Bonnie, Queen of the Kayak Bloggers and author of Frogma, has passed away after a battle with cancer. Years ago when a loose network of New York waterbloggers…windsurfers, kayakers, tug boat captains, nautical artists etc. formed, Bonnie pulled together a waterblogfest (or two or three. )
She was a wonderful and mad illustrator and a champion of good things happening on the water. It was a privilege to know her. Thanks for everything Bonnie!
(Top: Bonnie in her element. She described her blog as "Being the Continuing Adventures of a Woman and her Trusty Kayak in New York Harbor, the Hudson River, and Beyond."
Middle: Bonnie's artistic response to my mentioning windsurfing boards with flappers (the anti-cavitation tail device).
Bottom: Self portrait with dolphin. Wherever Bonnie is I hope it's like this.
Jace Panebianco (a Peconic Puffin since 1993) has a new film out on the origins of windsurfing, Broken Molds. The film:
"is the complicated origin story of windsurfing; from its humble beginnings to becoming the fastest growing sport in the World. This is the story of a family drama challenged by cancer, lawsuits and broken friendships. Broken Molds shows how windsurfing gave birth to many of the sports on the water today.
Featuring; Gerry Lopez, Laird Hamilton, Matt Schweitzer, Kai Lenny, Robby Naish, Jamie O’Brien, Zane Schweitzer and the world's best water athletes."
It will be screened this Friday, November 26th at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton. Tickets must be purchased in advance...no ticket sales at the museum are taking place.
New light is promised to be shed on windsurfing's history. The geeks among us generally know the 101...that Newman Darby invented a windsurfer around 1966, which failed commercially, then about five years later Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer independently came up with a much better version that was a commercial success (Drake later said he thought of himself not as the inventor but the re-inventor).
We shall see! In any event the trailer promises some heavy water action filmed recently, and interviews with some amazing waterpeople. So check it out!
I have a category for "Cold Weather Windsurfing" but I don't have one for when it's sunny, warm, and we're not in the Carib. Could use one for yesterday's sesh! Me Scott Pav the Wolf (plus Jon Ford to the rescue and Artie ever on the way) in sunny 4.7 conditions. "This is a good direction for South Jamesport" Scott proclaimed, with the wind more southerly than we usually sail there (Mattituck is the more common choice.). Scott arrived first and had a ripping 5.4 session before rigging down, as the Wolf and I put up 4.7's. The day featured its share of foibles (it's windsurfing after all) including:
Me breaking a fin on the sunken jetty just west of the launch.
The Wolf getting caught up in currents, struggling with waterstarting until he finally landed way down the beach, to be picked up by Jonathan.
A seagull pecking on George Pav's sail until George had to charge to get the bird to leave.
Set to a a slow cool cover of the Beatles "Come Together" is quite a cinematic piece of work for Mercedes Benz. The upshot of the commercial is that all Mercedes factories in Germany are planned to be powered solely by renewable resources by 2022 (next year). In the many bits of imagery in the spot is a few seconds of a man getting into his wetsuit, with a rigged sail and board by his feet. No resort sailor this, the guy looks like a Long Island regular launching in April. Come together!
Walking through blowing snow yesterday in Manhattan I did not expect to run into anything windsurfy. Wrong. This tiny patch reached out to me through a shop window. Windsurfing in Malibu sounds good to me (in July)!
(I know, I know...this is pretty thin. But it's been quiet in Greater Puffindom. Haven't been on the water in two months...bad timing plus crazy temps at the moment. Still, we must prattle on!)
When I upgraded my Mac's OS recently, the new "guide to features" featured a number of windsurfing photos. Usually when you see these in frames in art shops the pictures are from the 1980's, when sails were colorful sheets of dacron or whatever. Nothing made in the last two decades. But Behold! Apple is using new shots. I didn't know Gaastra was still in business, but the boards in their photos are definitely late model freestyle rides. Noyce.
Forgot to work this into my last post about Robby, so here it is solo: Back in the early 1990's when the "puffins" were a group of windsurfers, their SO's, children and friends living in summer share houses and sailing on the Little Peconic Bay, the "Puffin House" was the center of activity (at least in my demented mind) while The Peconic Puffin was a weekly three-page newsletter about our exploits. Somewhere along the line OG Puffin Steve managed to bend Robby's ear about the Peconic Puffins, and get his puffin t-shirt autographed. Twenty plus years later Steve wore the shirt to an ABK after-clinic dinner, where I snapped this photo. Me being the guy I am, it didn't even occur to me to include Steve's mug. Still...the shirt!
From the new-to-the-Puffin blog Hit the Wave comes this tremendous post… a fantastic collection of windsurfing board catalogs, not only from brands I know (F2, Fanatic, Mistral, Bic, Tiga, RRD etc) but from over a dozen I’ve never or only barely heard of (Windspeed, Ten Cate, Star Surf, Sainval, Pacific, Oceanite, HiWings, Magnum, Klepper etc…too many for me to list.) A must to check out. The post isn't new (originally published 2011) but it's new to us!
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