Wind & Water - the Invention of Windsurfing (2007) from Joseph Schuster on Vimeo.
I met up with a group of guys I used to windsurf with in the 80's. It made me nostalgic for the old days, when you had one board and one sail. There has even been a lot of discussion on early sailing on iwindsurf. About one third of them do not windsurf as much as they used to. And these guys where great sailors. So I figured these old clips were appropriate.
Right now my van smells like a mix of air freshener, and rotting seaweed. Heckscher has been closed to swimming due to high bacteria levels. Of course, I learned this on the local news; AFTER I went sailing there twice this week! http://www.news12.com/
[Incidentally the life guard they are interviewing is Chris Goodwin. He just started windsurfing several years ago. After watching us fly across the water from his lifeguard stand, he decided to give it a go. Now after just a few years he can rip with the best of em’. http://youtu.be/fLzXrdjvC_E ]
But back to why my van stinks. Heckscher may be closed to swimming; But not to windsurfing. I guess they have never seen me windsurf; and don’t realize I spend as much time in the water as I spend gliding over it.
This August has been unusual. You usually have to put up with Heckscher’s weeds in June and July due to its famous thermals.It is just the only place it blows during the summer. Unless of course, we get an errant tropical storm. This season however, June and the first half of July were a bust.
You noticed bizarre behavior among windsurfers. Die hard wave sailors were spotted on 9.0 sails and slalom gear! There were even reports of manicured lawns. Thank god there were some small waves. In unpredictable behavior, since late July, early August; I have been windsurfing twice a week. [one session was even in the ocean]. Plus earlier this week we had big clean swell!. [I missed surfing it, because I was too busy with the dizzying gyrations of the DOW. And I actually was dizzy;{ probably some leftover effects from being in a coma the last week of June}] But it has been so nice to be windsurfing, that I am cool with it.
I’m pretty much cool with everything. I went from accident---to living in nothing flat. I am lucky. Joe, on the other hand; my brother, has been getting beaten up the last few weeks. He was just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel: now we are screaming wrong light! And wrong tunnel. The cumulative effects of treating his illness are now worse than the illness in the first place. It just plain sucks. Joe is stronger than I. He just deals with whatever is thrown at him. No complaints. No whining. He just get’s it done.
Segue is on the Hard
She hasn’t been on dry land since October of 09. My list of “to-do’s” is enormous. I’ll probably get to about one tenth of them . I need to…
Let her hull dry out.
Grind and fill any blisters that show up.
Add a 4 inch dark green boot stripe above the waterline.
Acid wash my hull. [done; just not so well]
Wax my hull. [only one coat]
Scrape and clean the teak. [ barely started]
Oil the toe rail.
Varnish the tiller.
Cetol the coamings, hand holds, eyebrow, and mast box.
Add a window to the Genni.
Add a dodger without a front end to use as a Bimini.
Attach a spinnaker bail at the mast head for a gennaker.
And the list goes on and on...
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