Racing - the ultimate zen exercise (yeah, right)

This is the wind graph for Saturday's Cog & Leaf Gorge Cup. We had a pretty decent forecast (15-21 in the afternoon), a sponsor (Sailworks - the cog part of the equation, and Roberts, hence the leaf), awesome trophies (commissioned by Bruce and created by MacRae, who is a metal working wizard and whose steel art is pretty cool), as well as arrangements for post-racing dinner (Mexican).

And a little after 3, the breeze came up. We all got on the water and checked out the course (same as last time, except the marks were more in a straight line, which would open up all kinds of tactical options downwind). Unfortunately, it died (with a vengeance) before we could even get a sequence started. As the day wore on and the wind continued to no-show, Bruce joked that the minute the first burrito was broken into that night, the breeze would come up.

Sure enough, at about 5:30 or so, with reports of no breeze anywhere within a 100-mile radius and completely flat pressure gradients, the race was called, sailors derigged and loaded their gear, Amy arrived with the food (yeah!), beers were cracked open - and the water started to show some texture. Darren and Scotia were game to run fun races as long as wind and light held out (thanks!), so a bunch of us got on the water (properly fortified with excellent Mexican food) to run fun races (since the event had been called, these couldn't count - so those excellent trophies are still waiting for a good use).

We got to run two quick heats before the wind got too streaky. On the first start, I started starboard with just a few others as most of the fleet expected the usual port favor and just wanted to get into the still-fast river current to take them upwind. I decided against that at the last second because of the northerly slant to the breeze on the Washington side and the big hole near shore (right around where you'd tack before hitting the eddy-line - the big current masked that hole, and I just sort of discovered it sailing around before the start). This worked out great, as the port starters, after clearing us, got knocked like crazy. I made it to the windward mark in first by quite a margin because of that and held on to it. With the streaky conditions, I was glad for my 10.8 and the big Finworks LT; not sure how Bruce managed to get his 9.1 around the course and get second- he must have some sort of anti-gravity device to get- that, or he really worked it, as he sat out the next one and let one of the juniors use his rig.

Second heat was different, as the breeze started filling in at the south end - so it was back to port starts. I ran the line for a bit to get away from the pack and have a nice pocket to leeward to accelerate, then came up over the line about 1/3 of the way in (Nikoka, on the RSX, was kind enough to keep the rather eager pack stacked above/behind her from spilling onto the line, so I got a clear lane). The first few Starboard starters, led by MacRae, cleared me easily, but when they tacked, the current and better breeze in the middle had already given me enough of a lift to where they were lining up with my wake. Jay got second, followed by (I believe) Mac Rae. And then it was time to finally bag it for the day.

As I talked to my 8-year-old on the phone while derigging the first time, her comment was that "it just wan't meant to be." Great perspective, I guess. I'm glad we got our little spurt of fun-racing in at the end, as that made me feel a little better about the total of 11 hours spent in the car that day. Hopefully, over the course of the season, the driving/sailing time ratio will improve a bit. Considering that the PWA guys all flew to Korea for a big slalom event and got completely skunked for a whole week with not a single result, this just goes to show that this sport will teach you some form of zen - whether you want it to or not.

Check that UJ tendon!

After one of the heats at the Gorge Cup a couple weekends ago, I went to move my mastbase forward a bit. Looking down at it, with the pressure from the tackstrap and the angle of board to mast giving a fortuitous bit of visibility into the recesses of the lower base cup, I noticed that rip you see in the picture. Mind you, this was my back-up base (I tend to use a different one as a matter of preference), and I had replaced the tendon late last season as a matter of caution (I do that at least once a year). As I couldn't get my hands on one of those original (yellow) Streamlined tendons at the time, I got this one at a shop in the Gorge. Didn't worry about it too much - hey, it's urethane, not much to it, right?

I checked my main base (which I reverted to for the rest of the days' racing) - its Streamlined tendon (which had seen probably three times as much use) was still fine, with no cracks to be found even upon close inspection.

Lessons:

1. Not all UJ tendons are created equal - it appears that there's more to making a urethane tendon than one might assume, and that Streamlined has it figured out better than the other guys.
   
2. Check that UJ tendon - the crack was not readily apparent when inspecting the base visually; it was only when it was loaded and extended that there was enough distortion that you could actually see the crack, which was otherwise hidden by the base cup. So really get in there to see - don't just rely on it probably being ok.
   

Gorge Cup DQ Dip'n'Dash

My first Gorge Cup for this season, the Dairy Queen Dip 'n' Dash took place May 31 at the Event Site. Derek Nielsen lined up Dairy Queen as a title sponsor for the event (way to go, Derek!), and he got to choose the course accordingly. On the left you can see what he came up with (according to Derek, that happened in the wee hours of the morning...).

It was a quick course, and I'd think the most apt description would be FW slalom - our regular upwind to mark A just off Well's Island, followed by a quick sprint around marks B, C, the start pin, and a reach to the finish - 4 jibes in all. Conditions were typical early season Gorge - pretty brisk breeze (especially up high near the windward mark - we could have easily raced slalom on 6.0's up there), and quite a few holes down low (which made any thoughts of actually switching to slalom a moot point). The current out in the channel was ripping, which together with the strong breeze and monster gusts made for really lumpy water up there (following Bruce around the windward mark in the first race was the first time ever I detected a hint of hesitation in his jibing; mind you, that was a "hint of hesitation" compared to the rest of us, who were flailing quite a bit). On the inside, there was quite a bit of back eddy, resulting in really smooth water.

