US Nationals

I know it has been a while since the Nationals in Virginia, but I felt it does deserve a report simply because it was great. I probably had even more fun than during OBX wind the week before, and that is something considering that there was no freestyle at the Nationals.

The event was run by Dave and Melissa Kashy from their home in Virginia. The location is awesome and they did an amazing job! There were free yoga classes in the morning and group dinners every night. This made such a big difference because all of the sudden you are racing with friends instead of strangers (or at least with people you have laughed with at dinner). It brings back the fun in racing where you talk to people during a slow downwind leg on the longboard, cheer for people on their formula gear when they are planing during the long distance race, joke with friends while rounding a buoy, or get tips from the race committee on the boat when crossing the finish line.

I joined the races for open, long distance and slalom. Overall it did not work out the way it was planned because I ended up on completely different gear, but I am very happy about the way everything turned out. I was only able to compete on a longboard in the open class because Chris let me use his Fanatic cat (big thank you!).
The slalom race I ended up doing on my freestyle gear because the course was set way off shore and reports talked about 3 ft swell and 25 - 30 mph winds. Of course by the time I made it out on my Skate and the 5.0 there was maybe 15-20 mph and 1.5 ft chop. Wish I would have not been such a scaredy-cat and used the 6.3 or 7.0 race sail with a slalom board. Next time!
The long distance race was fun because I got to use a Kona for the first time ever (thank you Pam for letting me use yours!). I did not expect to have that much fun on it and ended up trying some freestyle on it after the race. Now we might have to go to the Kona Worlds in October...

Here are some pictures from the 2018 Nationals take by the amazing photographers Glenn Woodell, Wendy Podmenik Darugar, and Alain Nimri:

Longboard race start	Slalom gold fleet
On the way to the race course	The Kona fleet
The amazing location - birds view	International foil action

OBX Wind Week

I just spent two great weeks with old and new friends and lots of wind in Hatteras. The OBX-Wind week was once again a lot of fun and a great success with 220 racers on the water for the long distance races. I took Phil Soltysiak's freestyle clinic this year and learned lots of useful things and had a ton of fun sailing with the other freestylers in the group. Wind every day for two weeks made it pretty much an all around success.
.
The two standouts of the week for me were watching Boujmaa Guilloul wave sail and having all the freestylers on the water. Special thanks to Jon Sassone and Max Robinson for approaching me with tips about some moves I was working on - super useful and very much appreciated! Besides that, just seeing all the amazing freestylers on the water was a huge inspiration and helped a lot in getting a better idea about timing and wind angles.

Here are two pictures from Wyatt and Joup during the freestyle competition (picture credit IWT):

And here are some from Boujmaa at ramp 43 on the ~40mph day (picture credit IWT):

Now Peter and I are in Virginia waiting for our next adventure with the US Nationals starting on Wednesday. Once again we lucked out in finding a great place to stay. Here is our breakfast view at sunrise:

The Fisherman

I just found, for the first time, a good english translation  of one of my favorite stories from Germany. For everyone who is wondering why Peter and I choose to windsurf so much, this explains it very well.

"An investor was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The investor complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The fisherman replied, “Only a little while.”

The investor then asked him why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish.
The fisherman replied, “I have enough to support my family.”

What do you do with the rest of your time?
I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, stroll into the village each evening where I drink great beer, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.

The investor scoffed, You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would then move to the big city, and eventually New York City, to run your expanding enterprise.
But, how long will this all take?

Only 15 to 20 years.
Then what?

The investor laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich; you would make millions!”
Millions – then what?

Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you would drink great beer and play your guitar with your amigos."

Originally Written as Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral

Peter and I sailing at BIB, Texas

Industrial Sewing Machine

It's been a while since I have posted anything, and it was not due to a lack of baking or windsurfing. It is because I finally managed to get an industrial sewing machine!

