Got some good riding on that little WI gem -Lake Andrea. I went there because the forecast was better then anywhere around, the air is slightly cooler and the water is clear and also to sail with a friend of mine. It was gusty as usual but the wind gusts were strong enough /in excess of 30 mph at times/ to reach the lake and make it fun for a slightly overpowered once in a while session. I even got a new Andrea record of 30 mph top speed









We went to a nice pub nearby called Chancery for apre-sesh beer and burger. The pub is attached to the Radisson hotel next to the Pleasant Prairie mall and has a very good food menu, plenty of beer choice and very friendly stuff. The prices are very reasonable for the category. Recommended!

Ady wrote:
30mph is not easy to do on a freeride board and according to my personal experience, being overpowered is the only way to push the limits. Glad to hear you've enjoyed it. I'll have to drag-race with you some days during fall in Chicago!

Pictures from 07.27 Lake Andrea .
The hustle and bustle of rigging

The launch

The water is clear and refreshing at just the right temperature

Ivo still a beginner

Ivo a beginner NO MORE! Solidly in the footstraps

Continues below...

How many sailors? I’m impressed, might be more than there were at Greenwood and it was blasting 6.5-7.0,albeit after a 5 minute complete schlog out to an offshore wind line. Need to have skill, confidence, and willingness to possibly swim the last 10 minutes in.

David Mark wrote:
More then 10 in any case. Some left while new ones kept coming. Surprised, right ? It’s a popular place on weekends and I’ve seen it a lot more crowded. I think the Russians weren’t present yesterday.

...continues from above.

The blaze of glory! So far my best top speed ever.


Jibes & tacks














Hand drag for show


For some reason this is the only decent picture of Greg that I’ve found so far


Happy Ady

Glad I made the trip. This was gusty but fun. Nothing beats a warm water clear lake, especially as Lake Michigan was barely 50 degrees lately in my area. It was nice to see this many windsurfers in one spot. Looks like a friendly community out there. I rarely get the chance to sail on perfectly flat water. Such a treat. This was a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon and a well deserved post-session drink and food with Ady. Cheers!

Time flies when you have fun and so my Ludington trip is over too soon. I couldn’t do any proper windsurfing although I might have, I think, in other circumstances...Most of my water activities were paddling-a lot of it. I windSUP-ed only on Wednesday when there was a stronger SW creating decent shore break. Well, decent enough to sink several kayaks and a small sailboat which kept me busy shuttling between the affected to check on their well-being and even the coastguard boats came at some point, I guess someone on the beach called 911. I got myself a GoPro head-strap this time and was able to capture some of the action in front of the Ludington state park.
Paid a visit to all of the 4 main lighthouses in the area as well.



Tandem canoe-ing on beautiful lake Hamlin:




SUPing in the shore break of a nice little beach called Benona Township Park and the south beach in Muskegan :






The “shipwrecks” at Ludington state park on Wednesday :



The advantage of having an unsinkable wind powered vessel

Shoot! Almost forgot. There was a pirate on the beach in Ludington park. Shipwrecks and pirates go together, right

This look like a tone of fun, Ady. This is on our to-do list as well. Maybe next year with a lake crossing on the Manitowoc steam boat?...
And I don’t like that land-pirate competition on the other side of the lake.

Greg from Sheb. wrote: See! This is what happens when you loose your ways and start foiling-the competition takes over!

A more in-depth look at the Thu 08.29 session after the emotions settled down. This could have been a great day for me if only I didn’t screw it. But I did and screwed it twice I realized after some analysis. Yes, I made the rookie mistake of not bringing my strong wind equipment-the same mistake that I’ve been chastising people about for years -and sure enough it turned out to be a perfect day for my 94L Kode and 5.2 Revo /my favourite/. My second mistake was switching to the 5.7 Revo after the 6.5 Retro. Nowadays the windsurfing equipment is so finely tuned that it has become very specialised, so sticking a wave/freestyle sail on a board set up for slalom is not a good idea. My 110L AtomIQ is not a slalom board, it rides very smoothly and so far has been able to mask over the mismatch, but I’ve never have used it in conjunction with the 5.7 Revo in overpowered conditions...until Thursday . Heavy chop and gusty winds well over 30 mph exposed the negatives of mismatching equipment and I doubt I’ll ever use that combination again. I switched mainly because blasting over 30 mph in the chop started feeling scary with the 6.5 Retro and unlike the slalom-esque Retro the wave Revo is very easy to de-power and ride sheeted out with. I’ve set up the Atom with a slalom fin and outboard footstraps, even placed the front ones to be maximum comfortable for outboard locked in sailing and the board feels and behaves great with the Retros and their farther back and down draft. The Revos on the other hand pull forward and up, favouring a upright over the board stance with inboard footstraps and minimal fin pressure. The resulting mismatch led to a hard to pin down board and often spinning out fin that made me crash a bunch of carve jibes so I duck-jibed and tacked as much as possible. If the sails could talk I imagine the Retro would say: “ Just sheet me in, lock me down and watch your gps” while the Revo would scream something like: “ Do something crazy for Christ sake, don’t just stand there!”
Huge turnout ! I’ve counted 14 windsurfers and close to that many kiters including 2 very attractive kite ladies I’ve missed some of the veterans like Bob, Jim, Manuel, Rich and Brian who moved to Florida. His lovely wife Ella used to shoot great pictures of us on good Wolf days. My heroes of the day were Andy with his perfect Donkey, Pirouette and other twisted jibes and 360s and Bart whom I suspect of mirroring me with equipment, because in the last couple of years he replaced his boards and sails to include a freemove Gecko and freewave RRD FSW matched to a quivers of new Retros and Revos respectively. It is a pleasure to watch him blast really, really fast /faster then me I admit/ and top it with rock solid planing Carve jibes. I’m certain he could be a very strong slalom racer. I just would like to see him getting more creative with his freewave/freestyle kit some day and trying some moves-that’s the point after all.
Another hero of the day would have been a foiler dude if I was into foiling, but I’m not. I didn’t recognize the dude with his helmet and sunglasses on, but I admit he was riding his modern and tuned to perfection foil kit admirably. He blasted and jibed smoothly and without crashing projecting forward an effortlessness rivalling that of the kite foilers. Like with the foiling kiters he made me wonder what’s the point of limiting yourself to rather boring stuff in strong winds when a capable person-sail or kite-could do a lot more .
Nough blabbering lets get to the pictures now. They are just more of the same honesty, but for the record...
Smooth start of the day-AtomIQ 110+ Retro 6.5



Jibe this , jibe that



Tack this, tack that



To be continued...