Tactics were pretty straightforward - start on port, get into the current as quickly as possible, and then switch into slalom mode. At no point was I really pushing for downwind angle (even the broadest legs were not "free" in that way), so downwind tactics were what you would do in a slalom race - how to pass/cover on straights and in mark roundings (which, when traveling at mach speed on OP'd formula gear, can be extremely interesting). The rough conditions put a premium on board and sail handling and smooth transitions; the big current and shifty (both up and down and oscillating) winds made reading the layline at the top challenging.

Most racers were on 9's; I used my trusty 9.9 (since I chose not to have a 9 this season - hmm, maybe I need to reconsider that...), which resulted in serious handling challenges at the top.

Derek stepped up and performed great, being one with the course he had specified - he clinched second overall for the day behind Bruce (all bullets except race 7, which he sat out) and ahead of me by 1.3 points. I found that upwind in the smooth stuff, I was very much competitive on angle and speed, but that I hadn't nailed it in the lumpy stuff (I was losing angle on Bruce there). I also made a couple of errors on laylines - one such error ended up being rather costly - in the 7th and final heat, I thought I had the windward mark but missed it narrowly; the raging current moved me past it on the wrong side, so I had to sail a big circle around it. All that maneuvering in big overpowering gusts and large irregular chop and swell caused me to flounder badly for quite a while, losing 4 places in the process - very annoying. In hindsight, I should have been more conservative on calling my layline, or just given up on pushing for it a little earlier and just let the current take me up on the proper side of it (it's hard to beat around 5 knots of true VMG provided courtesy of the river with a couple extra tacks); but that just didn't compute in my at that point somewhat addled brain (wrestling the big sail around for seven heats had clearly taken its toll on my mental acuity).

Results at the VMG Events website - another well-organized race, a fun bbq afterwards, and a good time had by all. One thing this day made clear is why Formula sailing works so well for making sure you get a good event. Sure, at the windward mark, conditions were beyond what's reasonable for formula racing - but it wasn't dangerous, just suboptimal. And as a result, we had a full day's racing. We could have run slalom - and had a truly mediocre day's racing due to the large holes at the bottom of the course. It would have been no less challenging - but the stories told afterwards wouldn't have been epic tales of survival at sea (excuse the hyperbole) but lots of grumbling about not being able to plane through the holes at the lowest jibe mark. I'll take holding on over that any day ;)

Formula SUP...

Windsurfing Mag had an article in the latest issue making the point that windsurfing "ain't pretty" - or as my wife puts it, it's the ultimate surrender sport (as in it will teach you to let go of your attachment to the illusion that you have control over things). Last night was an excellent reminder of that.

I was stoked when after a good productive day at work, I found myself with hours of light left and a good southerly breeze - perfect formula conditions. I got out on the bay on my 10.8 and instantly ran into a bunch of weeds - way more eel grass than you'd expect this time of year. After a half hour of spending more time clearing weeds off my fin than actually sailing, I found myself a clear (albeit narrow) lane and started tacking upwind - I'd almost gotten to the point where I could see this as great tacking practice (yep, we're really letting go now...) when I noticed a big squall coming up the bay fast. Two minutes later, the wind died, and another two minutes later it started pouring rain, followed by hail. And the wind? Never mind that...

At this point, I was in the middle of the bay, with NO wind (no, not light wind - no wind...). I bobbed around for a half hour or so, looking for signs of texture on the water anywhere - none. All smokestacks in sight sent their plumes straight up, and calling the different wind talkers around the area confirmed it - I was stuck smack in the middle of the convergence, with no hope of any breeze anytime soon. So I derigged my stuff and started paddling with my mast. Since the water was completely flat by now and kneeling was less comfortable, I paddled standing up; don't know if this officially counts as Stand Up Paddling, and it sure didn't feel like the 'Sport of Kings' to me, but hey, after well over an hour of this, it got me back to shore where I launched (the Coast Guard came by when I was a hundred yards out and asked if I was the windsurfer being stuck that they'd been called about - nice to know people are watching...).

Are we letting go yet? ;)

Crissy Friday Night Racing

At the end of my week in the Bay Area, I got to do the Friday night race at the St. Francis Yacht Club. If you've never done one of these - they're something special. The St. Francis is a rather well-appointed, big-time racing yacht club, but throughout the season, they let in both kiters (who have a Thursday night series) and windsurfers. I believe one of the reasons there's so much depth in the SF Bay Area fleet is that they get to race every other week. Note that half of the top ten formula racers at the 07 Nationals were racing on Friday.

The logistics on these events are pretty smooth - show up, pay your $15 drop-in fee, race. Start/finish is run from the deck of the St. Francis around stationary marks, and they run something like 5 quick WW/LW courses (sometimes with jibes required right off the deck to entertain the RC) in about an hour. The whole thing is then capped off with being able to use the club's facilities (showers and sauna - always welcome after a cold evening on the bay) and dinner in the grill room.

It had been a while since I'd raced one of these, and it was windy - the locals were all on 9.0's (except Ben Bamer, who at 230+ used a 10). Since I don't have anything smaller than my 9.9, I had to go down a fin size to my 68 to keep any semblance of control (it got a little wild at times...). Jay, by the way, decided to run his 7.2 slalom sail on his formula board since he, too, didn't have a 9.0 - this from the guy Pepi used to call "the Manimal", so it's safe to say it was windy... Several times, I had the whole board out of the water, holding on for dear life, and I was counting my blessings at the end of the night for only bobbled one jibe and having dropped my sail once.

The combo of a too-big sail with a too-small fin had the expected effect - I was going pretty fast, but couldn't point all that well. For the Friday night races, there's a big premium on getting an inside lane on port (everyone starts on port due to the geometry of the line) due to the lift on shore; footing off for speed is costly. I managed to compound that with being less-than-brilliant in my pre-start maneuvering (there's a lot of current there, and a lot of sailors milling about, and I was trying hard not to hit anyone).

