It finally rained in Portland and Seattle, knocking down the smoke from the BC wildfires. Rain in Troutdale Sunday morning, sunny and cranking at The Hook. You gotta love physics.
Both kids really enjoyed the weekend, lots of progress with 4 straight days on the water.
L likes a destination. Point her to a landmark, and she’ll get there. Good skill. Sustained a wrist sprain, took her out of action for Sunday.
B likes unlocking new moves. I gave them both a crash course on beach starts, and B and his intrepid instructor, E_, got it worked out, and B got 3 beach starts under his belt. Achievement unlocked! 🙂 Looking really good on tacks and gybes too.
My sailing and I had a frustrating and expensive, but ultimately good weekend together.
I had a superlative weekend with the kids.
Fri, arrive in time for lesson, fed and in swimsuits &c. Rig 5.8m, as I am planning to put the 7.0m in for repair. The wind is really fluky around the east side of the bridge. Couple of hard landings, and the 5.8 needed to go in for surgery, too. I left the 5.8 there, but kept the 7.0, in case I wanted to sail it during the weekend.
Sat, picked up a Bic Electric Rock, of all things, at a CGWA swap meet. Twenty bucks. It looks to be in perfect shape. Immediately took the kids out on the $20 board to teach them beach starts. They were thrilled. It was blowing pretty good at the Hook for a morning session, river is quite low these days, it’s shallow quite far out. It was building all afternoon, by 2pm it was going pretty good. I rigged the 5.0, as it was clearly not 7.0 weather, and I didn’t have the 5.8.
This is the best session I can ever remember on that sail. The yellow single-cam 5.0 is pretty easy to rig, I keep waffling over which mast to use with it, 430 or 460. I have just never really been out with it when it sings. This was also not one of those days. But, I was not overpowered, I could get in the harness lines and lean into them. There were moments of planing. Some might argue that a lighter, smaller board would have planed up in those conditions. I have never thought of the Rock as a slow planer, but I do often take it out in crazy conditions with a really big sail. I still don’t have a comfort level with the F2 yet. Only tried it once, with the 5.8, … ahem. (see above)
In any case, I was up and sailing, and doing the upwind slog thing, I really need to trust the footstraps. Had to do a couple of long upwind reaches to get back to the rope line, then don’t get me started with the lagoon.
But the 5.0 performed well. I think I had it set up for the short mast; I will have to re-rig everything and check it out. Good amount of pull, reasonably well balanced with the harness, Rock brought us right back home.
Saturday night, Troutdale. Raining in the morning, nice, the smoke in the air has been driving me bonkers for weeks.
Sunday morning, see above. Sunday afternoon, L sits out, B and E_ have a killer private lesson, and B just starts really nailing moves. Nice. It was cranking in the morning, died way off (I decided not to sail, in favor of watching the magic and taking lots of wobbly home video), and was slowly building in HR at the end of class.
We decided to drive out to Celilo, to see if it was blowing, and as I have habitually been stopping there all summer. Of course, C_ and M_ were there, having just finished a cool session. It was really starting to pick up. Only a couple of windsurfers on the water, good sized swell all the way across. They convinced me to try the E-Rock. I’ve never sailed a board that small. 102L. 😮 I rigged the 4.5; I’d forgotten that it had purple battens. Looks really good with the purple Chinook booms.
I set out in a lot of wind, and was amazed to find that I was just able to sail. The board was light and responsive, there was never a worry of sinking it. It was survival sailing; spent some time out of the harness, just making sure I wasn’t going to get catapulted. I had a fairly controlled stop, and was having a bit of a rough time getting started after a waterstart. The board was rounding up sharply. I made it back in (a bit upwind of the launch, it was like that). C_ and M_ helped me get the rig back to shore, and they had some immediate setup fixes. Mast base forward, keep the nose off the wind. Fin further back and shimmed, better handling? I went back out, and it was 100% better. The fin stuck, so I could carve a bit on it, and the nose stayed in place during waterstarts. Very nice; thanks guys! I went out one last time, with L filming, one long 5min shot of me sailing out, waterstarting, and sailing back, very cool. Thanks, L!
A long but successful day. Sleep only 13 mi away, in The Dalles. yay!
Monday, morning class, so only a quick beach starting drill before lesson started. I took the 5.0 again, and Rock again, and did not have a good time. The Wells Island lull really sucks a lot. On the way out of town, drop by Sailworks to drop off the 7.0m for repair (my baby! 😮 ), and they first, convince me that I need a new 7.0m race sail, of ~15y newer vintage, and second, hand back the already-repaired 5.8. Now, are they trying to get me into a full set of Sailworks sails? sure. Are they going to be happy seeing their sail out on the water again? Yep. Will I enjoy the new sail? Perhaps. Let me get it out there for awhile.
I’m never selling the Oceanic 7.0m. Dave Russell made it especially for me. We’ve been through a lot together. And the sail isn’t broken, it just needs some repair and love. But the 5.8m was a wakeup call. 15yo adhesive isn’t what it used to be.
So I’ll give the new sail a try.
New sail, new board… I think I’m beginning to grok windsurfing again.
I am still not finding the footstraps. Hm.