Squamish pictures

Update:

Gwen l'Hirondelle made some nice shots available as well - they're now part of the updated slideshow embedded below (click on it to get it to display in bigger size). She spent a lot of time during the weekend hanging out on the spit in clearly suboptimal weather, producing a lot of nice pictures - and she has graciously agreed for them to get published in support of promoting a great grass-roots event put on by the Squamish Windsports Society. That's just one example of all the great SWS volunteers who contributed to making this event happen. Thanks, Gwen - and thanks to all the volunteers for a great weekend!

David shot some pics of the slalom on Friday off the end of the spit and has graciously agreed to let me post them. I especially like the fact that in all the shots where I do appear, I'm leading ;)

The original gallery is posted at Elliot's site - thanks David for taking the time to take pictures when you could have been out on the water, and thanks Elliot for creating a neat community resource for the Pacific Northwest boardheads!

Canadian Nationals - Day 1

9 slalom races (5 in the morning/mid-day; 4 in the afternoon after a break during the freestyle competition). Cool event - windsurfers and kiters both have their nationals right next to each other on the spit in Squamish. Wind went from OK powered 7.2 in the first round of heats to nicely lit-up for the last four. Tight competition in the top three, with Rob Mulder and Chris Prior showing good speed and great starts, as well as solid jibing (apparently Rob hasn't been sailing much at all this season; goes to show that this whole practice/training thing must be overrated...). I had three bullets, a second, a few thirds, a fourth, and one OCS. None of us can figure out the standings at this point other than that the three of us most all be within a couple points of each other. Great racing, for sure, with a wicked fun five-jibe downwind slalom course set by Rob and Chris (and heats spooled off with great precision by Harry and John Darling on the boat).

My 40cm Finworks slalom fin (about to be released - keep your eyes peeled) is working great. When you're lit and sending it, it just sort of goes away into low drag mode; when you're looking for power or needing to point a bit to jockey for position, it's right there, ready to get pushed on. Very nice - you just can't get that kind of performance out of a G-10 fin.

Tomorrow's forecast looks a bit sketch, so it might be shifty formula (or we might just all hang out and BS in the rain). Sunday should pick up a bit again. Of course, weather changes quickly around here.

Lots of people are taking pictures; hopefully some of that will be available to put online.