I managed to pull out a fourth overall - mostly because of really good speed upwind (enough to make up my pointing deficit), pretty reasonable tacks, decent tactics, and pretty solid downwind performance (good speed and angle, and I managed not to blow up and take aggressive lines in several jibing duels). Overall, it was great fun and good racing. Of the three guys who beat me, two had done so in last year's Nationals (Seth had been 1st and Eric 3rd), and I managed to beat Ben and Al , who had both beaten me in the Nats (they placed 5th and 7th then, respectively) - so I'm pretty happy with where I am this early in the season.

Full results at the CalCup site (I was driving back home the next day when the locals were duking it out in their first CalCup of the year). Thanks to the St. Francis for hosting, the locals for being welcoming and competitive, and those who volunteered for RC duty (which surely had nothing to do with them wanting to sit out a windy one this early in the season, right?).

Tropical @ Crissy

It's shaping up to be an awesome week. I'm in the Bay Area for a professional conference and decided to take my gear down with me to take advantage of the opportunity. So far, my week has been a geek's dream come true - get up early, get some productive work done, spend all day geeking out about databases, reporting applications, development tools, etc., then duck out for a session in the late afternoon, return, stretch, get some more work done, sleep, repeat. And the temps down here are feeling downright tropical compared to home (those 5 degrees extra air and water temps make a huge difference).

Jay Salzman is down here as well. We got some great slalom sailing on Monday (way juiced up 6.0 in choppy water - very pleased with how well the relatively big Warp Slalom 67 is handling those kinds of conditions). Tuesday, it was 7.2 slalom sailing (downright blissful), and then I just couldn't help myself and had to get out my new Exocet Formula Board despite the big gusts and nasty chop. Nobody else was silly enough to run formula gear in those great slalom conditions, so I didn't get a chance to line up with anyone, which meant I could just focus on getting used to the new ride.

I'll get a more detailed review of the board together once I have some more data to go on, but first impressions are good - it handled the chop well (surprisingly well for such a wide-tailed board, actually), felt light and responsive, and was fun to sail. Once it started flooding, the baord showed that it has really great glide. Seems like a good match with my Finworks fins, too. I'm stoked.

Now back to scaling out data warehouses...

Milestones - look Ma, no booties...

What a difference a week makes. Last Saturday, I spent the morning sledding with the kids in our neighborhood (at less than 100 feet above sea level). This Saturday, I spent most of the day on the bay, sailing with no need for gloves or booties. That first barefoot session each season always seems like a milestone...

Inching closer to 50 knots

Antoine Albeau set a new 500 meter record today; I guess they're still trying to figure out whether it was enough of a margin over Finian Maynard's previous performance to ratify it as a new world record. It's definitely another step closer to the 50 knot barrier. Forecast for tomorrow is apparently good as well, so follow the action at Windsurf Journal's live event ticker. Damn, that's fast...

Slalom 63 - PWA madness or stroke of genius?

Check out the blurbs from the PWA's top-4 slalom racers on the new "Slalom 63" rules for the pro-tour at WindsurfJournal. Fun stuff. The Cliff Notes version - currently, the pros get to register 2 boards/4 sails for each event. That will change to 3 boards/6 sails for the season.

Interestingly, this is supposed to make things simpler and more affordable for the pros - to them, it's not a matter of how much gear you have, but how much gear you have to cart around while flying from event to event (which then results in huge excess baggage charges). Apparently, the top dogs have 4 or more boards and a full quiver of slalom rigs (sizes from as small as 5.0 for Pozo to around 10m for the light-air events like Korea - in .5 to 1m increments). While they only register 2 boards and 4 sails, most of them still bring everything everywhere, as the events are often close together (especially if they also compete in waves as well). And schlepping all that stuff gets expensive. Plus it makes it harder for new sailors to be competitive on the tour, as they have to stack up against those whole quivers. Sounds reasonable, right?

I find the range of opinions pretty enlightening. A2 gets off a good one-liner on weather forecasts - I assume he's trying to tell us he doesn't like the new scheme too much (nor the current one); of course, given that he dominates the discipline, his pithy comment on the restrictions providing a convenient excuse for bad results wouldn't really apply to him (he tends to not need excuses, and he seems not to hide behind conditions or gear when things uncharacteristically don't go his way - something to be emulated, I'd say...).

KP seems to think that as long as the rules are clear, it doesn't really matter which way it goes - cream will rise to the top and the outcomes will be pretty much the same. Valid point, I'd say. Micah thinks it makes sense b/c it's dictated by the market, although he'd prefer unlimited competition (presumably also taking away the restriction against non-production gear); given that this is the highest level of competition, I can see his point.

Bjorn Dunkerbeck is concerned about whether this will truly showcase the sport. To him, restricting equipment choice means that people will have to hedge risk - which will result in erring on the side of big. And apparently, he thinks that slalom racing on gear that's just a bit too big for the conditions is not sufficiently attractive.

And that's where the disconnect between what the PWA is doing vs. the reality of amateur/grassroots racing becomes really clear. Most amateurs have one slalom board, and probably at most two sails for each of those (that, by the way, was the original 4/2 formula...). That covers racing conditions for just about anything pretty well - not perfectly (as would be what AA and BD are after), but well enough to keep it exciting for the racers. But that's us amateurs - the pros can't live off putting on races that are satisfying to them; they need to create the most attractive spectacle possible to create value for sponsors and have media-friendly content to sell.

PWA (or, in its previous incarnation, PBA) racing went down the road of all-out competition with no limits before. In the halcyon days of the late 80's/early 90's, pros carted around giant stacks of equipment and made real money. An interesting thing happened - as the base of the sport evaporated after the boom faded away, the numbers didn't add up, and manufacturers no longer saw economic sense in supporting the pro-circuit (plus outside sponsors no longer thought of windsurfers as a demographic to reach, which made the pro tour a less desirable marketing conduit).

