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.

Day #38 on the lake

Max Temperature 71 °F / 21 °C
Wind Speed 7 mph / 12 km/h (South)
Max Wind Speed 14 mph / 23 km/h
Max Gust Speed 21 mph / 34 km/h

I almost didn't sail today because the neighbors kept me awake until after 6:00 AM and I barely got three hours' sleep; but I had left messages for Jamey and Monte the night before and when Jamey called and said they were going, I psyched myself up and went and was really glad I did.

Monte's Superlight blew off his roof racks a few weeks ago, so he brought his DuFour Wing, but since he didn't think to bring the mast extension for it, he had only the base to work with and therefore rigged a 5.3. We were rigging about 1:45 and at times I was tempted to sail the AHD and let him sail my Superlight, but there was a large wind shadow at the boat ramp, so I didn't.

It was me on S'light/9.5, Monte on Wing/5.3 and Jamey on NTrance/6.3. We raced upwind and I was amazed at how well Monte did on that little sail (Monte is 200 lbs.) I railed the Superlight and shot upwind, then hung out to wait for them. Then we all worked on light wind jibes, I sailed fin first, and we had a ball for about 2 1/2 hours.

These guys have never sailed larger sails and two minutes after I swapped with Monte, the wind died, and boy, do I mean died. We all headed for the boat ramp, Monte caught me and we switched back, and I pumped like mad to get to shore before dark. The sun didn't set as quickly as I thought it would, with sunset officially taking place at 4:35 and it was still light at 5:00, but I used a flashlight to check for anything we might be forgetting.

What a nice day, I'm glad I've still got a longboard.