety if he's off the water for three DAYS...you can bet that as soon as he's remotely close to being able to sail or paddle, he'll be in his 5/3.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that "the other Jan"…Jan of Jan and Bruce…well Jan is back on the water after swapping in a new knee and new hip and doing plenty of rehab.   I had last seen Jan late in 2009, walking with a cane (to the launch at Gardiners...walk no, shred yes!) but now she's been seen tearing it up at Gardiners and Mattituck and Iron Pier.

New equipment rules!  If only the Wolf could score a Chinook Rib.

(Photo of Jan at Goff by Peconic Jeff)

Two Days O’Nuke at Iron Pier

 

I was whining like a bad Cabernet…

“I hate Iron Pier.   I’m having no fun at all!

They looked at me with scorn and derision.

 “I can never get comfortable here.  I’m going to Sebonac Inlet.”

Scott had had enough of my nonsense.  “If you’re not having loads of fun right now, something else is wrong.”

I hate Scott.  But it was possible he had a point.   All around me people were shredding the living daylights out of the incredible winds blowing from the northwest.   Frank, Bill, Jan, Bruce, Fisherman, four Johns (Ford, Hulse, CPU and Natalie) Dr. Pain, Peconic Jeff and Scott were all having a great time.  Heck, the John Natalie rule is he only sails when conditions are perfect, so what was wrong with me?

I decided to futz with my sail (a 3.4).  Maybe it needed another inch of outhaul?  An inch of additional outhaul on a 3.4 is like a foot of outhaul on a 5.0, but I was crazy overpowered.  So I yanked, then launched, mostly to prove to myself how much I hated Iron Pier…and found myself  suddenly in control…as much control as one has overpowered on a 3.4.   I jumped some jumps, jibed some jibes, banked off of the five foot swell on the outside, then came back to shore to make a few minor adjustments.

“I LOVE Iron Pier,” I told Scott.

What a day Friday was!   It was nuking…definitely one of the windiest sessions of my life.  Besides needing the extra foot of outhaul, Jon Ford and Bill Barber were on 3’s…which meant I should have probably been on a 2.8.     I had two jumps in which I hit the ramp heading slightly upwind, when gusts hit me mid-air and turned the jumps into back-loop attempts.   I bailed on one, and stayed with the other (in which I got  more than ¾ around)…I found sticking with it a much more comfortable landing.

So as I was saying the winds were big (a photographer from RiverheadLocal.com came out to document the craziness) people were jumping and leaping everywhere, and through it all the mad chimp cackle of Scott could be heard.  At about 3PM the wind strengthened (really) and everybody came in.  40mph gusts are a bit much.

Saturday the wind was a bit more onshore (bad) but it was lighter (the same 3 meter sails from Friday were no longer overpowered) and I was loving Iron Pier again, along with many of the same folks from Friday, plus CD.   I wrote “bad” after “more onshore” above ‘cause that’s what all the good guys were saying, but personally I found things to be quite agreeable.  Perhaps it was the light winds…at one point I had to rig up to (gag) a 4.0.   When 4.0 is for the lighter winds, you know it’s blowing.

It was a great pair of days at the pier.   You know I love the Pier!



(All photos except for Jon Ford ripping a jibe are borrowed from Riverheadlocal.com's photo essay of Friday's sesh, taken by Peter Blasl.  Great shots...thanks for stopping by, Peter!   Jon's jibe photo by Jeff Schultz.)

The Legend of Frank and Lauralee

In the beginning, a friend invited me to try windsurfing.  I uphauled a sail, went forward a few feet, and then fell.   But it was Good, so I wanted more.

I was invited to join a share house full of windsurfers, and have the opportunity to learn the sport from them whilst they sailed obsessively.  It seemed a great idea, and I did, and it was Good.

The thing was, these guys were in a bit of a technique cocoon.   I’d fallen in with a crowd for whom the big goals were waterstarting and sailing in the footstraps, hooked in.    Once these skills were attained, you were then supposed to buy the fastest slalom board on God’s wet earth, fit it with a G-10 race fin, buy a couple of multicammed race sails, and shoot like a bat out of hell across the Little Peconic Bay.    After reaching 2-3 miles, you’d fall, kick the gear around, waterstart in the other direction, and return to the beach.

And it was Good.  

There was one guy who talked about tacking and jibing (Steve) but he tended to sail off by himself, so I happily hung with the Screaming Reach set (on my Seatrend 9-5 with Sailworks Race sails…not that I could waterstart very well) until one day at the end of my second year Steve invited two windsurfing friends over to join us on the water.   We met Frank and Lauralee.

Frank and Lauralee rigged their sails, took off on their boards, sailed a ways out, and then carved simultaneous jibes.  Their sails flipped gracefully and they sailed back towards the beach, where they jibed again.

It was so Very Good.  But “jibe”?  What is that?

The rest of us got on our gear, shot out onto the water at our usual breakneck speed, did our usual crash/kick the gear around/waterstart/return thing, while the glorious reach and jibe demonstration went on just next to us.

