Post by ibex on May 31, 2009 21:12:04 GMT -5
With steady hands and a loud whirrr filling the air, the sanding bit of my dremel bites sharply into the fiberglass skin of my JP, kicking up a noxious smelling puff of white dust. cr*p.... this is going to make a royal mess of my apartment, not to mention the breathing hazard of all this glass dust. My heart sinks as I look at my watch as its 3:30 - and I have a board that takes on water like a canoe with 6 people in it - and the wind is going to die by 6 or 6:30.
Then it dawns on me - the vacuum cleaner(!). Now with dremel in one hand and running hose of the vacuum in the other I dremel out the 4 inch crack system in the nose of my board. I have no idea when it happened, but I noticed a chip of exposed fiberglass cloth after my last session at Seneca, and if I was going to get out on the water to enjoy the 20+ NNW winds today I had to get this thing ding-sticked pronto and get down to the lake while it was still going off. Three more minutes with the dremel and the spiderweb of cracks are routed out, and are shortly filled with light gray goo.
Looking like someone spat a big luggy on it - the wad of still soft epoxy proudly stuck out of the scarred end of my board as I stuff it in its case and beat feet down to the lake. When I roll in Brian and Tom(?) are just finishing and going out (respectively) and are rigging 5.6 and 6.0. With hope that the wind isn't going to die quite as quickly as NOAA promised, but with cautious optimism, I decide to rig 6.4 and put some extra mojo into downhaul and outhaul settings of the sail.
Stepping over the slippery rocks as I wade into the refried-bean-colored water, I tell myself that I just want to get closer to a gybe today. Some nice planing runs in the straps would be great, and there were nice 2-3 foot swells to play on, but the downwind turn was the one thing I really wanted to come home with. Looking N, I can see the eager looking whitecaps, like furrowed little brows on a grandparent, they offer the promise of powerful reaches across the lake.
The first few gybe attempts were complete failures, each with its unique pathology be it losing my balance in the chop, losing momentum in the turn, you name it - but I try to keep faith in what I have read/heard from many sources that the key to learning the gybe is speed. In my quest to be a little more open to the lessons the universe tries to teach me, I am SLOWLY learning to absorb the hard-learned lessons of my mentors instead of doing my usual forging ahead like the proverbial bull in the metaphorical china shop.
Over the span of an hour the wind is steady and perhaps building slightly, and the chop out in the middle of the lake is fierce. The low point of which was taking my first-ever "heli-pult" at high speed as I tried to carve up and down a wave face like a snowboarder would carve a half pipe. The "carve up the face into the wind" part went well, but the carving back down with a big sail, in slightly overpowered conditions was an unhappy collision of preparation and opportunity.
A "heli-pult" (for those who are new to the term) is a particularly vicious form of catapult, named by my friend Amanda, for when one catapults in such a why that the body swings in a horizontal plane with the feet ending up furthest "forward" and getting hurled in such a sharp arc that you rotate in the air and land on your back while slamming the back of your head into the mast. Even after numerous discussions about the maneuver, it was not until that moment, that I actually understood the unsavory details of this uniquely vicious way of impacting the water. After doing the obligatory check of board, rig and rider for anything broken, it was like some tortured moment in high school - something that I was glad that I had the chance to experience, but I would never want to do again.
I sail back into shore and do the obligatory hemming and hawing about going out for more runs. Its already past the 1 hour point, and I have tons of work to do, but there has to be some lemma to the first rule of windsurfing (never leave wind to find wind) that says "never leave 6.0 and the chance to gybe to go sit at a desk and write code." With this little bit of life perspective firmly in hand, I set out for one last run towards the western shore.
Everything about the gybe sequence (hands back on the boom, unhook, rear foot on downwind rail, carve turn, rig flip and sail away) kept getting hung up by either the hearty chop or my own incompetence, but I kept forcing myself on every reach that I was going to gybe - or fall in trying. With a small sliver of building confidence, on my last reach I slapped my booted foot on the downwind rail and carve hard towards the south shore of the lake. The board accelerates downwind, as I push the rig towards the center of the turn and wait for the magic moment where it goes light - releasing my back hand - I am stoked to notice that I am somehow still planning and the only thing on my mind is catching the boom as it swings around. I know full well that focusing on the rig is the last thing I should do, but I can't help it and I take my gaze off the far shore and stare at the rig as it connects with my hands, and like some broken spell in the land of Narnia, the instant the boom is in my grasp the board comes off plane and stalls out.
Even with "full control input" gyrations of body, sail and board I resign myself to gracefully falling in on my closest ever gybe attempt - the boom still in both hands, my board turned passed 6 o'clock on the new reach - I'm still flying the sail above the water as my head dunks under. A quick waterstart later and I am back underway to the East Shore and its time to derig and head home.
Even with the gybe still out of reach, its was a great lesson in chasing what you want out of life. If there is anything this journey has taught me in recent weeks and months, its about having unashamed clarity in pursuing what you want. At my tender young age, I have already figured out that unfortunately life doesn't come with a "do over" button to push, you simply can't get these moments back. As such, there is no time to waste in pursuing what is important.
Have a great night everyone!