The current PWA tour is the result of a remarkable rebuilding process. There is a full calendar again, the racing is attractive, and the marketing seems pretty right on. This is still small change compared to most pro sports, but for a fringe sport w/o a huge halo effect (windsurfing is apparently no longer considered the cool, sexy new cutting edge sport), this is pretty good. PWA is forging ahead - good for them; but now the question is are they pushing too hard and making this whole thing unsustainable?


To wit - I'm a fairly committed amateur. I've been fortunate to get some support for pursuing my passion. Nevertheless, my racing quiver at this point consists of 2 boards (one formula, one slalom), and four sails (two formula, two slalom). Sure, I race on the West Coast - so I don't have to deal with 6-9 knot marginal conditions (so I can get away without the 12m), and I'm pretty big and reasonably fit (so I can hold down my big slalom board and 6.0 in most any conditions in which we'd consider racing). My quiver is probably a bit above par for the amateur fleet - so hearing pros whining about having to make do with suboptimal gear choices because they have to stick with the (rather open) restrictions on the PWA tour doesn't really bear a lot of resemblance to my reality.

Is that relevant in any way? Don't know - after all, in most sports, pros and amateurs are on completely different planes (both in terms of resources and performance). If I were making decisions for the PWA, I'd at least consider this point, though.

If the pro-circuit is too removed from the reality of the amateurs, it's losing some of the aspirational appeal and charm. So if you care about what windsurfers think (i.e., if you're marketing the pro-tour at least partially to the windsurfing public, either to create halo effect for products and thus drive industry sales revenue, or to have windsurfers buy PWA "stuff" such as dvd's and provide traffic for content that may at some point create ad revenue), keeping it somewhat 'real' might be important.

If, on the other hand, the goal is mainly to create the most spectacular content to plug into the bigger extreme sports consumer market (where the content is consumed by people who don't really engage in the activity itself, and where the revenue is mostly derived from advertising unrelated products to those consumers, or through some coolness factor), then perhaps keeping it real would be a mistake (as in the race for eyeballs, 'real' will lose out against outrageous every time).

For windsurfing, there's probaby something in between. PWA tried Super-X, and that died on the vine - so apparently pure spectacle didn't work (hey, it's hard to compete with made-for-TV spectacle where people engage in "extreme sports" stunts purely to generate outrageous footage with little apparent risk aversion). Before that, PWA tried Formula (which was driven by what was happening at the grassroots), and while they got lots of "good" (i.e., tactical, skill-driven) racing, it was a non-starter on the marketing front.

Jimmy Diaz, who runs PWA now, has a business degree. He clearly understands the trade-offs involved, and the incremental tweaking of the rules of the game are part of a process to figure out an optimization problem. The competitors seem to mostly get it as well. So far, this journey has been remarkably successful (as in having brought pro windsurf competition back from the grave). As they're pushing the boundaries, I'm wishing the pros well - it sure would be nice to see that what I consider the coolest sport ever can be successful at the pro level.

Mirrors

Took a quick 'liquid lunch' on the bay yesterday. Lately, we've been in the deep freeze, so temps in the high-30's (or about 3 or 4 Celsius) combined with 15 knots (so you can sail formula and stay mostly dry) are nothing to be sneezed at. I had a great time, and the little hail/sleet squall in the middle added comic relief to the whole thing. As I came back to shore, I noticed bright flashes coming from the picnic shelter; turns out there was a guy there taking pictures with a little point-and-shoot. Says the guy, as I come up the beach: "Dude, I figured I had to take a picture or no one will believe me that some crazy bastard was on the water in this stuff." Hmmm...

Crazy fast

Looks like the kiters have done it - that's Tillman Heinig running well over 50 knots over 500m according to his GPS (so no, it's not a WSSRC-sanctioned record). There's some discussion in the community, with Finian Maynard pointing out that the run was over a curved course, and that the projected 500m speed was a little below 50 knots - oh well. Even so, I'm still very impressed by this; as somebody points out in that thread, when you have a running race, you don't account for turns, you only care about time over distance run, and in this case, 500m were covered at over 50 knots.

But check out that video a bit more closely - Tillman is going at warp speed in just a few inches of water, right next to shore; that takes some major balls. Good on him for making it happen for himself. I wish it had been a windsurfer, but hey, whether it's a kiter or a foiling tri or a windsurfer, I'm still stoked about it.

The next chance to officially break the all-out record and get over 50 knots, however, presents itself to a bunch of windsurfers: Driven by Wind, Dave White's even in South England, is looking at a spectacular forecast for tomorrow, Thursday. If that materializes, and if all the stars line up right, there's a pretty good chance one or more of those sailors will bag 50+ over 500 (on a straight course, with WSSRC observers and sanctioned video timing). Good luck, guys!

Glimpse the future of windsurfing competition

Dave White's Driven by Wind event is on in England. Big names, putting up big speeds in (so far) conditions that are well below what's to be expected from this place. Remember, this is where Martin van Meurs already broke 50 knots for short bursts (on a suboptimal day), so there's huge potential here.

I've been stoked about what these guys are doing for competition; while I'm of a racer than a speedsailor, it's exciting to me how events like this, and the awesome success of the gps grassroots racing movement, have revived interest in going fast despite the industry and press drumbeat over the past decade or so (you know all that drivel about anything to do with competition or going fast being uncool and devoid of 'soul'... - different issue, though.)