Back on the beach, Lauralee looked at us and said “You people don’t know how to windsurf!”   All my friends became defensive, but I had a big grin. “Damn right” I thought..we sure as sugar don’t do what you guys are doing.    It seemed like great news to me:  I already loved the windsurfing I knew, and while I thought I was good (on account of my screaming reaches and waterstarts) I’d just found out that I Sucked, and there was tons more to learn!   It was a great day, and I began sailing behind Steve, who was working on improving his own jibe (who knew?) and was happy to have a learning buddy

It was Good.

I hadn’t spoken to Lauralee in the ensuing seventeen years, but when she showed up with Frank at Tiana last Sunday I couldn’t wait to say Hi and tell her how she played a part in getting me to learn to windsurf well (or at least suck less.)   We had a good laugh flashing back to the day.

Thanks again Lauralee!

We Shred With The Fishes At Tiana

The waves may have only been waist high and mushy, but what they lacked in size was more than made up for by friendly, playful, sunny conditions that had everyone on the water grinning like kids.   Even the bluefish had a good time.

We’d been sailing for about 20 minutes when all of a sudden there were torpedos everywhere.   Three feet long, it seemed like there were a thousand blues coming through the Tiana waters.   Both Jeff and I saw bluefish in the waves backlit by sunlight…like the photos of dolphin you sometimes see, but Long Island style.   There are stories of windsurfers being bitten by blues when they’re schooling and in a feeding frenzy (ask Bluefish Mike) but we had no troubles…only thrills.

Except for Peconic Jeff (and brief appearances by Johns Hulse and Ford) the crew were not the regulars.   We had Racer Ted (my crash mate from last year’s Fall Regatta), Christine and Sasha, and Frank Messina (along with his wife Lauralee, who along with Frank is a fixture in my personal windsurfing mythology.   That’s going to have to be a separate post, but suffice it to say that I was jazzed to see Lauralee after 18 years.)

Winds were on the light side (5.8 to 6.2 sails were the call) but steady, the inside was clean and generous, and the outside offered easy jibing off of the incoming swell.  It was one of those days when everything seemed to go right.  The only thing missing was the Wolf, He Who Never Misses a Session.  John took a hard fall a few days ago and is recovering from a dinged rib.   That should be a separate post as well, but if it doesn't come to pass, then Get Well Soon!

Brendon's Photos of Long Island's Finest

ABK Boardsports instructor Brendon Quinn took quite a fine set of photos at last weekend's ABK clinic.   I've pulled a few of some freestylers from Brendon's Facebook page...check the link for a lot more!

(Clockwise from the top:  Vulcan George, Pete Roesch, Rich "The Deceptinator" Simon, Jake Agoos.)

 

Kooking it, Killing it at Ditch Plains

After a year of SUP surfing I thought I’d have more of a clue when it came to proper wave sailing, but there I was at Ditch, mystified.    Certainly I’m better on the waves than I was a year ago (a year ago my wave sailing was more in front of the waves than on them) but how the heck do you spot the sets in the first place?

You’re probably laughing.  And you should be.  My strategy for wave sailing has been to sail out aways, jibe, and then look over my shoulder for an oncoming set.   Jon Ford finally straightened me out at the end of yesterday’s sesh:

“Jibe on the set.   Don’t turn until you’ve spotted the waves”.

Duh.   Oh.   Oops.  I am so thick.   OBVIOUSLY!!!

I did catch one wave that I’m proud of, going down the line on a well-formed six-footer that granted me bottom turns and cutbacks and everything.    A nice, long down the line ride by my standards, I thought “I’m having a relationship with this wave!”

I must confess to my wife.

Aside from my lame antics, Jon, Jeff and Fisherman all had a great day.   Fisherman was picking them up off of “Dirt Road”,  moving on to a Ditch wave, and then sliding into Kamikaze to finish again and again…a pleasure to watch.   Jeff proclaimed that he’d maybe had his personal best wave day ever, and Jon Ford was all grins as he left the water.

Me I’m just happy to have learned the obvious about spotting sets.

(Top:  We had Ditch Plains to ourselves.  Middle: Jon Ford works "Kamikaze".  Bottom:  Fisherman and Jon try to get it through my head to sail all the way out to the sets.  Photos by Jeff.)

Around the Edges of ABK

 I had to drop out of the clinic this weekend after starting on Friday, but I did get to see enough and sail almost enough to know that it was an outstanding clinic, though overly windy for beginners.   I was with the freestyle group (packed with the regulars...Pete "the Eliminator" Roesch, Voytek, Peconic Jeff, Buddha Mike, Vulcan George Pav, The Mighty Larry Hoff, Rich Who Needs a Nickname etc).    
With plenty of 5.3-4.7 action it was rocking for the advanced students!    For the beginners...well I spoke to a woman (brand spanking new to the sport) who was successfully hitting slow jibes and tacks, but she was disgusted with her inability to handle beachstarts in gusts in her first days.   It was classic...she was so good, and thought she was so bad.

I missed Saturday completely, and sailed around the clinic with Sally on Sunday, but wish I'd had the chance to do it all.  Thanks to Andy for letting take a spin on his brand spanking new Maui Sails (I've never seen Andy so stoked about new wings...they were sweet!)  And congratulations to everyone in there!

(Andy Brandt looping photo by Jeff.   Buddha Mike Jamieson brings the enlightenment...photo by Sally.   Tanner the board dog was despondent when she had to relinquish her perch so her owner could sail...photo by the editor.)