Tales of Windsurfing on a Lake in the Southeast U.S.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Day #39 on the lake

Max Temperature 76 °F / 24 °C
Wind Speed 6 mph / 10 km/h (South)
Max Wind Speed 17 mph / 27 km/h
Max Gust Speed 24 mph / 39 km/h


I was torn between sailing Shutes Branch with Jamey and Monte or going to sail with John C; I chose the latter because John has the Starboard Serenity which is touring the country and I wanted a ride before it leaves town this Saturday.

As you can see above, we had great weather and wind, but unfortunately we did not get to the water in time to see that wind. I saw a couple of whitecaps, but they were few and far between.

Everything I've read about the Serenity says you don't need a lot of sail to enjoy it, but I wanted to rig just once and planned on spending the bulk of my time planing on the AHD, so I rigged 9.5. It was certainly more power than the Serenity needed and that, in addition to my back being out of whack, are the main reasons I did not enjoy it. This board seems to have 1/10th the drag of other hulls and just takes off immediately. It is also quite narrow and as soon as you weight the board wrong, it starts turning. My aching back made me timid, so I let the board go where I had told it to go and was soon in the drink.

I soon went back and got the AHD and John and I sailed for about an hour, me on AHD/9.5 and John on Kona/7.5 Zenith. It was nice to blow by John for a change. :)




John's golf cart, all loaded up for the 1/2 block trek to the launch site.





Signed by Tiesda, cool!




Jim Drake designed it, but can't spell it. Hmm, I bet Newman Darby could. :)


















Driving back to town.