It was a fun day. Sylvain was already there rippin' on his 5.6 sail. Chris was on his 5.8 hitting jumps. I rigged my 5.8 with 108 FSW. Wind was ENE. As I got up to the wind-line the rain completely stopped. We lucked out there. Wore my 3.2 suit for the cool air. Wind shifted from ENE to NE to even NNE. That made it hard for Rich and Doug to get out and up to the wind-line. With this shift launching out of Purgatory would have worked nicely. When Rich gets on plane with his new 7.5 Cheetah with the Goya Volar he's gone. You can't catch him. Doug was on his 7.9 Simmer with Starboard 131 carve IQ getting rides. This is what he learned on. This is his first gear. He's planing in the harness. This is the steepest learning curve in windsurfing history you'll ever see. And he's making it work. Amazing! I got there after 1:00pm and got off the water after 6:00pm I worked on perfecting fast-tacks, tried downwind 360s., crashed some Vulcans. Great to see everybody. 'till next time.


No pictures this time, everybody is too far away from the launch.


Bloomington



Champaign



Decatur

Oh man, Reid! As though the 360s are not tough enough and now you are firing me up on Vulcans too ?!! Well, it looks like you’ve got to do them to start calling yourself an expert and be one of the 1% !!! /according to Guy Cribb/.
One can dream at least!
www.guycribb.com/userfiles/documents/vulcan.pdf

Ady, I will change my morning routine
I will report back on it ion about a week

Sylvain wrote: Shhh, keep it secret

It was great finally getting to meet some of the crew! Thanks for dropping some knowledge on this noob. It was definitely tough with the chop for me although I had a few good moments. I can’t wait to get out there and watch you guys some more on the same day I go out. I ended up sticking around Decatur Sunday and had my best day yet! I was finally able to hold a straight line and plane across the whole lake, it was amazing. Can’t wait to start learning to tack/ jibe. I had so many opportunities but passed just to focus on body position, sailing to a mark and working my way upwind.

Douglas Rohman wrote: You are doing really good Doug. Are you using the foot straps?!

I have yet to use the straps but I definitely feel like I could have. I still need to shorten my harness lines a little bit more. Or I could maybe get some that are a bit longer for my seat harness. I think I’m going to end up doing the latter for now just to save some money.

Douglas Rohman wrote: What are you waiting for! You still have time to become a legend, man! Planing, hooked in and strapped up in less then a year-that’s an achievement not many can brag about !!!
Speaking of time, it’s going to get cold soon. Do you have your winter attire ready? Wetsuit, booties, hood and palmless mittens -Clinton is an year-round operation. That’s where I’m sailing when everything else freezes over.
Back to your amazingly fast progression-I’ve red somewhere that this has become the new school of thought in Britain for several years now. They’ve come to the conclusion that fast-tracking the beginners to learn to plane before anything else is keeping more people in the sport then the slow, step by step coaching of old . The idea of planing ASAP so you can experience the speed adrenaline early and become hooked up for life seems to work and you may be a great example for it.
Speaking of new school, you need a waist harness! Very few professionals use seat for short board disciplines and then only for slalom in moderate winds. Waist harnesses ride up, but that’s about the only negative about them . Today’s board and sail designs prefer waist and I really recommend you switching. I did experiment with seat in my early WS years , but I use only waist nowadays. I just bought a new one so I may be able to sell you my old one cheap. Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I dont have any wet suit gear. How much for the harness?

I found a wet suit.. may be to big? I’m 145/ 5’9”. It’s a large 3mm Head brand for 40 bucks brand new.

Douglas Rohman wrote: I’ll have to put the harness on hold for now, because a friend of mine wants to try it, but in case he doesn’t buy it I’m going to ask 50$ for it.
A size L wetsuit will be too big for your 145 lbs, maybe S or M because you are tall. Btw you need a really good wetsuit if you are going to sail in 50 and 40 F air and water temperatures. Like these: isthmussailboards.com/windsurfing-wetsuits.html of which there isn’t a single size S , but plenty of size M/50 ...what the heck?!