North Americans warm up

With the temps in the mid 70's and no ice in sight, it was a relief to be in Miami again, back on the water, tuning up for the Formula Windsurfing North American Championships.
We've had 2 days of decent breeze, training from the causeway, just to the west of downtown Miami. For those of you who haven't read the www.miamiwindsurfing website, there is a great formula scene down here with lots of enthusiast sailors pushing and promoting the sport. Its an awesome spot to train with good competition and breezes in the low to mid teens almost everyday in the winter.
I decided to try some new equipment for this regatta and showed up with a pair of booms, some bases and a couple of fins. That's all I need as a friend hooked me up with some Maui TR4 sails and the Gaastra Vapor formula board. Right of the bat, the TR4 11.0 and Vapor were easy to use- even after having been off the water for the last 2 months. Its a much softer feel than the previous North sails Ive been riding for the past 5 years.
Also out on the water was Gonzolo with the new TR5's and Jimmi Diaz with the new North sails. 2 totally different concepts going on here with the Maui sails having a long boom and soft feeling and the new norths taking a whole new approach with a much shorter boom length (with a cut back clew) and relatively softer feeling than previous years. I tried out the north 12.0 with really good results on the water in the brief training session I had.
It will be interesting to see what works better but obviously a lot still has to do with the operator driving the bus!
Racing starts Saturday morning and continues through Monday. Ill try to up the blog as much as I can with results and regatta reports from the days racing.