Greg from Sheb. wrote: All true Greg. I moved them forward mainly for longer, sooner planing. No control issues in straight line, but maybe some during the jibe in heavy chop. It just feels better on this board in contrast to the Atom, which I try to make livelier, faster in straight line by keeping footstraps and mastfoot back. But then the conditions and sails are very different for both boards also.
I’m not very good at explaining, but for the moment it just feels better/easier. With experience the preferences change also, evolve.

A few pictures from yesterday 05.08 at Clinton’s west side boat ramp launch. I don’t like especially using 5.7 with my 94 Kode, for me at least it’s too big for this board. I use a single fin since it’s bump and jump conditions more then anything else and a 30 cm fin would work better with this sail then the stock 28 cm. What will work best though is a bigger board-like the 103L Kode for example. Another important peace that I’m missing is a proper 430cm mast for the 5.7. The current Ka Sails that I use with it is too soft for it and gets overpowered too soon. I hate so much when the mast gets overpowered and screws the geometry of the sail, putting a tremendous pressure on my front arm while stalling the board. The correct mast -a Nolimitz Sumo in my case would withstand in contrast and transfer the power in speed. I hope I can sale some of the windsurfing stuff that I don’t need anymore to be able to purchase a Sumo.
One takeaway from this session is the importance of head turning in the right direction at every point of any move. I noticed that in the Helli tacks especially and how I was looking where I should in the successful ones and staring the sail for example in the failed ones. So yeah, the mantra is HEAD, HEAD, HEAD...and “ Get down James Brown “ like Jem Hall would say

05.25. Wolf Lake. This was a last minute decision. I needed my weekly dose of windsurfing badly so I jumped on the opportunity. It wasn’t much of a wind-something like 10-22 mph WSW-and there was a lot of slogging as a consequence, but I still got some good rides and filled the slow time with Heli Tacks and a few Upwind 360s. Decent attendance including some regulars .
I’ve put together a short clip:

And some pictures:

The laydown jibe with extended arms is fantastic. Such a great angle.

Some highlights from Clinton’s West Side 06.04.19
The takeaway from day is that I’m jibing better when I have my Sailworks hat on

Ady wrote:
Nice! Did you wet it?

Greg from Sheb. wrote: You bet.

Yesterday at Wolf was more or less a repeat of my Monday session on Clinton, but in a Wolf fashion I had to settle for 6.5 after some 5.7 experimenting. I got on the water by noon starting with my 110 AtomIQ and 6.5 Retro. This was good for a while until the wind started picking up a bit which prompted me to take out the 5.7 Revo and 94 Kode. The smaller combo didn’t work out, too much slogging and falling made me tired in a short time. Switching to the 110 with the 5.7 was way better but still too much slogging. In the end I returned to the 6.5 wich I didn’t de-rig . I have left it in the shadow of some bushes by the water and when I was rolling it up before leaving for home I noticed a hole the size of a lemon which I have no idea how has happened. The 6.5 is my oldest sail and the monofilm is getting brittle, I punched a hole while putting it on my head last year and now I have another one in the lowest panel. I’ll have to replace it rather sooner then later.
The rest of the session was a wild blasting and chasing unsuspecting fellow windsurfers until I got served big time by none other then the Chicago legend herself-the queen of the Midwest windsurfing Lady Jackie / not sure if I’m spelling her name correctly/. You’ve got to see this to believe it, this little lady in her late 60s / I might be wrong here/ who looks better then many 20 years olds is UNSTOPPABLE! She probably weighs no more then 100 lbs and with her excellent kit consisting of RRD Firemove Ltd 100L and a 5-ish Naish Force /I believe/ she can plane in the lightest breeze. On top of that she’s one of the most experienced windsurfing veterans in Chicago sailing effortlessly in the gusty winds and her jibes-step and strap to strap-are dialled-in to perfection. I had absolutely no chance of catching her on my green turtle and I tried for hours. She planed 99% of the time compared to my 80% or less and she fell only ones when she sailed into weed town and so did I. At this rate of planing she had no problem staying upwind while I had to tack once in a while to recover lost ground. I swear, I sailed as good as never before, I was already in my faze 3 /sailing smart but tired/ and I got all my step jibes right with one exception -the weeds got me-and by time I got completely exhausted and literally couldn’t hold the sail in a jibe anymore Jackie must have been several laps ahead of me. She owned us all, no exception. Of course I was the only one trying to race her with the other guys minding their own business mostly. I have to mention Andy here who’s 360s, Donkey jibes, Cowboys and other freestyle moves are pleasure to watch.
Jackie, if you read this, you’re number 1. I fought hard but you destroyed me completely and I’m paying the price today with my sore body aching everywhere despite the dose of CBD that I took last night.
I kept replacing my GoPro battery regularly this time so I have a lot of footage, but unfortunately my Flymount got stuck and all of it is from the same side-mast view. I’ll try to extract some good pictures /if I find any/ today or tomorrow.

I need this kind of kit to catch Jackie

Woohoo, couple of 30s and one 31 from the first clip on!

Next batch of pictures from 06.14:

After switching to the 5.7 Revo, it wasn’t bad but the 6.5 afforded me more planing time and again I felt more like racing then practicing moves. No surprise here
Some cool carving:






Hitting 31 mph with the 5.7

Ducking

Helli-tacking

Bartek not very happy with the wind apparently, he switched later /as did most/ to a bigger sail and hit it hard

The dream house if you are a die-hard Wolf fan. It must have been occupied by windsurfers at some point, because there are old Fanatic stickers on a window. I’ve never seen anyone there?!
Big mistake switching to the Kode 94-wasted precious time and got tired

Have you noticed kiters do a lot of butt landings . They like it apparently

Back to the Retro 6.5
Passing Stefan /I think that’s him/


Hitting 31 mph again /I think I had 32 mph somewhere but I’m not done with all the footage/

Bartek in a happier moment

Ducking it

Weed Town West

What the hell!! The screen grab shows 32 mph, the screen capture through the GoPro app shows 31 mph. It’s not fair, GoPro is screwing me!



Anyway, I’m hooked out here just before jibing, which tells me that if I want max speed I have to sail in a higher downwind angle /broad reach/-like just before jibing. I never do it, I really even sail across on a beam reach for fear to loose too much ground.

The “social “ batch :
Roman

Happy Bartek now flying with his Retro

Andy

Dude who I raced for a bit

I’m upwind of everybody for a change

The blob of weed that I removed from my fin after Weed Town West stroll /left upper corner/