What gets me really excited about this one, though, is not so much that there's a record attempt at a great venue, with official WSSRC observation (and thus the potential for a new all-out record and an official 500m run over 50 knots). Don't get me wrong, that's really cool, and it adds yet another opportunity to what's happening at the canal in France.

No, the really sweet thing about all this is that Dave has gone out and done what I've been dreaming about for years - he's put a real-time display on the web. Virtual spectator-type technology has been available for a while now; it's made America's Cup coverage interesting to the average person (that is anyone not immersed in sailboat racing) by showing clearly what's happening on a course. In this particular case the appeal is more about immediacy (after all, we don't really care which of these guys is where on the course, we just want to know how fast they're going). But the fact that this event, without million-dollar budgets, has been able to put this together is (besides being a huge credit to Dave and his buddies) proof that the technology has come down to a price-point that makes it feasible for mainstream use.

Imagine real-time gps tracks, along with real-time footage from helmet/boom cams, all packaged together with footage from start/chase boat cams. We've talked about it for years; we're finally at the point where it should be feasible to put it together for real events, then use it (a) to present to crowds on the beach (think big events in Europe where people actually show up to watch even if they're not married to any of the competitors) and (b) to put together a package for channels like OLN or Discovery or ESPN. Can you imagine what that would do to make it clear to people just how exciting racing sailboards (even course racing, which is notoriously hard to follow for spectators) can be? Remember - this kind of presentation made the America's Cup exciting to watch - and those guys go what, 8 knots?

Good times!

Identity

i·den·ti·ty (-dnt-t)n. pl. i·den·ti·ties

1. The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known[...]

2. The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.

[...]
Source: TheFreeDictionary

What are some of the things that come to mind when people ask you what you are? Not who, but what? What's your identity? For most of us, it's more than one thing - sure, we're all human beings. Then there are the roles we play (father, husband, son, professional, etc.). And for many of us, windsurfer is a big part of that. It is for me - windsurfing being my passion, being a windsurfer is definitely a piece of that package that's my identity.

So when I was off the water for about 2 1/2 months with a bum shoulder, did that make me less of a windsurfer? Yes - I wasn't constantly behaving like a windsurfer (such as frantically checking the wind, keeping an eye on the forecast, trying to carve out time for a session, working on gear). Except when I still was (such as obsessing about gear choices for next season, reading windsurfing sites on the net, training in the gym to prepare for next racing season, driving by the bay on windy days to at least get a visual). So then it's really a No?

Funny thing, this windsurfing thing - once it's got you hooked, it's not like you're just dropping out while you're not doing it. There's something more to being a windsurfer than going windsurfing. I'm sure the same is true of other passionate pursuits, and it's what makes them different from pastimes and hobbies. The former are an outlet for something deep inside you - your personality, your character, your hopes, your self. If you're a passionate windsurfer, then that at least partially defines you, gives you an identity (or allows you to express you identity, more like it...). Whether you race, or live to sail waves, or spend hours working on your freestyle moves, you probably get what I'm saying. If, however, you think I'm completely off my rocker, then you're probably seeing windsurfing as a hobby or a pastime (or, also possible, you're right and I really am off my rocker...).

My injury was not severe. Within a week I knew that I wouldn't need surgery, and that complete recovery was virtually assured if only I put in the time, discipline, and work to heal up. Still, it made me think about what I'd do if I couldn't windsurf. I don't have an answer to that. I do know, however, that I'd need (and be able) to find another outlet for that passion. I don't know what I could find that would scratch that same itch, or even if that would be necessary - perhaps I could be just as happy and immersed in something not involving speed and water. I didn't have to really go there - knowing that I'd be back, the person at the gym working on his rehab was a windsurfer getting back on the water. I had the luxury of not having to solve the identity puzzle.

In the last couple years, I've found that what creates identity in the sense of the second definition above (the group membership piece) is more about the passion than the actual outlet. I'm a windsurfer, but as a competitor I feel kinship with those who are competitive in all kinds of other things as well, whether they're triathletes or rowers or kayakers or soccer players - as long as they are truly into their thing so you can see them light up when they talk about it, I feel like we're members of the same tribe. Same goes for others who may not have a competitive bone in their body, but who are passionate members of the water tribe - surfers, swimmers, sailors, rowers, and with a bit of a phase change skiers and snowboarders.

Nonetheless, after a few good sessions (and no adverse effect on my shoulder), I somehow feel more settled. Sure - I'd be OK if I couldn't windsurf again; my identity is more rooted in the passion than in the activity itself. And surely, there'd be tremendous potential for personal growth in the challenge of finding something else that lights me up the same way. But there's a reason I've chosen that outlet (or is it more a matter of it having chosen me?), and for now, I'm damn glad that it's still in my life.

Sail on!

The joy of a crappy session

I'm back. After 2 1/2 months off the water to heal my shoulder, I had my first session today. By any reasonable standard, it was just south of marginal - very flukey, gusty winds; temps hovering just above freezing (it started sleeting at the end), another failed glove experiment resulting in painfully frozen fingers, and the the wind started picking up with a vengeance and going completely offshore - so I was way overpowered on my formula gear on the outside, then struggling to make it back in through the big hole near shore. And the whole time, I had a big fat *$&#-eating grin on my face...

There's something about the sensation of windsurfing, skimming across the water, fast and weightless and effortless. It's been a long road; it's taken a lot of discipline to heal, train around the damage, stabilize the shoulder, and not give in too early and re-injure things. My PT told me that I had healed better and faster than I had any right to expect; he then grinned and added that being a little compulsive can come in handy sometimes...

It's good to be back. And if someone has any killer tips on gloves/mittens that actually work w/o cramping up your forearms or making it impossible to get a good grip on the boom, let me know.

Fast...

