Friday, May 27, 2011

Where did that come from?!!!!!

The sesh
YES.  Finally.  We were blessed with wonderful wind on Belews.  It started SW through morning and clocked S toward mid afternoon.  I did another one of those old enough to know better too young to care things again.  Sailed LIT from just after 1 straight to 5pm.  I just kept thinking is this real?  It could stop at any time so I'd better not.  Nobody forecasted this in advance and I completely got skunked my previous 3 attempts at lightwind seshes so this was too good to be true.  5.8/112 with SW swell on a S wind making for big flowing jumps. 

When the wind was SW it was heavenly sailing in front of the launch.  As the wind clocks S at Belews there is a trick to staying in the thick of the power.  The secret is upwind efficiency- get upwind between the 2 islands.  As it goes further S go further upwind in the big dig bone area S of the islands.  There's probably a neat scientific word for it but I'll not use it.  The wind flows around the eastern most island and you end up with a sw wind on the eastern shore.  Between the island you get the pinch and more of the punchy s flow.  It is pretty cool since your routes take a boomerang shape.  Excellent ramps for jumps this way too.

Not long after I launched I saw some folks come out and SUP.  Maybe a man and a woman?  They turned the corner and paddled the northerm most point of the lake out of the wind.  I didn't recognize them but it was really cool seeing SUPers.

LIGHT WIND FREESTYLE...
Sam and I have been working on lightwind freestyle on the SUPs and I've also been using the 112L.  It is great fun and the SUP is the perfect board to get started.  So far I've gotten helitacks, push tacks, upwind 360s and back wind sailing (front to sail).  I spent lots of time yesterday doing the heli tacks in planing wind.  Wow!  When you get it in stronger wind things happen really fast.  So much more fun than the fast tack!  When I did go back to the fast tack the heli tack made it even better.

1 comment:

  1. Front to sail Sailor!

    Glad it was so good there. We barely got 12mph at Jordan Lake but it was still fun on the sup with the brand new Zephyr.

    Cool you got helitacks in that kind of wind. Things do happen fast. Same thing with the big Zephyr, it's more of a challenge - the sail can get away from you.

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