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.
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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:

Raspberry Cake and Paddle Cover

I finally got back to my sewing machine and made something useful for our upcoming trip to Hatteras: a paddle cover. I always worried about my carbon paddle getting all scratched up when throwing it in the van with all the other stuff, so using an old F2 sail, some neoprene, a velcro strap from an old windsurfing boot, and polypropylene webbing, this paddle cover was created in an afternoon:

Also, here is a quick picture of the cake I made for Easter (or of what was left when I managed to take a picture):

It is a "Käsesahnetorte mit Himbeeren und Mandelbiskuit", which roughly translates to greek yogurt and cream cake with raspberry and almond sponge cake.