Dave White, previous holder of the production speed record (he just lost that to Patrik Diethelm), is setting up a speed event in South England - Driven By Wind uses a sheltered stretch of water behind a sandbar. He'll set up timing equipment. This creates some nice competition for the Masters of Speed on the ditch in Southern France (which gave us Finian's current outright record of 48..7 knots), and Martin van Meurs has already demonstrated the potential of the place by breaking 50 knots on the GPS over 100 meters. Finian is getting a worthy adversary to play with, as Antoine Albeau has already shown he can be fast on the ditch even in suboptimal conditions by posting 46.55 knots on his first day there (see news item for November 21 as the Masters of Speed site).

Meanwhile, the kiters are getting closer and closer to 50 knots (hey, they can run in three inches of water - that sure makes for smooth conditions...), and the big-budget contingent is hard at work as well. Hydroptere already has the nautical mile record and had just been reconfigured to break 50 knots over the required 500m distance. Macquarie Innovation looks downright low-budget compared to that (until, of course, you remember that their budget is still probably an order of magnitude higher than even Finian's).

While Driven by Wind and Masters of Speed use WSSRC-certified video timing, there's a whole community of windsurfers using GPS to challenge themselves and their mates all over the world, posting their tracks and speeds on http://www.gps-speedsurfing.com/. And on the Maui Sails forum, there's some interesting discussion on the democratizing effect GPS has on speed, as well as what a nice competitive outlet it is for sailors all over the world. It's not ready for "official" records yet - there are some remaining precisions issues, and the GPS community operates on the honor system, with some rudimentary QA done on the data by the site administrators. But it's just a matter of time until someone builds a device that enables cheat-proof, high-precision tracks good enough to satisfy those outside the community, and lead to ratification by the WSSRC.

This winter sure seems like a good bet for breaking 50 knots - whether it be a windsurfer (most likely in my book), a boat, or a kiter. Long term, windsurfers are running into diminishing returns on speed gains - we'll probably have to come up with some innovations to defend the record against kites and boats, which seem to be on a steeper part of the learning curve. Ultimately, it's all good, though. Bragging rights vis-as-vis the kiters and sit-down-sailors are fun, but as long as people are inspired to go out and push themselves a little bit, it's all good.

The advent of GPS speedsailing, coming along at a time when there was finally a real push for records again, is creating energy that simply wasn't possible the first time speed was big. Sure, I remember the early days of speed, when windsurfers became the fastest sailing craft. Check Barry Spanier's account of those days to go down memory lane (or to marvel at it all if you weren't around the sport back then). And when 40 knots was broken, it was huge. But it wasn't as if people were going out and lining up on speed strips - the timing equipment was expensive, and it was impossible to cost-effectively run speed trials for the masses (the closest anyone ever came were probably the Gorge guys around Ken Winner's timing equipment and the 100m speed run on the Klickitat - Bruce has some great pictures of those runs on the wall in theSailworks loft).

Today, people are going nuts over GPS - and it's not just the dedicated speedsters. Anyone can go out on their slalom or freeride stuff and see how fast they can go. It's natural to want to see, and for anyone who's a bit competitive, it's a fun thing to do when there's nobody else around to compete with.

So strap on your GPS, point it deep, and send it - it's fun, and just like racing, it just might make your a better sailor in the process by giving you a reason to push yourself a bit. Plus whenever people see you come in from a session, they always ask the same question - "How fast can you go on that thing?" Showing them a GPS readout makes for a great conversation piece.

FW Worlds - lessons from Antoine's Domination

The FW Worlds just concluded in Brazil, and the results speak for themselves. I think it's fair to say that Antoine Albeau pretty much dominated the event. If you look through the reports linked from the Formula Windsurfing website, and you watch some of the videos available through those links, or read some of Dennis Littel's or Steve Bodner's commentary, you'll again and again find comments to the extent that Antoine was just flying - comments made even by people like Gonzalo and Wojtek.

So what happened here? I think the short version is that Antoine is just a force. I raced the 2003 Midwinters in Florida, where he was using a crappy board (an outdated AHD design) in super light air (I was barely powered most of the time on my 12.5, and he was probably at least 20 pounds heavier than me at the time). He won that event, in front of people like Kevin Pritchard and Wojtek B. (who, if I remember correctly, was the reigning world champ at the time). He's been doing great in formula racing even in light air events like the 2006 Europeans and 2006 Worlds - both events extremely sketchy windwise, putting a heavy sailor at a severe disadvantage.

So Brazil served up some conditions you'd consider to be more to his liking - but it wasn't San Francisco style survival FW sailing. If you read Steve Bodner's reports, he rarely got into powered up 9.9 territory. Antoine was still using the 12.5 for most of the regatta. And he just took off on the fleet. He threw out a third, and his next throwout would have been a second. If he hadn't raced at all the last day, he still would have won - yet he came out and competed fiercely that day.

Prior to the Worlds, Windsurf Journal had an article that mentioned they witnessed Antoine testing a stack of something like 30 Deboichet formula fins in preparation for the event (not archived, it seems, so I can't provide a direct link). Is that's what's going on? Did the guy just out-fin everyone? Doubtful - for sure, he probably was the most tuned up, and he probably had some very fast fins that no one else had (that's the perk when you do fin development with the maker). But the top 10 were all on Deboichet or Kashy custom fins, most of which are truly custom and would be hard to come by for any of us (consistency and reproducibility of wet lay up-molded fins is a whole other topic, and one of the reasons I'm so stoked about working with Dave Lassila of Finworks...).

And sure, as the lead racer guy for NP, his NP's were probably more tweaked than anyone else's - but again, none of the top guys would have a hard time getting support from their sailmakers to get their sails to be exactly what they want them to be. That's certainly true of Steve Allen (a former world champ himself, and leading the pack charging after Antoine in this championship).

