Sunday looked the same as the northerly was evident in the am as the heat was building.
I got a little anxious of most all of the starts and got called back on 3 of them being OCS. While getting the gun is good, being too early negates any attempt of effort at all. The RC had some eagle eyes from the deck of the St Francis Yacht club and called my over earlies as well as one general recall to keep the fleet honest. There was no getting by this experienced RC at all. I came back on 2 of the starts to restart and claw my way back through the fleet. It puts a bit more challenge into the game starting 20 seconds late.
One of the lessons I continue to learn is to take advantage of the tide. With a strong ebb on Friday night , you could tack almost 10 board lengths early for the windward mark and still come out strong. Even if you under tacked, you could pinch up and float around the windward mark. Use the tide to your advantage but not too much that your over early!
Coming back downwind was especially fun and a good opportunity to pass a few boards- being stuck in the middle of the fleet. The inside was bit lighter so it payed to gybe early and stick with the breeze unless there was a localized puff making its way down as you rounded the top mark. As they say, its all in the timing.
With no short supply of breeze, the last 3 weeks have been windier than any spring I can remember. Blame it on global warming if you will , but the unusual weather patterns this year - with a lack of winter and spring storms - have pushed the thermals in earlier this year. Almost every day for the past 2 weeks has been solid slalom conditions at crissy field. On the few days Ive gone out on the formula board to train, I was so lit up, I came in a rigged down to slalom gear!
The new 07 equipment has been slow to arrive but Ive been dialing some newer equipment. First up was a north warp 7.3 from last year. It really has a lot of range and at the bottom end and can handle up to 18-20knots before becoming too much. The biggest difference this year has been the addition of a new wide compact slalom board into the quiver. The f2 sx slalom 105l board is more like a small slalom board at 70cm wide. It really shows its potential in light to medium conditions and doesn't give up too much in the breeze. Although it doesn't gybe as tightly as the smaller skinner slalom board, it does get you out of the transition quicker in lighter conditions.
Most of the racers this year are putting together a slalom program for the upcoming nationals in San Francisco in August. As always Billy Weir is showing solid speed early on with David Wells, Soheil, Jean, and Royce all getting some early time on the water this spring on the city front.
I couldn't resist posting the following sequence of Seth on his freestyle gear. Shawn Davis captured the essence of a perfect catapault. Now thats a good huck! The rest of the sequence as well as 300+ photos of spring time San Francisco windsurfing can be found at Shawn Davis' smugmug photo-site.
Welcome to spring 2007- march 21 officially opens the windsurfing season as the first day of spring but tell that to the hordes of windsurfers this past w-end at Crissy field who enjoyed a solid 20-30k of breeze, sunshine, a stiff 4k ebb (+ an extra hour of daylight.) While the Berkeley boys were out testing their 9.0's and new formula gear, it was just too windy and choppy on the city front for the 10.0 while I'm wait for the new north racing quiver to arrive next week. The question remains- how to cross train when it gets too windy for formula?
more photos of 2007 boards here...
Back to the racing: After a long morning and afternoon wait the formula fleet got off with one general recall. I started mid line in a pack so as to not stand out but didn't jump the gun enough to get off well with a lane and was forced to tack over for clear air after 30 seconds . In the light stuff, clear air is king even if it means banging the corner. While most of the fleet went left to the layline, I lead a group over to the right side and was getting knocked the further I went. Good sign! I tacked back and was in decent position rounding the top mark around 12. Off the breeze I fought hard to stay deep and had to gybe 2x to get to the leeward mark. Once rounding, I was able to hold my lane upwind with the 70 cm fin as the group in front of me battled it out giving each other bad air. I tacked on the layline and gained a few boards who were low.
Meanwhile up in front of the fleet Jesper got the bullet to secure 2nd overall in front of Micah just behind in 3rd and Jimmi in 4th. The Brazilians took both first in the men's and masters division. In the RSX, Barger- the top US Olympic hopeful just edged out Gebi for a close series.
After the races I took out the starboard 161 for a test run against some other sailors. It did feel really good and lively- especially with a 70 cm kashy fin. I think it let me sail better especially in the light stuff where I was struggling on the Mikes Lab. Time will tell and with some more testing it should be evident what set up is the best. I'm looking forward to the challenge and more racing this season.
The breeze really backed off today as it switched around to the north and was oscillating all morning and afternoon only giving the opportunity for 2 course races all day. With the wind around 8-12k, most everyone rigged their big sails for maximum power throughout the day. Unfortunalty there was also alot of holes throughout the course which caused alot of lead changes every race. The formula fleet of around 40 boards were pushing the line hard in both races today and had multiple general recalls before getting off clean. I got lucky a few times as I got buried at the start as the fleet was well over. In times like that, you have to be aggressive but not stand out on the line- better to start mid line in a pack instead of being over early right in front of the RC boat!
more racing photos here...In the start that that was clean I got off near the pin end clean in what I thought was a great start but looked over my shoulder only to find the wind had switched right about a minute before the start and now the boat end was majorly favored. The lesson here is to test the line and stay aware of the shifts during the 5 minute countdown. I got caught on the wrong side of the shift from the beginning and never got back in phase the whole race.
It was hard to get my game face back on after that race but somehow after a long break waiting for the other fleets to race and having lunch- I was able to get myself back in the game after I borrowed a fin from Sylvester and finally found the groove I was looking for in the light wind. The new light wind set up consisted of a 11.7 m2 north warp with my mikes lab l7 and new 70 cm Zajicek fin. The fin was much stiffer than what I was used to using but was able to hold angle and really rocked downwind in my initial test against Sylvester and Percy. So there I was ready for race 2- with the confidence to hold my angle upwind. I was ready to go! A couple of more general recalls as the fleet was really pushing the line but all 3 times I got off well with a lane for the first 20 seconds before heading back to restart. Finally the real deal- I was pushing the line aggressive at the start getting lined up with speed down the line with 20 seconds to go when I just ran out of wind and stalled as the wind died on the line and the fleet went over the top of me. How ironic as I finally found a set up to work and screwed by the wind. Well that’s the reality of racing- you’ve got to take the ups and the downs- hopefully learning something from every situation. The big lesson I learned today was to keep my cool- no matter how bad you think things can get, no matter how desperate the situation- there’s always one more board in front of you to fight to get and at the end of the day every point counts! Today I found my 2 throwouts for the regatta so tommorow got to get everything in line for some top 10 finsihes.
