Great vids Reid.
Yes, that lac clearly shows windsurfing is well and alive. There are at least 4 major windsurfing rental places. I was told that in the summer months the area is a windsurfing hotspot! I stayed in the village of Malcesine on the east shores. This was the first in a very long time I saw a proper Windsurf shop called Best Wind. They have a huge stock of everything-windsurf from a tiny leach for your beanie to a full quiver of neilpryde sails. They have an amazing stock of surf and athletic clothing, street shoes, apparels and wetsuits - very nice stuff. And of course boards of all types and sizes with some fine RRDs (no surprise in Italy) but also Severn and Starboard. I could have spent hours in there!

Friday, April 19: first time sailing in Wisconsin this season. Lake Winnebago was the spot. N wind a bit inconsistent in the 13-20kn but more in the 13 than 20! Beautiful sunny day with temps in the low 50s and water somewhere around 45. I had a few good runs on the 125 Bolt and my 8.5 Lion. I noticed 3 things:
1- don’t know if I’m getting better at this but I don’t “fight” the equipment as much as before and therefore I finish the day quite “fresh”.
2- my starboard side jibes are all of a sudden much more predictable than before! Don’t know what happened but something clicked I guess.
3- I dialed my equipment to suit my needs so well now, that I really can tell when something is not right for me using a rental for example.
No vids or pictures though, so you’ll have to trust my words!

What to do on a nice an windless Saturday? Getting the foil ready. I yet had to install the foil on the Lightwind Falcon and I’m glad I did. Fin boxes are anything but precision engineering and mine clearly needed a little sanding in the corners where some resin had made its way in and was building thickness where it wasn’t wanted. I also had to slightly extend the screw holes by a millimeters for alignment with the Powerplate’s Tuttle insert. A Powerplate is a device that installs between the finbox and the foil and that helps to spread the load over a larger surface area. This is intended to boards that don’t have a foil-ready finbox. It’s now almost ready to go; I just need to order a fin box screw of the correct length since one of the stock screw that cam with the board bottoms out on one of the threaded hole of the Powerplate. Stay tuned for what happens next on the water!

Sorry for the upside down images. The web has a mind of its own. Maybe Reid will fix this post. Thx.

Sunday, April 21. Lake Winnebago. This was a last minute decision to travel there for an afternoon session. The forecast called for 12kn gusting 19kn and 78 degrees outside temps while in Sheboygan a chilling 48 degrees (lake effect) made things less appealing. So 45 minutes on the road to find summer was a no-brainer. I was meeting with a couple of Kites and a local Windsurfer at one of their friend’s home-on-the-lake for a “private launch” off of a real beach with sand (no rocks) and a perfectly groomed lawn for rigging. What else could I asked? A drink?!

This was a day for the 125 Bolt / 8.5 Lion again. In the gusts, the 7.0 would have been fine, but I’m impatient and the 8.5 tuned for high-wind was the recipe of the day. I also experimented with a 50cm fin to see if it would make a difference in getting the board planning sooner with less efforts in the lulls and it did, but it also created more drague and noticeably slowed down top speed: I couldn’t get the kit above 27mph even when fully powered. I finally was happy to record 2 planning jibes on the starboard side but watching the video, they are everything but graceful: bent arms, less than smooth flip; I’m gonna have to work on the technic...


Faster, please.






Mike on a 100 freestyle and a 5.3. Didn’t plane much but did some low speed tricks.



Kevin, owner of WindPower surf shop on a kitefoil.



A patch of sand to launch from; that’s luxury (upside down, sry)






Our host’s house on the lake: Not too shabby.



That 50cm fin on the 125 Bolt.

Friday April 26. Lake Winnebago, sunny, 52 degrees, NW 18-28, gusty. Actually gusty is an understatement : there were holes as low as 12kn and gust close to 30kn sprinkled all around; ridiculous! How do you rig and setup for that? I had a few good runs and with a knee holding better than expected, I attempted a few jumps that looked more like bumps! However my jibes were awful - i was completely on the defensive and usually that never works when there’s no commitment. I took the 115l Starship and the new Lion 6.0 for a ride and it was either over or under powered, but whatever, sailing on a Friday afternoon is bonus anyway! And for that matter, Jim, Bill, Mike and Rob where there as well to give it a go. One thing about the 2-cam Lion 6.0 in higher wind conditions : I kept tuning it the whole day to try different settings and I really liked how adjustable the power delivery is. This fits my sailing style better than the Revo’s for sure.