So some long-distance analysis can't really get stuck on gear - that's part of it, but it's a tuning thing more than the availability of magic silver bullets. And it can't get stuck on his size - as it wasn't THAT windy (Wilhelm Schurman, winner of the lightweight division, can be seen in some pics and videos using an 11.8 on one of the days - a day when Antoine got three bullets). And then you look at the fact that the guy fully dominated PWA slalom racing this year. And you have to take note that, on his first day ever on the Masters' of Speed canal in Southern France, he went over 46 knots in suboptimal conditions - and then goes on to say in the interview that he likes the speed 'racing' format better b/c it's more intense - I think we're starting to understand what's happening here.

Antoine has a lot of stuff going for him (or is making a lot of stuff happening for himself, more likely...). He's clearly incredibly talented. He's physically strong. He's well prepared and tuned. He's got a ton of experience. And, as can be seen from that comment about intensity after the speed thing (as if going 46+ knots wasn't intense in and of itself...), he's very much a competitor at heart (hey, the guy didn't sit out heats or events he didn't need to sail to keep his overall wins - why risk injury or equipment damage unless you're in it to compete, rather than "just" to win?).

But there's something else here - most competitors play to their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Few seem to be able to convert weaknesses to strengths. There's nothing more logical than for a big sailor like Antoine to always sail larger gear than his opponents - reduce your weakness (that whole light air/heavy sailor physics handicap), and maximize your strength (take advantage of your ability to control big stuff when the breeze picks up). And most of them do it. But it seems like he's managed to do it to an extent that's truly astonishing - check out the gear registration for the event. This place is known to be windy. Like Albeau, Wojtek registered a 12.5. Unlike Albeau, he then went to 10.7 and 9.0 from there. Albeau went to 11.8 and registered 10.7 as his smallest sail.

That was more pronounced in the 2007 PWA slalom events (unfortunately, they don't seem to archive the gear registration pages for those events, so I'm going from memory here) - throughout the season, Albeau would register bigger sails and boards than both Dunkerbeck and Micah Buzianis in pretty much each and every event. Both of those guys are first rate slalom contenders, and the same size as Antoine. Yet they consistently chose smaller gear - probably to "insure" against epic conditions that would enable them to get on smaller gear when things picked up, and then use their size and leverage for out-of-this-world straight line speed. That used to clearly be Dunkerbeck's game plan (and if memory serves, he dominated the World Cup that way for a long time). Antoine has found a way to tweak control over his big gear when it gets gnarly to where he doesn't have a speed disadvantage, while also having ample power in the holes - and he dominates with it.

What's all that got to do with the average sailor, you ask? Nothing really - after all, these are racers, and we all know that racers are a different breed, right? Except, how many people do you see in your spot who always seem to be rigged for their strengths? If you look at big sailors vs. small sailors, you often find that the smaller guys are on relatively big gear, while the big guys are on relatively small gear - meaning the gear-size-gap between people of different size isn't nearly as big as you'd expect (and is it would need to be to equalize planing and control thresholds).

It's almost as if the big guys are so ecstatic when things go ballistic and they're the only ones able to hang on, they live for those moments and generally discount the misery that comes from too-small gear during the rest of their sessions. Conversely, you've got all those light sailors who are always the first to plane, and who seem to be using relatively large gear - as though they're so hooked to planing by a bunch of people slogging that they couldn't care less about getting blown off the water when it picks up.

In many ways, that kind of behavior is pretty natural - we all have our identity, and whatever confirms us in that seems to be accepted. If you're a big guy and you get blown off the water because you rig big, maybe it's not that conducive to your self image. Maybe a little guy can't stand the thought of some heavy sailor planing just as early. So you go out and play to your strength, and just completely write off the other side of the spectrum - after all, a negative outcome on that end is easily explained and involves no loss of self-esteem ("sure, I was bobbing while everyone else was planing, but hey, they're all pencil-necks...").

I've succumbed to this, as well. Check out this race report I did after the US Nationals long-distance day. You'll note that I seem to just accept the fact that I was under-powered, anticipating big breeze at the bottom of the course. Well, the other guys (especially the lighter ones) clearly were more appropriately rigged. But for a big guy, saying "I was under-powered" is pretty painless (hey, it's the wind after all). Admitting that I chickened out on rigging big (a risk a bunch of lighter competitors who were on the same size gear as me were willing to take) apparently didn't come to mind.

If that all seems like a bunch of psycho-babble, think again. Game theory has confirmed people's tendency to err towards things that confirm their bias, even if "objectively" they are creating suboptimal outcomes for themselves. Antoine seems to have broken through that - he's apparently confident that he won't get blown off the water even with bigger gear unless the whole fleet suffers the same fate. And in return, he's denying the lighter guys their light-air advantage.

So put that on the to-do list for maximizing your racing outcomes (or just having more fun on the water) - along with skill, determination, training, tuning, ....

Veteran's Day Storm

The pic on the right (courtesy Dale McKinnon) shows what she saw from shore at Post Pt. today. Yes, that frothing mess of water is Bellingham Bay, a generally calm and peaceful part of the Northwest inland waters. Wind readings were off the charts at iWindsurf today (literally, as their new dynamic graphs top out somewhere around 50 mph). Airport recorded gusts around 60 knots; BCS showed peaks in the mid-70's mph range.

The pic was taken from shore at Marine Park - so her camera's vantage point was about 8 feet above water level. Clearly, the swell was well over head high. Mike Sumpter reported huge (100' high) spin drifts earlier in the day. Most of the guys apparently went to Cherry Point for some saner conditions. Not sure who that lone sailor is; might be Brett, taking his Bonzer for a ride.