Shawn
PS FYI - shortly I am going to be starting my own blog and this is likely going to be the last mass emailed trip report from me. If you like what you are reading, you'll soon have a link to where you can get more. Thanks again to all of the wonderful folks who have taken the time to offer their encouragement for my writing and for sharing it with a wider audience.
Then it dawns on me - the vacuum cleaner(!). Now with dremel in one hand and running hose of the vacuum in the other I dremel out the 4 inch crack system in the nose of my board. I have no idea when it happened, but I noticed a chip of exposed fiberglass cloth after my last session at Seneca, and if I was going to get out on the water to enjoy the 20+ NNW winds today I had to get this thing ding-sticked pronto and get down to the lake while it was still going off. Three more minutes with the dremel and the spiderweb of cracks are routed out, and are shortly filled with light gray goo.
Looking like someone spat a big luggy on it - the wad of still soft epoxy proudly stuck out of the scarred end of my board as I stuff it in its case and beat feet down to the lake. When I roll in Brian and Tom(?) are just finishing and going out (respectively) and are rigging 5.6 and 6.0. With hope that the wind isn't going to die quite as quickly as NOAA promised, but with cautious optimism, I decide to rig 6.4 and put some extra mojo into downhaul and outhaul settings of the sail.
Stepping over the slippery rocks as I wade into the refried-bean-colored water, I tell myself that I just want to get closer to a gybe today. Some nice planing runs in the straps would be great, and there were nice 2-3 foot swells to play on, but the downwind turn was the one thing I really wanted to come home with. Looking N, I can see the eager looking whitecaps, like furrowed little brows on a grandparent, they offer the promise of powerful reaches across the lake.
The first few gybe attempts were complete failures, each with its unique pathology be it losing my balance in the chop, losing momentum in the turn, you name it - but I try to keep faith in what I have read/heard from many sources that the key to learning the gybe is speed. In my quest to be a little more open to the lessons the universe tries to teach me, I am SLOWLY learning to absorb the hard-learned lessons of my mentors instead of doing my usual forging ahead like the proverbial bull in the metaphorical china shop.
Over the span of an hour the wind is steady and perhaps building slightly, and the chop out in the middle of the lake is fierce. The low point of which was taking my first-ever "heli-pult" at high speed as I tried to carve up and down a wave face like a snowboarder would carve a half pipe. The "carve up the face into the wind" part went well, but the carving back down with a big sail, in slightly overpowered conditions was an unhappy collision of preparation and opportunity.
A "heli-pult" (for those who are new to the term) is a particularly vicious form of catapult, named by my friend Amanda, for when one catapults in such a why that the body swings in a horizontal plane with the feet ending up furthest "forward" and getting hurled in such a sharp arc that you rotate in the air and land on your back while slamming the back of your head into the mast. Even after numerous discussions about the maneuver, it was not until that moment, that I actually understood the unsavory details of this uniquely vicious way of impacting the water. After doing the obligatory check of board, rig and rider for anything broken, it was like some tortured moment in high school - something that I was glad that I had the chance to experience, but I would never want to do again.
I sail back into shore and do the obligatory hemming and hawing about going out for more runs. Its already past the 1 hour point, and I have tons of work to do, but there has to be some lemma to the first rule of windsurfing (never leave wind to find wind) that says "never leave 6.0 and the chance to gybe to go sit at a desk and write code." With this little bit of life perspective firmly in hand, I set out for one last run towards the western shore.
Everything about the gybe sequence (hands back on the boom, unhook, rear foot on downwind rail, carve turn, rig flip and sail away) kept getting hung up by either the hearty chop or my own incompetence, but I kept forcing myself on every reach that I was going to gybe - or fall in trying. With a small sliver of building confidence, on my last reach I slapped my booted foot on the downwind rail and carve hard towards the south shore of the lake. The board accelerates downwind, as I push the rig towards the center of the turn and wait for the magic moment where it goes light - releasing my back hand - I am stoked to notice that I am somehow still planning and the only thing on my mind is catching the boom as it swings around. I know full well that focusing on the rig is the last thing I should do, but I can't help it and I take my gaze off the far shore and stare at the rig as it connects with my hands, and like some broken spell in the land of Narnia, the instant the boom is in my grasp the board comes off plane and stalls out.
Even with "full control input" gyrations of body, sail and board I resign myself to gracefully falling in on my closest ever gybe attempt - the boom still in both hands, my board turned passed 6 o'clock on the new reach - I'm still flying the sail above the water as my head dunks under. A quick waterstart later and I am back underway to the East Shore and its time to derig and head home.
Even with the gybe still out of reach, its was a great lesson in chasing what you want out of life. If there is anything this journey has taught me in recent weeks and months, its about having unashamed clarity in pursuing what you want. At my tender young age, I have already figured out that unfortunately life doesn't come with a "do over" button to push, you simply can't get these moments back. As such, there is no time to waste in pursuing what is important.
Have a great night everyone!
Shawn
PS FYI - shortly I am going to be starting my own blog and this is likely going to be the last mass emailed trip report from me. If you like what you are reading, you'll soon have a link to where you can get more. Thanks again to all of the wonderful folks who have taken the time to offer their encouragement for my writing and for sharing it with a wider audience.
