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Do you ever get bored on the water?
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cgoudie1



Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 2597
Location: Killer Sturgeon Cove

PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't think people give it up because it's boring, but then I don't really
understand boredom, maybe that's the root or my cheap wind whoredom,
but it carries through my entire life.

-Craig

westender wrote:
Bored in the Gorge? Some days are not the greatest but in winter you wish you had them back. Must be some reason so many people give it up or move on to other things.
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GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I frequently get fed up of (different to boredom) and annoyed at, the wrong conditions, but never with that captured for life basic necessity that can't be ignored, to be in or on the sea. It gets into some peoples blood, and cannot be reasoned about, or denied!

Basically, the mode used to satisfy that necessity (windsurfer, kayak, surfboard, catamaran) is always simply the means, however enjoyable, to scratch that never ending itch. Hence, the advancing of skills (fat chance after a life time of participation in those things, and at the ripe old age of 80) takes second place to the basic need of continually being 'out' there. Especially in view of the now limited time left before the final enforced goodnight!

I used to be asked (when doing repeated year on year long kayak camping do's) what makes you just want to keep repeating the same thing? Because I can't just stop - the sea won't allow it, I used to reply. And, I may add, I can think of no good reason to wish it was otherwise!!!!
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PeconicPuffin



Joined: 07 Jun 2004
Posts: 1830

PostPosted: Wed Dec 20, 2017 11:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

westender wrote:
Must be some reason so many people give it up or move on to other things.


There's a theory that goes like this:

1. The challenge is part of the attraction.
2. As we get better as windsurfers, what used to be challenging is less so.
3. To keep challenging ourselves, we either need to keep learning new techniques, or sail in increasingly challenging conditions.

As we get better, the number of days that offer "challenging conditions" gets lower and lower in number.

For myself in 6.0 conditions, once planing through jibes became no big deal, it became time to add duck jibes. Then carve 360's and push tacks. Now it's backwinded jibes, donkey jibes and upwind 360's. I don't know what's after that for 6.0, but I'm not worried because I'm having a good time with the current menu.

If it's blowing 4.7 I don't worry about any of that stuff.

_________________
Michael
http://www.peconicpuffin.com
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 11:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You guys have offered some good responses deserving of further comment.

The inspiration and motivation for this thread was when, in another highly relevant recent thread, PeconicPuffin wrote:
What are some useful and/or fun skills you've learned in sessions in the last five or ten years?

Once I listed a few things I’ve learned and realized how practical and accessible much of it is to almost anyone on almost any body of water, I just kept going. If any of it helps anyone, s/he wins. My WSing is largely spontaneous improvisation suggested by the terrain second-by-second, rather than a menu of catalogued moves to be checked off. In layman’s terms, it’s more like true, unregulated, freestyling than a series of tricks. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, but why list them again when they’ve already been documented so well in Tricktionary 1, T2, and T3? Some sailors have made great progress by building and pursuing their own volumes of tricks and techniques much more complex and thorough than my skeletal list.

To me, a field of swell is like the desert I loved for so many years of spontaneous cross-country riding and racing in wild, untracked terrain horses would often have trouble negotiating. No rules, no tricks, no canned nuthin’, no cruisin’ between tricks, no buoys, no starting whistles or finish lines … just raw, mind-altering, limits-pushing, unchoreographed, bashing & slashing/arcin’ & sparkin’ as it’s been called … with abrupt consequences if one’s attention wanders for a second or two. IOW, windsurfing, for me, is an extension of WFO dirt biking around Moab, Utah rather than motocross or a seven-course cookbook project. For many reasons, I prefer playing like a puppy to performing like a champion circus dog or sheep herder. I hope that’s allowed, as I don’t plan to stop until my body leaves me no choice.

As just one example among scores, I find roaming miles upwind or downwind offers something like the same visceral attraction as using a dune to launch my dirt bike over a fence or a narrow canyon/crevice without worrying about how the hell I'm going to get back if I can’t find another launch ramp or if the wind goes ballistic or dead. The answer? With sufficient skill and determination, there’s always a way. Proof? I’m still here. Guarantees? ‘Fraid not, but then a lady got hit by a meteor while lying on her living room couch. We may as well enjoy life in the meantime.

