EBay 2day

[windkid]

Sunday, Mother's Day,


Ok, either you were at Durand or I assume that you were puckering up to your DNA source.

In any case here's the E Bay report.


I arrived a little before noon and the wind was blowing 23-30 side on shore. By the time I rigged my 5.5 the sun was shining and the white caps were as predictable as the highlights in the hair of a Henriette Honey. Ken arrived and rigged a 4.6. for his legendary 101.

My 5.5 worked but I couldn't sheet in to save my live. Time and time again I found myself flying downwind, sheeted out and nutstin' in wondering "what the hell do I d now?" before I was launched off a whipped cream slingshot into the drink. Meanwhile Ken envied my 5.5 as he planed downwind to his long walk home along the beach.

I switched to a 4.7 and my 90 liter JP and finally got dialed in. Windsurfing Ninja Nirvana. Thanks to the grace of the waves I managed to actually carve a jibe, not so much from skill as the benevolent hand of God tolerating my "man speck" on his watery palm as I fumbled awestruck to grab the boom while still planing....so sweet.

For the record the air temps were in the 40's but so was the water, the wind was relatively steady and you didn't need gloves. It is a bit of a ride, but you rig virtually next to the water and there are clean rest rooms! So how was Durand?

thankfully wd

[windkid]

nutsin? I wrote nutstin'

[windkid]

ok how about crappin'

[waterauthorityrick]

As some may know Dr. Richard Miller and myself drove to Lake Erie for some wave sailing late Saturday afternoon. The drive there was hair raising and from the view in the rear view mirror it was obvious that the board bag on the top of Millers van was ripping to shreads, it was as if the van hit a paper boy, luckily all the gear stayed on top. We continued using all the communications possible to keep us informed on what was happening at our destination site, ie phone updates from Windy Doug, my wife back home on the web and Iwindsurfs Wendy. The data was getting the two of us scared, with south west gusts over 45mph. We arrived onto route 5 with whitecaps as far as the eye could see and waiting at the light at Hoak's restaurant I watched as cars in the parking lot where getting sprayed by the waves crashing against the buildings break wall, and just past the restaurant the water was crashing across the 4 lane highway with chucks of driftwood to add to the fun. I could tell we weren't in Kansas anymore.

At the beach at Hamburg it was a surprise that Miller and I were the ONLY water/wind enthusiasts there; oh did I say beach my mistake over 3/4's of the beach was now in sole possession of Lake Erie. The strong winds had pushed so much water towards the Buffalo end that the water level had increased and the water was just 15-20 feet from the parking lot and the debris field was just as long. Everything from logs, roots, stairs, docks, plywood, outhouses you name it, it was floating.

We stayed in the van accessing the situation and called home to Dan Scorza who ended his phone conversation with " it's not worth risking your life over". After studying the breaking waves and pretending to launch we tried to convince ourselves that it was possible to make it out through the shore break.

I put my smallest fin in my board and went through a complete check of my gear as I slowly rigged my 3.8m sail, got suited up and shot the gap out into the the big Lake. Miller watched from shore through the eyes of the camcorder until he was convinced that he also could make it out, I sailed about a hour, though he took to much time and was not very successful with only one run on his 3.8m. We both returned to shore and rigged 4.8m sails and continued past sunset, Miller was finally off he water after 8:30 and after de-rigging and dinner we made it home after 11:00pm.

All in all a good day and lots of wind for my first official session for the 2009 season (my others didn't account for much)

I did plead with my wife to allow me one hour at the mouth of the bay on the Lake for some very nice 5.2m sailing today before she was going to serve the kids mothers day dinner.

H2O Rick

[windkid]

Great Post H2O but what is a 3.8!

I suppose I could have rigged a pillow case.

Nice job! So what's it llike to jibe under those conditions?

wd

[Gary]

Durand did well for the afternoon yesterday. Greg and I were there. Lynn, Dick and 3 or 4 other kiters were out at the west end launch. Sun was shining and the wind was remarkably steady for Spring. The waves lines up very sweetly. Greg looked good on 100 Liters then 91 Liters and 5.4. I spent half the time on 86 Liters with a 4.7 and then my new 76 Liter Quatro beauty. Got air a few times like I knew what I was doing. Stumbled through lots of jibes and left want more. Greg said something about going to do the Mother's day thing and earning points to sail another day.
Got my points. Thursday morning is in the forecast.
Living on Hope.

Gary