For a blue water shot, scroll down to the last pic.


A bit of air for a better view




What am-I waiting for? ...should already have flipped the sail at that point


Tsunami-style!


This has to be Bill who later that day, delaminated his board attempting forwards!


Mike doing a creative jibe


I tell you, the water was blue!

What to do in Bonaire in February? Challenge Ben, the Manager of the Dunkerbeck Pro Center for an impromptu race across Lac Bay. No mater what, I felt I held my ground ok. Check it out!

Clearly the race was yours! The guy with the bigger gear has an advantage usually, as long as he can control it.

Ady wrote:
Ha! Apparently, I failed in the control department

No rematch?

Unfortunately not. It was at the end of the day and I was exhausted from a full day on the water already. So I quite after that failed attempt. The occasion never presented itself again when I was there.

For the long story, it was actually Tonky Frans and one more Bonaire Windsurfing celebrity I can't remember the name, who challenged me to race Ben across the bay. I think they wanted an average-level windsurfing tourist to show Ben - the boss - how it's done! I followed Ben across the bay and on the other side, I saw he paused in the shallows. I did the same and with just a sign of the hand, he just got on his board and the race was on. It was my second day on the water after almost 3 months of inactivity. Ben has been at Dunkerbeck Pro Center since it was created 2 years ago and he sails year-round. Anyhow, that was fun and visibly a disappointment for the guys on the beach...

I didn't met Tonky's brother, Taty. What I can say is that Tonky is the most genuinely friendly, happy and positive guy I've met in a long time! I tired to steal his recipe and it's pointless, cause the air of the tropics is the medicine! Won't find that in Wisconsin.

I recall a run while Tonky was on the water giving a lesson to an advanced-level British guy perfecting his stance/speed and slalom jibes. Then Tonke popped up from behind and threw a 7 feet jump just a few meters ahead of me off of a piece of chop that wasn't bigger than 1 or 1.5 feet. Impressive! I wish I had the Camera on the helmet at that moment. That would have been an amazing clip!

Saturday 4 and Sunday, May 5. Sheboygan south beach. This was almost 2 identical days. SE days after 12pm with wind filling in all the way to the beach. Maybe 15kn with gusts close to 20kn(?). Upper 50s and water still fresh at 45-48 degree it seems. I rigged the 8.5 Lion which was great but slightly overpowered in the gusts. Good fun with local kiters and cool beverage of choice with everyone on the beach to close the session.

Towards the end of the day on Saturday the wind came down a bit and I tried for the first time my foil on the Lightwind Falcon. I had little energy left after the afternoon session but went out for a couple of back and forth. On the last way back, I finally got the hang of it and probably flew for what seemed an eternity! Probably no kore than 150-200 yards - but that was very cool sensations.

It was quite hard to know how high I was on the foil and did't know when exactly I needed to push down to keep it from breaching. One thing seems clear: resist overcompensating weight distribution too severely. I think acquiring the height at which it is supposed to be is a matter of practice and should come intuitively after a while I guess. This might well be one of the untold(?) most critical point to better "feel" what and when to adjust body posture to keep a leveled flight.

But no matter what, learning to foil is super-tiring: Uphauling repetitively and the position on the board is uncomfortable or at least unusual. In order to keep the nose down and preventing the foil to breach, the rider's weight has to transfer on the front leg and the stance is fairly vertical after take-off. Easier said than done. May things have to be unlearned in order to do what it takes. Also, I think the anticipation of not knowing if I would be able to control anything has a lot to do with how tense I was on the board, which directly influenced how much energy I was spending.

I limited the use of the harness lines and back strap to avoid catastrophic crashes all strapped in! So far the height and crashes are not too intimidating: verything happens in relative slow motion (my foil isn't fast). It's all about finesse. Anyhow, I can see how this can become addictive very quickly, though. Hopefully next time I'll take the GoPro with me and will share a few shots.

Photo Jeff Machtig


Photo Jeff Machtig


Photo Jeff Machtig
Preparing for a tack


Close encounter


Things that happens while jibing


Very handy in cold water: Waterstart clew first.






More pictures in the album section.

True! I think I'm due for a visit. That would be nice to meet more windsurfers in the community. And I might try to sell my 115l Naish Starship after-all.
Where is it taking place?