Warm, flat and shallow?

jingebritsen · Joined: 21 Aug 2002 Posts: 3371

i have to water start in some pretty hoary situations in east coast surf conditions. light wind added with following currents and gusty, shifty winds force me to be as simple as possible with my thoughts.

orient the board off the wind. use the back foot to pull the board under your butt. arms as straight as one can, keep mast foot pressure on. front leg acts as keel to max apparent wind.

no 10-12 paragraph explanations.

isobars · Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935

What J said, plus I roll forward up and onto the board as I sweep that forward/keel leg down and back to boost that rolling action. It's a do or die technique in that if it fails I'm now out of position, but with practice we learn to estimate pretty accurately whether it will work. If it fails, you just get that lower leg forward again and try again.

Last ditch, when you can hear the barge pilot swearing or praying, you grab the bottom of the mast in the front hand and either a harness line or the foot of the sail in the other, getting the sail higher into the wind AND giving it more leverage to lift you.

coachg · Joined: 10 Sep 2000 Posts: 3550

TooSteep,

If you shift your dates one week later you can catch the Jan 26-30 ABK clinic. That will fix your water start & clean up your jibe.

Coachg

DelCarpenter · Joined: 06 Nov 2008 Posts: 499 Location: Cedar Falls, IA

One of the attractions of Bonaire over Aruba is much better snorkeling. Great windsurfing (warm, shallow, flat, windy) is not as rare as great snorkeling. Bonaire has both from what I am told.

Isobars, thanks for the waterstarting & jibing details, both skills I need to work on.

PeconicPuffin · Joined: 07 Jun 2004 Posts: 1830

johnl · Joined: 05 Jun 1994 Posts: 1330 Location: Hood River OR

J64TWB · Joined: 24 Dec 2013 Posts: 1685

Make sure you hit the National Park on the North end of the island. When I was there about the same time as John, petty car theft was real. Probably mostly for scuba duba's who would leave wallets in rental cars as they go out. They would have a watcher up high to give them the all clear to go through the rental car once the scuba divers would go under. I wouldn't worry though, it is a lovely Dutch island away from commercialism.

Try scuba there it's a very easy place to try. We swam with Tarpon at night off the hotel. Freaky experience with them darting in and out of our lights.

isobars · Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935

AndreiA · Joined: 14 Apr 2013 Posts: 73

Bonaire!

Some reading here:
http://www.na-windsurfing.com/TravelNotes/default.html

Curacao has better connections and only 15 minutes flight by InselAir. I flew with them many times, the only problem is they sometimes cancel flights. I would recommend on the way back have good gap between the flights as WestJet doesn't fly every day if you miss it Smile

Aruba is a bit longer hop (30min), and there are fewer flights. Don't make a mistake booking a flight connecting at Curacao (2x15min flight and looong wait).

Let me know if you have any questions.