I managed to find a Bernina 217 in great condition and when I am not windsurfing or baking or doing yoga, I am sewing. Peter cleared out and insulated our unfinished attic for me, so now I have a perfect sail loft up there. I got a sail fixing starter kit from Gerda who used to do sail repairs, ordered a bunch of stuff online, and have received tons of great advice from Bob who taught me how to fix sails this spring in Texas and is patiently answering emails with questions that came up sewing sail materials.

I started out making some bags out of old sails, neoprene, and sailcloth to get a feeling for the new machine and for sewing with sail materials. I absolutely love the machine since it sews so much nicer than the little plastic home sewing machine I used before. Fixing sails still takes some time as I have only done 2 by myself so far, but I am happy with the result and just have to improve my efficiency. I have not taken any pictures of fixing the sails, but here are some pictures of my sewing machine, the sail loft, my self-made sewing machine cover, and a laptop bag, duffel bag, and shoulder bag I made:

Laptop bag made from neoprene and an old F2 sail

Duffel bag made from an old racing sail

The sail loft

Bernina 217

Shoulder bag

Cover made from old windsurfing shirts

Lift Off

I didn't feel like doing freestyle today in cold and rainy weather and decided to join Peter for some slalom action in East Bay instead. I went out on my 89l slalom board, the 5.6 race sail, and a 32 pointer fin. And managed to sail almost 4 runs before my session was cut short by a "spectacular catapult" (Peter's words).

I am not really sure what happened, but think it was a combination of using the waist harness the first time on race gear, and having a fin that was a bit too big. I got the waist harness idea from seeing a few of the better guys using it with slalom gear and thought I'd give it a try. I was perfectly fine, planing along in a straight line at around 50 km/h when a gust hit. I believe the board must have railed up due to the big fin (which I had noticed before but was being too lazy to change), and that in combination with the waist harness made it impossible for me to hold the sail down. The landing was pretty hard and I managed to hit the mast with the side of my head which has now a lump and a hot swollen ear. It also took me 10 minutes to get back up on the board due to the mast sleeve being full of water and me needing to figure out how to deal with that. On the positive side I learned how to water start a sail where I could not even push the tip out of the water, and to use a smaller fin and the seat harness for speed sailing in the future. The trick for water starting was to put the mast on the back of the board. Even though the boom did not touch it this gave it enough lift that I managed to push the tip up int the air to drain the mast sleeve.

Luckily I am fine except for a slight headache and all our gear survived! The good news is this combo has quite a bit of potential as I managed to hit 29 knots in the few runs before I crashed while I was still changing stuff around and not even doing any speed runs.

Dahab: Freestyle, Friendliness, Cats and Sun

If you don't know where to go for your next windsurfing vacation: Go to Dahab, Egypt! We just came back from an amazing trip to this place and pretty much everything about it was great. It was warm, it was sunny, it was windy, the people were amazing, the food was good, ...

There were a few things however that made Dahab an outstanding place to be in my opinion:
1.) Lots of company from other freestylers on the water. And every level - you see people practicing duck jibes, trying their first Vulcans, Loops and Flakas, going for Backloops and Shakas in the waves, and laying down massive Konos and Skopus.
2.) The weather: It is always warm, but never feels hot due to the low humidity. I had plenty of 3.7 and 4.2 days even though it is supposedly windier in the summer. And it is cool enough at night that you can sleep comfortably.
3.) The genuinely nice people. Almost everyone you meet has a genuine friendliness about them that you just don't experience in most other places. People that had a very hard time over the past few years show a happiness and care in a way that you would not see in the USA where people tend to put themselves first, or in Germany where complaining seems to be standard procedure (yes, I know there are exceptions).
4.) The town itself. Dahab has an amazing vibe and is a great place to just hang out, go snorkeling, or go for food. This is to the point where I did not mind a non-windy day and would just look forward to sitting on a beachfront cafe and snorkel to watch the colorful fish. It is also very safe (no idea why they still have some travel warnings up) and last but not least it is also cheap.
5.) The cats. If you like cats this is the place to be. There are soooo many cats! They look great, not like the wild cats in the Caribbean, they come to you and cuddle or play, but they also stay away if you don't want them there.

