And reasons, like seasons…

on November 10, 2010

Hopefully you haven’t been eating veggie meatza everyday for the past month just because it’s been that long since I’ve written anything. October was a crazy month—unnecessarily crazy, almost. And like most things that plague me, it was of my own doing. But I’m not here to dwell on this “lost” month; I caught myself burning out and promptly remedied it with an unreasonable amount of movie watching and just a general tendency to vegetate. It took a few weeks (and a few days into November) to pull myself out of this rut, but appropriately enough, all’s well that ends well. With the new month, the weather in Texas is finally changing, and so reasons, like seasons, they constantly change…

So what inspired me to make a new post after all this time? Well, I made an impulse decision to go sailing today after I checked iWindsurf in the morning, which reported a 17 mph S wind from noon to 3pm. Moreover, the air temperature was forecast at mid-70s, but it felt like high 70s, if not 80s in the sunshine. But the kicker was probably that I had been meaning to take all my gear out of my car (I’ve housed it in my trusty 9-3 since the season started for minimum latency to the lake), but it felt so anti-climactic to just shuffle it up the stairs after weeks of disuse. The remedy, of course, was to shuffle all that gear up the stairs after a day of un-disuse. Basically, I needed to end the season with some badass action—and so I strapped my board onto my car, and took off down the oft-traveled path to Lake Travis.

Not surprisingly, when I got to the good ol’ boat ramp, there were already quite a few windsurfing degenerates already there. I suppose I count as one of them, since I was also taking advantage of the “extended lunch” to catch the wind. Besides, with all the weekends that I worked away in September and October, a couple of hours at the lake to close out windsurfing season was a small favor to ask.

After a brief exchange with some of the usual suspects, I rigged up Mr. Pursuit (with tape and all) and took off planing. And I mean planing. According to the Austin Yacht Club’s wind meter, gusts were up to 22 kts today. I wish I had a speedometer to see how fast I was going during some of those gusts, because I had a hard time keeping my eyes open from all the apparent wind. I imagine this is why cars have windshields.

I also wanted to perform a gallery of moves I had set out for myself as goals at the beginning of the season, kind of as a “final exam,” if you will, but I think I got caught up in pushing the speed limits of my gear so much that I forgot to actually take my own final (note to self: don’t do this for real final exams). Here’s that list, with some end-of-season thoughts to go along with each goal:

• High-wind stance
  The biggest change I made this season was moving the harness lines way back a la Guy Cribb; not only that, I also pinched them together and settled at a fixed length of 28″. This really helped me be in tune with my kit, so much that I can actually feel where the center of effort of my sail is now. Interestingly, I’m even able to feel how my tape-fix has affected my sail profile. This newfound sensitivity has gone a long way towards finding a stable high-wind stance. I would give myself a “pass” since I was able to stay head-to-head with an experienced kiter on a straight reach race today. Granted, he just jumped over me when he got bored, but whatever.
• Waterstart
  The reason I didn’t sail at Lake Travis much last season was because I didn’t have a waterstart in my repertoire. Over the past few months however, I’ve really figured it out. More recently, I’ve been better at falling into a waterstart position on bails and today, I even clew-first waterstarted pretty easily. I guess it helps to have rockin’ winds. Pass.
• Heli-tack
  I started trying this move about a year ago, and I can finally pull it out in all winds now. Unfortunately, I can only do it on one side. Next season, I’ll be looking to get this on both sides. Still, I would count that as a pass because I backwinded myself against 17mph winds today and flipped around to tell the story.
• Push tack
  Over the course of the season, since I could only heli-tack on one side, I started practicing push tacks on the other. I haven’t been as diligent in practicing this move, however, so I’ve only pulled it off in light winds. I give myself a “fail” on this goal. I’ll be looking to get more competent at this maneuver starting next season.
• Planing jibe
  Ah yes, the holy grail of the season. I could probably write an entire post on my failed attempts at hitting this move, but just these last few times out on the water, I’ve been able to get a planing jibe, exiting clew-first. I’m still having problems with the sail flip at the end, but I know what I’m doing wrong, so there’s hope for next season. Oh, and I can only do it on one side. So yes, I suppose this is also a “fail.”

At the end of my season finale showcase (namely, showing my face to the water), I was asked a favor by one of the other windsurfers. Apparently, this guy was out for two years with a shoulder injury, and today was his first day back. He certainly had some guts coming out in today’s conditions for an initial re-engagement with the water after two whole years of injury. In any case, he asked if I could take some photos of him to commemorate the occasion. Even though I was already pushing the boundaries of the “extended lunch,” I agreed to help out a fellow windsurfer. However, to my dismay, he handed me a clunky plastic thing that he called “a camera with waterproof casing.” At least that’s what he answered when I stupidly asked him what it was. Here’s my rendition from memory of what this thing looked like:

After I confirmed that I needed to wind the camera first before pressing the red button, I conceded that the camera was probably before my time. My first instinct was to do a rapid-fire photoshoot, but of course I remembered that film is actually physical and limited to 24 shots. Great… now I had to actually be a decent photographer. So I waited and waited for the perfect moment; my eye lined up the shot in the viewfinder and at the moment I decided the composition was just right, I pressed that red button and… nothing? Where was the fake shutter sound—er, real shutter sound? I tried a couple more times, winding up and pressing the shutter button, but each time it was really hard to hear whether I had done anything right. Finally, I just gave up and grabbed my own trusty Powershot D10 (ok, Mr. Powershot D10) and unleashed a flurry of digital goodness.

At the end, I explained my incompetence and confessed that I was actually not sure if I had taken any photos on his camera at all. However, as a counteroffer, I showed this windsurfer the digital photos I had taken on my D10, to which he exclaimed, “Wow, you took a lot of photos… Are all those of me?” “Yup!” “That’s amazing!” Phewwwww, digital wins again—thanks Mr. Powershot! But I wasn’t out of the woods yet, because when I offered to email him the photos, he said that he didn’t own a computer. D’oh!

The best I could do at that point was to give him my card in case he one day discovered email. I suppose he really just hoped that I hadn’t failed at taking photos using his own camera, although I’m sure I didn’t inspire much confidence in him. It’s an ironic feeling when you get stumped by technology from what is supposed to be an older and simpler time. But like seasons and reasons, the times they just keep on changing…