I assumed your deliberate faceplant … er, gecko … video on your website was intended as a joke until the top photo on Page 168 of T3 reminded me: I did those in the early to mid-1980s as a defensive move in serious catapults. To protect my pretty face (just ask Mom), my front ankle, and the board’s nose, I’d sometimes very deliberately take the board with me “over the handlebars” by locking my back foot into its strap when everything else had failed. The differences between then and now are at least fourfold: it didn’t have a name then, it was a useful safety measure, it was not planned, and it was on 12-foot longboards.

he also wrote:
The challenge is part of the attraction, but as we get better, what used to be challenging is less so and the number of days that offer "challenging conditions" gets lower and lower in number. To keep challenging ourselves, we either need to keep learning new techniques, or sail in increasingly challenging conditions ...

… Or, I might add, make lemonade out of ordinary conditions by doing things faster, higher, sharper, tighter, more elegantly, more precisely, more powerfully, just differently, etc. My list has done all those for me and still leaves plenty of room for improvement. Other sailors choose racing, freestyle in slogging and/or planing conditions, longboard cruising, chasing sailboats, racking up hours or miles, chasing personal GPS speed bests, foiling, ramping up the risks by sailing miles offshore in the ocean, crossing oceans, major downwinders, checking off tricks in Tricktionary or in their own compilation of goals, and more. I can’t think of a better application for the hackneyed phrase, “It’s all good” … as long as we add, “for someone”.

Heck, on many very gusty days the greatest challenge might be just rigging right … selecting a sail and board combination that keeps us planing without getting slammed while everyone else is changing gear all day. Those days can be great even if the conditions suck, and many of my skills are focused on that quest, especially when returning to shore to grab a different pre-rigged combination is a 20 or 30 minute struggle. Other sailors chase very different goals with very different measures of success on such days.

grantmac017 wrote:
Don't need planing conditions with the right gear.

Depends on one’s objectives and preferences.

westender wrote:
Bored in the Gorge?
and JamesHardy wrote:
No I don't get bored, there are these things I do when there is no wind or waves …
and zirtaeb wrote:
… tennis, bikes, surfing, hiking ...

I should have made it clearer that I’m speaking of spicing up one’s windsurfing during momentary lapses of focus or imagination while on a plane… not days or seasons of boredom and not about finding alternative activities. My biggest problem by far is finding enough time to get adequate sleep, not stuffing my days or seasons fuller.

PeconicPuffin wrote:
Tricktionary has more things to learn and do at every level than you can shake a stick at.

I mentioned freestyle several times as a whole ‘nuther way one could go. I also mentioned T3, which I have, am very impressed with, and consider a treasure trove of both basic and freestyle sailing. But I chose to reference rather than regurgitate its contents here, partly because we’ve beaten that topic to death recently.

d0uglass wrote:
I don't get bored but sometimes bad feelings about land-based things follow me out onto the water. Like, I might feel guilty or be second-guessing myself about my decision to windsurf as opposed to doing something else.

I don’t recall ever having that problem. I consciously made WSing my #1 priority when I retired. It’s like donuts; I decided decades ago never to eat another one (trans fats, ya know), and it’s been simple. I doubt I’ve chosen anything over WSing more than 6 or 8 windy days in the past 30 years. Surgeries, birthdays, anniversaries, chemotherapy, work, and much more can usually be scheduled for calm days, and I stopped making social obligations in the 1980s. I’d add that to my list, but it would make it too long. ☺ (Besides, I already published that article.)

GURGLETROUSERS wrote:

1. I frequently get fed up of (different to boredom) and annoyed at, the wrong conditions …
2. the advancing of skills (fat chance after a life time of participation in those things, and at the ripe old age of 80)
3. I used to be asked what makes you just want to keep repeating the same thing?

1. I hear that. Take heavy chop, for example. I’ve posted many means of dealing with it, but there are limits beyond which it’s simply a PITA I choose for several reasons to evict from my life.
2. Considering the number and variety of new skills available with minimal effort and in modest conditions, there’s always a chance for progress. But considering what we lose past our peak, the net skill level will decline at some point. My jibing percentage, for example, peaked years ago, but at 74 I’m still significantly improving on some aspects of them despite medical barriers.
3. “They” just don’t understand that no two swells, waves, gusts, sights, jumps, etc. are the same. Even on dirt bikes and snowmobiles, where we can fly off the same dune or cornice repeatedly, it takes many such flights to say, “OK, I got that one down pat; let’s go find another.” Surely even birds never get tired of flying.

Ken Winner's contrary opinion (“I’ve done all there is to do in windsurfing”) aside, we mortals can usually bump up the challenges ourselves without Mother Nature or a book offering them to us on a platter. That, moment by moment, is at the heart of this thread.
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