Thinking about getting the board wet just to say I did it. Last sailed 12/15, that's less than 3 months ago. Take big floaty board, small sail, stay close. It will be gusty though with air/water temperatures so different.

Nice! Looks like a repeat of our last day on Dec. 15 indeed.
Water temp will wake you up! Stay safe.

Sounds like fun, I'm also planning on going out on Lake Michigan today (NW Indiana). I got a pair of NRS Toaster mitts for Christmas and have been looking forward to trying them out.

BrianLynch wrote:
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how these mitts perform with windsurfing.

Great day on Lake Michigan, stayed safe and warm on my Bic Nova 165 with 6.0 sail, Jason and Chris winging, and then Chris sailed his windsup. Gusty but manageable offshore winds, the lulls kept the chop down. I thought I didn't like that board any more, but it coasts around a jibe on a full plane with a small sail. I had been using mostly with an 8.0, hard to keep that on a plane. Air temp 65-70, there are a few remnant ice bluffs remaining on the beach, water temp 33.

Nice! I wish I could have made the trip down as well. That's an early start in the season. I'm wondering if anyone sailed further south...

Greg from Sheb. wrote:
The NRS mitts worked okay. The big positive about them is they are quite warm. Even fully submerged in frigid lake Michigan my hands were comfortable. While better than some gloves, forearm strain was still there and I would have liked a more aggressive pre-curve in the gloves. The "pre-curve" on the NRS mitts is really just a bit of extra material on the top of the gloves. Being the first time out this year, I was using a bit more muscle than finesse so that may account for part of the arm strain I was seeing. The gloves have a stitch that divides the index finger from the other fingers, and I found that to be kind of annoying as it just complicated things when gloves rode up on my hand and needed to be pulled back down.

After about half an hour, I swapped out the NRS mitts for open palm gloves. Had the air temp been closer to 40 than 70, I probably would have kept on wearing them.

Great to know. I see Kiteboarder folks using them around but I've been skeptical about them for Windsurf. I think you've confirmed my concerns with forearm strain. I usually can manage open palm in 45-degree air as long as I don't flounder in sub-50 water too long. I also found that my hands are cold for the first 30 minutes of riding and with the help of a cooler filled with warm water, I can come back to shore quickly to warm them up for the rest of the session.
Anyhow, thanks for your perspective.