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Two steps forward one step back
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coachg



Joined: 10 Sep 2000
Posts: 3549

PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:26 am    Post subject: Re: Two steps forward one step back Reply with quote

Goodwind wrote:

Most likely you've been planning rather than blasting. To go really fast without both feet in straps won't be comfortable for most people, especially in rough water. Here is my two cents:
1) Choose the strap setting so that both front and back straps are as close to the centerline of your board as possible.

3) With your front foot in and planning along, shift the sail and your body forward just a little bit to facilitate entering your back foot into the back strap.


You guys do realize he is using a Kona? Not a lot of options on moving the footstraps inboard on my Kona and I'm pretty sure his as well.

While shifting your body weight forward just a little is a method of getting into the back strap it is a delicate balance when done that way and usually leads to catapult for beginners or intermediates. Another option is to have them press down through the shoulders & elbows to un-weight the back foot.

Coachg
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boardsurfr



Joined: 23 Aug 2001
Posts: 1266

PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the additional explanations, isobars! I think we can now piece together what really happened. Quotations from isobars are in bold, explanations in italics.

isobars traveled to CC. (Keep in mind this was many years ago, before iWindsurf meters were everywhere.) He got up before dawn because he could not sleep. He drove to Bird Island spend hours sitting at BIB waiting for the wind to come. (It must have been him waiting because it's extremely rare to see anyone at BIB sitting around waiting for wind). Not seeing any, he studied much more meteorological literature and consulted many CC sources have lived and sailed on NPI full time.

Thus being well informed, but still plagued with sleep problems, isobars got up again before dawn the next morning. Back to BIB he drove, but once again, no wind! So he drove from BIB to the Bay and/or Port A at dawn and gained a solid 10 kts of wind. He came to the conclusion that you have be ready to drive 20-30 miles if necessary for wind - always, everywhere. But he got to sail at dawn using highly localized updrafts and the resulting sea breezes "much more often than you guys".
--
If you want to sail sea breezes in the Corpus Christi area at dawn like isobars, it may indeed be necessary to copy his approach. Good luck!

Or you could talk to the friendly locals at the beaches and at WorldWinds. You'd probably learn that the thermals usually start sometime in the late morning to early afternoon, and build into the afternoon, when the wind comes from the south. If it's a northerly direction, they may tell you that you'll get the best wind if you get up early - on most northerly days, wind quality drops as the day progresses. North wind is frontal, so you may notice that it arrives earlier at some sensors than at others. If you check the computer forecast models, they can often give you a pretty good idea when the wind will arrive. From the locals, you may also learn that they tend to pick their spot based on preferences and where they live - wave sailors go to Port A if the wind direction is right, slalom sailors, beginners, and freestylers go to BIB, free riders go to BIB or the CC Bay. Talk to the right people a bit longer, and you may learn that you can find much more that the typical slightly choppy water in the half mile "corridor" at the launch: long runs to the other shore, rolling swell in the middle, or perfectly flat water for speed runs and carving freestyle .. all within a couple of miles from the launch. But most windsurfer never go there, since they prefer the safety and relative flatness of mostly hip-deep water.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Aug 26, 2017 3:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

boardsurfr wrote:
If you want to sail sea breezes in the Corpus Christi area at dawn like isobars, it may indeed be necessary to copy his approach.

Glad you agree. The same principle goes for almost every place I've sailed and the vast majority of my sailing time since 1980, right up until I began medical treatments that limit my TOW: sailing comes first, then food, then sleep. On many hundreds of days, that has required setting my alarm for times between 2:30 and 4:30 AM, often after sailing until 9:30 PM and getting to bed at midnight. If you ever get that dedicated to WSing -- or realize that we don't live forever -- you'll understand why I do it. (The same went for dirt bikes and snowmobiles most of my adult life and for fishing in high school; how else can we cram several lifetimes of fun into one earthly life?)

Kudos to my wife for getting up with me to cook a full breakfast everyone else would call a large supper.

"Nobody sits around waiting for wind at BIB"? Tell that to the guys who claim in this very thread that there's no reason to drive from BIB (maybe they're in these pictures.)





