3.3-4.2m waves 11s period, Erika is coming

[manuel]

The tropical storm should basically nail us. Camera is charged, let's see if I can make it on the water!

EDIT: 34 knots in the gusts, water is messy, not huge.
EDIT2: Wind just died (normal with arrival of storm/cloud)









This was at low tide, at high tide, waves were going over this old concrete foundation and ate away at the shore.



These waves are about 800m from the beach, they appear small but when up close they are loud and mean!





The Sans Souci hotel does need to worry because this photo was taken at low tide and at high tide waves were hitting those rocks and chewing away at the sand sinking them and doing lots of underlying damage to those foundations.

[adywind]

11 sec periods! Sounds like paradise ! Soo different dynamic compared to the Great Lakes and requires very different kit, technique and strategy choices. The fresh and usually cold water makes that difference even more dramatic
On the other hand I've heard this morning on the radio that 20 people are missing in the Dominican Republic-feared drowned in floods. Paradise can turn to hell unfortunately.

[manuel]

Windguru updated to 3.2m with 10s.
The bad thing is that it'll be nearly full onshore (if we can get out at all). It's sideshore on the beach but onshore on the reef.

Currently the wind is doing lots of up and down's because of clouds and such that are passing by. Going from 24 to 32 knots to 17 to 22 knots. Probably quite gusty. Forecast shows 20 to 24 knots.

The storm hasn't hit here yet, tonight it will.
Deaths happened in Dominica (small island farther south-east).
With swell from the E we won't have a shorebreak (or a minimal one).

PS: Crap now it's raining!

EDIT: One kiter out right now near shore. The reef looks messy with crumbling waves everywhere. Quality seems low but wind is good 22-28 knots.

[adywind]

Oops, my apologies ! Dominica it is /didn't know it exists /. Let's hope you guys get only the good consequences of the storm then and nobody else gets hit badly! Awaiting your reports from the spot!

[manuel]

Working on photos, haven't gone on the water yet.
It's messy (read lots of current) and on/off, so quite difficult to do much.
Low tide expected in an hour or so.

[manuel]

30-40 knots, time to go!

EDIT: When I got to the beach, I found the wind quite offshore and dropping. All businesses closed. The water state was even messier than in the morning. Tony went out in the morning (I must have missed him by a few minutes). He tried to get to a better wave further East. Not much could be done out of this storm unfortunately. Too bad!

[jingebritsen]

have learned to stay on as large a board as possible in tropical systems. wind is very wide ranging and can drop unexpectedly.

i also will size my sails for lulls and trim for gusts. formula sailing and wave sailing have some cross training. i have learned to handle gear that has to allow maximum forgiveness yet power too. extreme upwind and downwind angles help dealing with monster gusts too. 17-40 in a tropical condition, i would rig a 5.2 and put it on a 105 liter exo-wave board from 2005. one of the few times it helps to weigh lots: 191 cm (6'3") tall and 96 kg (212lbs).

[manuel]

Completely agree, this applies to side-on wave riding in general and becomes more prevelant the bigger the conditions. I'm just not sure there was much to grab this day and with unreliable winds it was probably not worth it.

The gauge reads high to me since the sensor was changed. The spread between the gusts and average is closer than what it was before. But it does give a good idea on speed and direction variations. What's strange is that we had lots of broken branches and toppled small trees, we often get winds in the 30s so I'm not sure how high 30s could cause so much more flying debris, maybe the gusts...



Yesterday we had 1.4m and 9s, it looked like a small lake! It was pretty awesome to ride the remnants of Erika though.

[jingebritsen]

i sailed in the surf with the wind side off 30 degrees 7-18 mph. waves were 10 feet. could not have done it without the 11'5" board. the current was very strong on the inside where the wind was weakest.

i retested a fact that few will readily acknowledge with their words or actions: went out with a 5.8 sail at first. it was okay but lacked the power to help grab waves or to allow me to use sail power to link up from one peak to the next. then rigged a 6.8 sail and had a much better wave ride. i like to use both sail power and wind to max out my rides.

i get grief from some folks for talking about using long boards in waves, yet i get 10 times the wave sessions as those working folks that don't here in florida.