I would highly recommend staying in an apartment instead of a hotel, just because you get to go out to town for food instead of being stuck in a hotel with the same buffet every night. We stayed with Toby and Fiona from Dahab Holidays in one of their amazing apartments and absolutely loved it! The place is great and Fi and Toby make it superb by being amazing hosts.
We rented our windsurf gear from Dahab Stars, who also made the extra great effort to take care of everything. Ahmed even managed to find a 90l Skate for me - his own board, which he let me use simply because I have the same one at home!

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Swing in one of the cafes

Relaxing at dinner

I just like this pic

Lemon-mint and strawberry juice at sunset

Afternoon cafe at the water

I love cats!

Where is the fish?

Reef view while snorkeling

Chilling at the 3 pools

Cafe front in Dahab

Our windsurf rental place

Sunset over the red mountains

Outside view of our beautiful apartment

Red mountains and windsurfer

Learning about Sail Repairs

Yesterday morning I got a 4 hour lesson on how to repair sails!
When dropping off my 5.0 and 4.2 for some new panels, Bob offered to watch and help with repairing them. I am so glad Peter and I joined him for fixing my 5.0 - I learned a ton and it was very useful to learn this hands on instead of just by reading and trial and error.

Both of my sails do have many crinkles and small cuts where the panel crunches up when rigging. It was time to get them fixed, and lucky as I am here is this guy in Texas that has repaired around 8000 sails and he is offering his input! My 5.0 got two new panels, and I feel like I can now fix my own sails if I just get a good sewing machine for it. Huge thanks to Bob for his patience and advice! Here are some pictures that Peter took:

Vulcan Inspiration

Yesterday I finally had company from Mark for some new school freestyle practice on the water at BIB. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine, warm water and averages of 25-30mph for most of the day. The best part of the day was seeing Mark complete his first Vulcan - congratulations!!!

It was super inspiring to see him out there practicing Vulcans and then making one. Funnily I had my best Vulcan tries almost always directly after seeing a good try from Mark. I think a big part of learning new school freestyle is having others out sailing and practicing with you - it psychs you up, shows you how it is done, and that the crashes are not as bad as they look.
Here is a picture Peter took of Mark during takeoff:

Overpowered

It's windy here in Corpus Christi! And I mean really windy. I have no idea where the wind comes from, the forecast never shows any wind until a day or two in advance. And even then the prediction is usually really low. The wind meter is the same. Today it read averages of 20-25mph and I was lit on my 4.2. I have yet to figure out how to rig the right sail to not end up lit like sh*t. Well, I had one underpowered day on my 5.0.

Here's a short recap:
Sailing day 1: Just arrived, rigged the 5.0, should have been on the 4.2.
Sailing day 2: 5.0 again. This way my only underpowered day. Still nice in warm temps and water.
Sailing day 3: Light wind freestyle in almost planing conditions and Lycra - yes it was that warm!
(Sailing) day 4: Tried to do speed, on the 4.7 TR7 and the 89l Falcon. Injured my triceps and ended up walking back a little more than 1 mile. Crazy windy - I had problems carrying my gear into the water and ended up dragging it in. Guess I should have rigged the 3.4...
Sailing day 5: My triceps still hurts, so I think I am taking it slow rigging the 4.2 when everybody else is on way larger stuff. I end up rigging down to the 3.7 and could have sailed the 3.4 easy.
Sailing day 6: The readings show 18mph, I rig my 5.0 and have a couple of normal-powered runs until the wind picks up again. It was supposed to go down. I stay on the 5.0 but should have rigged down to the 4.5.
Sailing day 7: Well, it was supposed to be windy. But not that much. It kind of looks like 4.5, I rig the 4.2, but end up contemplating to rig down to the 3.7 or 3.4 the whole day while sailing. Just the last hour the wind drops a little and I can finally really try some stuff instead of just pretending to try and getting slammed.