Another example of personal choice: Some (most) people choose to sleep and/or nurse their coffee until 9 or 10 AM, sail a bit, take a 3-hour lunch break, and sail a bit more before calling it a day at 4 PM. Others prefer to sail as long as the wind and daylight allow, sleep and coffee be damned. Isn't it great that the sport allows both choices? Isn't it strange that so many of the former need to criticize or ridicule the latter, even to the point of denying reality? Reminds me of poor Andreas Macke, who spent all those seasons in Portland, OR refusing to believe that STRONG and HOT east winds can begin in August just minutes to the east, rather than blowing only in mid-winter blizzards. It would have taken him virtually no effort or time to see for himself rather than calling BS on people who had been sailing those winds for decades.

BTW ... Vicki Duncan, Worldwinds founder, her partner Gus, and many other long-time CC residents are among my many CC friends and sources. It's not just my first-hand experience.
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Goodwind



Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 323
Location: On water

PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 12:42 am    Post subject: Re: Two steps forward one step back Reply with quote

coachg wrote:

You guys do realize he is using a Kona? Not a lot of options on moving the footstraps inboard on my Kona and I'm pretty sure his as well.
Coachg

OK. Now I understand why he has such a hard time with the back strap. Kona is a regatta board and not beginner friendly. The back strap is way too close to the rail for beginners to learn comfortably. I know because I sailed one two years ago for a couple of weeks testing out the step-tail as I was interested in an Exocet windsup. It would be suicidal to shift your body weight forward to un-weight the back foot for strap insert since your back foot would, in this case, be between the back strap and the centerline. However, it would work for wider board with center positioned back strap. For the Kona, you are better off pointing upwind, spread out your arms, pull back and down on the boom to un-weight the back foot. I think user friendly boards make a huge difference in progress. If he had my Exocet windsup instead, he would be planning with both feet in strap four years ago. BTW, Exocet windsup plans earlier than Kona.
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boardsurfr



Joined: 23 Aug 2001
Posts: 1266

PostPosted: Sun Aug 27, 2017 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
boardsurfr wrote:
If you want to sail sea breezes in the Corpus Christi area at dawn like isobars, it may indeed be necessary to copy his approach.

Glad you agree. The same principle goes for almost every place I've sailed

Amazing! Sea breezes at dawn at almost every place isobars has sailed!

isobars wrote:
On many hundreds of days, that has required setting my alarm for times between 2:30 and 4:30 AM, often after sailing until 9:30 PM

More super-human isobars feats! Sailing hundreds of days from dawn to 9:30 pm!
isobars wrote:
maybe they're in these pictures

The pictures are so skillfully selected that it would make the so-called president proud! The first picture shows a crowded parking lot, but not the sailing area. Probably for a good reason - there are actually white caps visible in the shallows, so everyone is out on the water.
The second picture mostly shows the camping area on a windless day. Looks like it was taking during an ABK camp, those trailers and vans look rather familiar. Yes, during ABK camp, there are sometimes light wind days, and highly dedicated windsurfers still come to the camp. They sometimes even sit around for hours - although that's usually to listen to lectures. Driving 20 or 30 miles won't get you to planing conditions on such days - well, maybe except isobars, who has discovered the spots with highly localized sea breezes that the sensors don't see.
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trance_dude



Joined: 06 Jul 2014
Posts: 40

PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 11:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK so for the first time.... I am going to defend isobars! I live in central TX but the Corpus Christi area is basically my home site. I go there very often to all of the locations: mainly Port A and Packery Channel on the coast, also all the bay sites, and very infrequently Bird Island.

Usually the wind at Port A and Packery and all of the coast sites is nearly identical. Driving up the coast isn't likely to get you more wind. And usually the wind is not so different on the coast and the bay.

BUT I have seen some really weird situations as well, like where it is blowing 5 mph on the coast and 15-20 at the Bay. There are certain patterns where the wind stays high off the ground until it gets a little inland and then gets sucked into / funneled through the bay.

I usually only go on good forecasts so I don't see this that often, but maybe this happens more often on marginal forecasts which is what isobars saw.

Just sayin!
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