It's been really windy the last two days or so. Yesterday and the day before, there was quite a bit of sunshine thrown into the mix as well. Oh well, back to taking care of that shoulder...

Rehab

re·ha·bil·i·tate (rh-bl-tt)

tr.v. re·ha·bil·i·tat·ed, re·ha·bil·i·tat·ing, re·ha·bil·i·tates

1. To restore to good health or useful life, as through therapy and education.

2. To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity.

3. To reinstate the good name of.

4. To restore the former rank, privileges, or rights of.
(Source: freedictionary.com)

It's been four weeks now since I wrenched my shoulder. Luckily, since it's all just sprains, contusion, and a partial tear, the worst is pretty much over. A PT friend of mine from Berkeley likens inflammation to an angry bear - you just don't want to poke it in the eye, at least until it's all well-fed and calmed down (and that's probably where that little analogy breaks down - I have a really hard time seeing why you'd ever want to poke a bear in the eye, even once that's not-angry...).

My shoulder is now at that happy non-angry-bear state, and according to my PT here it's time to start poking it a bit with stabilization exercises while resting all the stuff that's not quite ready and giving it lots of icing/heat to get the blood flowing. Funny thing about my PT - he sized me up after talking to me during the exam, then told me that how quickly I'd heal would be entirely up to discipline or, as he put it, whether I can avoid being stupid. Now that there's not constant pain as a reminder, I'm starting to see what he's talking about.

And that's the program for the next three weeks or so - don't be stupid, ice/heat, and stabilize the shoulder while working around it to keep the rest of my body in shape.

Today, after a bunch of rain and ugly weather, there was sunshine, 55 degree air temps, and a nice 12-15 knot breeze on the bay. Since I'm a few weeks away from being ready to grab my gear and heading down to the water, I headed to the gym. Good motivation for sure.

Temporarily sidelined

At the end of last Sunday's session, I had the windsurfing equivalent of a lift line injury in skiing (you know those stories - skied steep and deep for hours, then caught an edge in the lift line and got hurt). After 2+ hours of sailing, I decided it was time to go back in. Sailing along, I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, hit a piece of kelp or something, and went over the handle bars. If I'd gone faster, I probably would have gotten thrown clear of my gear; as it was, my left shoulder smacked the mast while my arm was getting wrenched back. So it's a bit of a double-whammy - not only did I get hurt, I didn't even get an epic story out of it.

The whole thing was pretty painful, so it took me a while to waterstart and sail back. By the time I'd made it to shore, my left arm was pretty useless, so I ended up having to carry my board and rig up separately. It took two guys helping me to get out of my wetsuit. Tons of ice and ibuprofen seemed to calm things down, so I figured I'd sprained something, since the xray came back normal. Over the course of a week, while the internal swelling and inflammation has gone down a fair bit, there's still some distinctive pain and loss of range of motion. So yesterday I got an MRI; this should make it pretty clear whether I'm dealing with soft tissue sprains, or whether anything is torn and will require more than just another week of rest and a few weeks of PT/rehab.

Kind of weird how off-balance you are trying to protect one of your shoulders. Working out requires some serious creativity, as does daily activity. And it's still kind of hard to explain to my 2-year-old that dad can't wrestle with him for a while. I guess I jinxed myself when the Friday before, in a conversation with someone at the gym, I mentioned how favorable the risk/reward ratio is in this sport, and how I'd not gotten anything other than one minor case of whiplash in 28 years. Should have kept my mouth shut...

Windy...

A good weekend for us Bellinghamsters. Temps in the mid-50's, a rocking southerly (the graph shows what happened at the north end of the bay, which doesn't get the benefit of the venturi generated by the SE pushing by the Chuckanuts), very low tide (meaning you could walk out to the windline, so no need for the usual swim/slog), and all that conveniently timed for a Sunday morning. It just doesn't get much better than that.

While participants in the first ever Bellingham Marathon were probably cursing the breeze, there was a contingent of 8-10 sailors off Post Pt., enjoying the playground Mother Nature provided with solid winds and big rolling (and, at times and in some places, surprisingly smooth) swell.

After years of rationalizing repeated beatings (here and here are some accounts of the not-so-painful ones; there were others which I simply refused to document...) received on slalom gear in these conditions, I finally took the hint and got myself a small freeride board. At 80 liters, it's a bit smaller than I would have wanted (slogging is still painful), but the price was right. The single rear strap, curvy wave fin, inset/forward strap positions, and detuned rails made for a very different sailing sensation. Just sailing along, it's pretty much effortless; you're just not going very fast. You can ride swells, and getting air is a lot less scary than on slalom kit.

The sailing style is the big difference. On fast gear, safety lies in holding the hammer down. If you back off, or god forbid sheet out, you start tailwalking and end up in a yardsale. Of course, that strategy is limited by waterstate, as the resulting warp speed will at some point lead you up and off a stray piece of chop - and the crater resulting from that tends to be pretty spectacular. The freeride stuff, on the other hand, allows you to back off when things get out of hand. The wipeouts come when you do try to push it - and find that the fin just can't handle it, so you're spinning out as your going at Mach speed through a trough. Different kind of sailing, for sure. Hopefully, we'll have lots of winter storms this season to help me get reacquainted with that ;)

The kiters at the north end of the bay were apparently passing the single 3m kite around the group to share. Of course, most of their usual crowd were down at Post Pt. windsurfing on 3.7's to 4.7's. I was on a 5.0 Retro, which was perfect at the beginning, and kept handling the building winds really well with a bit more downhaul.

As the front came closer, the clouds moved in and it started to rain - hard. That was right around the time most of the marathoners were gritting their teeth through the last miles of the race. Kudos to them for sticking it out; I certainly preferred being on the water in that weather.