If you've never been to North Padre Island for windsurfing and you windsurf you need to go. Last year I was sore for the first 4 weeks because it was so windy. We planed pretty much every second day. From how it is shaping up, this year seems to be no different or even windier. Peter has already set 3 new personal bests speed-sailing in the last 7 sessions.

Here are a few pictures of the sailing spot and conditions:

The view of the bay on a windy day at Bird Island Basin (the bay is shallow, you can stand almost e

View of our sailing spot from the water

It windy  - again

I on my 4.2

Worldwinds - awesome place with great rental equipment

Howdy Texas!

We made it!
After a 2 day driving marathon we arrived on North Padre Island to do what? Windsurf, of course! Having driven for more than 24 hours straight we quickly unloaded some stuff and went to the beach. Wind readings showed 21 mph with temperatures around 23 degrees Celsius (~75F), the water being almost as warm.
Not trusting my instincts after driving so long I asked for advice on what to rig and ended up rigging my 5.0 after seeing people out on what seemed to be mostly between 5.5 and 6.5. I believe the wind picked up just when I rigged, but I should have probably listened to Peter who rigged his 5.6 which would have meant 4.2 or 4.5 for me. I ended up pretty overpowered but was as usual too lazy to re-rig and simply sailed what I was on. Of course this meant lots of sore muscles the next day, but that was curable by going sailing again. The session on the second day was also on the 5.0, but mostly underpowered and involved lots of pumping. And since it it a cold day today here in Texas (16 degrees Celsius = 60 F), this means I get to soak my tired muscles in our private hot tub in a few minutes ;)

Here are a few pictures from what we left behind on Cape Cod, I in the car during a short ferry ride, and of course our hot tub:

Intimidating Fun at Corporation

A windy, sunny Saturday - what else would we do except go windsurfing. So off we went, but instead of our usual NW spots we decided to check out Corporation. I recently fell back in love with my custom wave board shaped by Mark Angulo and really wanted to sail it in some waves where it belongs.
Usually we don't go wave sailing in waves that are taller than I, and definitely not in December and 5 degrees Celsius (40 F) temperatures, so this was a bit intimidating today. The around 30 mph averages did not make it more comfortable either and we almost decided to go somewhere else after arriving and looking out at the water and the blowing sand. But since I had said I wanted to sail in waves, and there definitely were some waves, I figured I had to rig up and at least give it a try. It was a surprising amount of fun and I am glad we ended up sailing in Corporation! Big thanks to everyone who came out to play, and especially to Peter who went with me even though he is not a big fan of Corporation. He took a few pictures of me on my last run in:

Cape Cod in November

Well, I did want to write about the pear cheesecake I made, but looking at my pictures from this month, I found some nice ones I wanted to share with you. Last Sunday we had a great day of windsurfing at Kalmus in mid 30mph winds. I ended up sailing on my smallest gear - my 3.4 sail and the 72l Angulo wave board. There are no great waves in Kalmus, so the board might have been a bit mismatched, but I had a ton of fun on it! After being out on my 90l Skate two days before in Chapin and trying to get the rails to catch in the waves, I really wanted to try my wave board again and put it back in the van. It felt amazing - so responsive and it picks up amazing speed going down the waves! There is no picture of me sailing, but I managed to hand my camera to someone to take a picture of 4 of us in the Ianovated wetsuit that kept us warm this day:

Peter, I, Jay and Alex in our Ianovated suits

Exhausting myself for several hours on Sunday I had a little cold on Tuesday and just walked along the beach while Peter sailed In Cape Cod Bay. Here are a few pictures from the beach for all of those that have never been on Cape Cod: