Just look at those wind readings! Insane! Wolf is called the Rollercoaster lake from now on Just joking, but something similar happens every time I sail there-very unstable wind.
So I came late as usual and it was 12ish and blowing pretty good when I pulled in the parking lot. It looked like 5.7 but I rigged 6.5 to be in line with the forecast. By 12:40 it was down to nothing, but I still went out hoping for improvement soon. It came back eventually, but I spent an hour shlogging and doing light wind stuff, which only aggravated my hurting wrist.
It was nice once it started blowing again and after a while my damaged ribs started hurting, so I came in to switch to the "bucket " harness-my rib saver. Wind was kind a down around that time and I rigged the 7.5, believing it will only go down from this point, but once back on the water it got up again and I found myself very overpowered . I went so far as to use the lower clue hole with maximum downhaul and boom in the middle of the cutout, which is the lowest setting ever for me. I have not used a seat harness for a year at least and there was some relearning curve initially and this is when Garry started shooting pictures, so I'm sure I look silly in them. Crashed both my Duck jibing attempts and decided to play it conservative after that.
My 3rd and as usually the best phase went fine with wind settling at a good speed for the 7.5.
Had a nice after-session fish and fries with craft beer at the Bulldog with Brian.

It is for this reason, that I always have enough gear to rig two sails. I was switching back and forth between my 5.7 & 5.3 all day on Monday, because the wind is equally up and down at "our" Clinton lake.

Um yeah, it makes sense. I can have a wave and a freeride rigs at the same time and on good days at Wolf I usually have both 5.7 and 6.5 rigged up simultaneously including both my boards, but I can’t do two wave or two freeride at the same time. It would have been nice though, masts and booms don’t take up much space in the car anyway.

Ady, I have to say yesterday was my best day ever on the water so far! I'll go into details later on my progression thread. But yes I did get a few candid pics of you, "The Happy Go Lucky Windsurfer!" I was lucky enough to catch one of your Duck Jibes! Maybe you can give us the play by play. Here you go fresh out of the dark room! Enjoy!!!!

Ha, ha! If you follow how my facial expression changes in the first several pictures you can recognize that my mind goes through some analytical process. It went like that: “ Urgh! I think somebody is taking pictures of me?! Ha that’s Brian over there watching from the shore, could this be his wife Ella taking the pictures????! But I’ve never seen her doing it in water up to her waist???! Darn, that’s Garry! Hi Garry ! Splash! Oops my fin hit the ground again “
As for the Duck jibe wrestling with my 7.5 that ended in defeat-well I shouldn’t have started a loosing battle in the first place, that thing is way too big for that and after successfull Ducks with it my shoulder joints are screaming in pain every time . Now that you put me to shame I might finally realize that I just need to stop the nonsense!
Now, do you have any good pictures at all??
Thanks for doing it btw, highly appreciated and I’ll return the favor some day. I wish you had stayed for the fish and fries afterwards.

Well, a 7.5 is alot of sail to duck. However, just two simple things and you've got it!
#1: On that particular tack, you wanna go hand over hand, so that your right hand is grabbing the boom all the way back on the tail piece. With a sail that large, you have to move quickly, but the pictures show that you're not grabbing the boom far enough back with the hand that starts out in front. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to do a hand-drag duck jibe, because you're controlling the sail on the tail piece, carving hard, with everything balanced just so, you can just reach down and let your free hand drag in the water for a sec for some extra style. That's how far back your hand should be on the boom.
#2: You let the board come out of the carve as you're ducking the sail. The carving motion actually facilitates the sail duck. In fact, the harder you carve, the easier it is to duck the sail. Letting the board come out of the carve is the most common error on all jibing.

Just like that

Fish and chips with a cold one mmm.... that would've topped off a great day otw! What time did you rack it up at Wolf?