TR: Windsurfing w/Otis In Duxbury, July 9, 2008

[BigDaddy]

I managed to sneak out of work early to catch some great wind down in Duxbury. (A perk of being self-employed!) It was blowing 20-32 knots which is rare and ideal for around here. Otis has been playing in the water a lot, so I brought him along to have some fun, too.

Entering Deluxbury:




I also snapped a few pics of the homes here. Very beautiful place:




It's not a low rent district:




Iceman should look into this spread... then I can leave my sails all rigged and ready!:




The fact that the town is on the water also adds some serious value:




Powder Point beach and only an hour from home:




Otis has just recently dicovered water and he LOVES it:




Happy ears:




He had fun jumping over waves:




The bridge in the backround:




Tom on a 5.1:



Tom almost jibes:




Me having a great day on a 5.7 (first one since March in the DR):




I actually made the majority of my jibes!:




PROOF OF REAL JIBE!!!:



Otis having some fun:

[Core Shot]

It was indeed a good day to ditch work for wind
5.2 and decent swells made for much fun

Nice Jibe.


Way better than your tele turns;

[powder11]

nice shots and a great spot for sailing! I grew up on standish shores and used to sail over to the bridge. it was fun heading down wind, but not so much trying to get home.

[Alpine Dreams]

Nice....

[facedeep]

Nice pics. Motivating as I'm in da hood right now and am about to go and get my ass kicked by the river. Good to see you killing it.

[Sutter]

BigBuxbury, I went to the beach there all the time as a kid.

Coreshot that video is great.

[BigDaddy]

It was indeed a good day to ditch work for wind
5.2 and decent swells made for much fun


Way better than your tele turns;

Did you get out, too?! If so, where'd you sail? I'm still high from yesterday. I only got an hour and a half on the water, but it was quality time...


That's Stayalert the "saftey engineer" making sure the snow is soft...

nice shots and a great spot for sailing! I grew up on standish shores and used to sail over to the bridge. it was fun heading down wind, but not so much trying to get home.

Duxbury is great for a quick sail. I love that spot and can't believe it's still open. Non residents can park for free, no one complained about Otis and it's rarely crowded. Otherwise it's 1 1/2 to 2 hours to Neds Point or Chappy's.

Nice pics. Motivating as I'm in da hood right now and am about to go and get my ass kicked by the river. Good to see you killing it.

I love HR... we used to go out every summer for a week of two. Guaranteed wind and lots of it! I got my ass kicked there plenty, but it always felt good.

[iceman]

Nice, just saw this. I was on that same beach on the 4th sailing my bother's Hobie, it was blowing about 20-25 and there were quite a few windsurfers and a couple kites out. It's convenient there since I rented a car and didn't have a beach sticker.

[Smokey McPole]

OK - that does it. Too many windsurfing TRs - I'm getting back into windsurfing after nearly a decade off. Windsurfing is rad.

Has windsurfing stuff changed like skis have? Am I gonna get new gear and all of the sudden be as good as Dave Kalama or whoever?

[stayalert]

good to see you and Otie the other day! as far as the ski footage....I thought I was safe from seeing that clip again....and just as I was starting to get over the nightmares.....

[Mani_UT]

Has windsurfing stuff changed like skis have? Am I gonna get new gear and all of the sudden be as good as Dave Kalama or whoever?

Pretty much... Riding what seems to be an old Hi-tech like on the pics above is still super fun and all but it's like skiing on rossis 4s... There is stuff easier to ride and more fun out there!!!

New gear will make you feel like a better rider (just like anyone with big pow skis can sort of ski deep powder nowadays). It's fun.

[Core Shot]

^^^^^^^ what he said.

Its much like the fat ski revolution.

Modern wsurf boards are shorter and fatter.
Esp. the fatter tail, which helps a clydesdale like me stay in the straps in a lull. Also makes them redonkulously easy to gybe.
My last 2 boards have auto-gybe. Gybing a 15 year old hard rail narrow board was a 10 on the difficulty scale, these new freeride boards are a 2 or 3 in terms of difficulty.

Sails are way better too. More range, easier to rig, more stable etc.

Buy gear no more than 5-6 years old (that's when the revolution really started).
Wsurf gear is shit for resale, so you can get great used gear for short money.
If you want to shortboard in wind from 18 to 30mph, one board boom mast and 2 sails and other gear for $1500 should be doable.
Even less if you get some beat up (but not too old) gear.

Or, you coulld kite.

[BigDaddy]

good to see you and Otie the other day! as far as the ski footage....I thought I was safe from seeing that clip again....and just as I was starting to get over the nightmares.....

I think that video has been earmarked for major b-day celebration/presentation. Have projector, will travel! That was great the other day to get wet and have a quick cold one with you! I hope we can get some tubing in on the river this summer/fall.

Pretty much... Riding what seems to be an old Hi-tech like on the pics above is still super fun and all but it's like skiing on rossis 4s... There is stuff easier to ride and more fun out there!!!

New gear will make you feel like a better rider (just like anyone with big pow skis can sort of ski deep powder nowadays). It's fun.

Good call. It is indeed a vintage 1988 Hi Tech glass 9'-1". I still love it, even though I get to sail all the new stuff every winter in the caribbean. I was just in the store and eyeing some new stuff today, though... my Fiberspar boom broke yesterday and I may even spring for a new 75% carbon mast... The boom is $700 and mast $400, so it ain't cheap.

So what kind of board would you recommend CoreShot? I'm a 200 pounder, too, so planing early would be a luxury...

[Core Shot]

Good call. It is indeed a vintage 1988 Hi Tech glass 9'-1". I still love it, even though I get to sail all the new stuff every winter in the caribbean. I was just in the store and eyeing some new stuff today, though... my Fiberspar boom broke yesterday and I may even spring for a new 75% carbon mast... The boom is $700 and mast $400, so it ain't cheap.

So what kind of board would you recommend CoreShot? I'm a 200 pounder, too, so planing early would be a luxury...

If youre spending $700 on a boom, dont get a fibersnap - Hawaiin Pro Line is good.

If you get masts, go skinny RDM for 430cm or smaller. Breaking them is unpossible, they are light, easier to store, and 90%+ carbon.

If you get a modern board, it may not be happy with old school sails from last century, but you are already on Ezzy, so you are set there. Ezzy's love the skinny masts as well.

What size board you get depends on what wind range you want.

In general, the FreeWave boards are the way to go. Pretty fast rocker, easy to gybe, can be used in the waves, plane earlier.

[PhishingME]

BigBuxbury, I went to the beach there all the time as a kid.

Coreshot that video is great.

Deluxbury. Cool beach for the Jeep. Not as good as Race Point though.

[North]

Okay, two windsurfing threads at the top of the boards so I thought I'd give this a shot...

Anybody familiar with the Front Range windsurf scene? Shops? Primo spots? I'd really like to meet some accomplished windsurfers out here because I've been teaching myself up to this point and it would be nice to get a few tips. Also, I have access to a lake through a buddy of mine, but his gear is really old and I would like to move my gear out here from Minnesota. It's actually my dad's stuff, but he'd probably let me take a sail, boom...basically everything but the board.

Can anybody who windsurfs in the area give me a suggestion for a decent board (mostly looking for a size suggestion at this point)? I'm 160 lbs and have been learning on a giant 180 liter Starboard Go. At this point I know how to beachstart and use my harness, but I still suck at watertarts and jibes. I feel like I could definitely downsize, but I'm a noob so I don't really know.

Also, I would be bringing out 6.4 sail. Am I going to get crazy overpowered?

Answers to any of these questions would be much appreciated

[tonghands]

If youre spending $700 on a boom, dont get a fibersnap - Hawaiin Pro Line is good.

If you get masts, go skinny RDM for 430cm or smaller. Breaking them is unpossible, they are light, easier to store, and 90%+ carbon.

If you get a modern board, it may not be happy with old school sails from last century, but you are already on Ezzy, so you are set there. Ezzy's love the skinny masts as well.

What size board you get depends on what wind range you want.

In general, the FreeWave boards are the way to go. Pretty fast rocker, easy to gybe, can be used in the waves, plane earlier.

Pretty much everything Core Shot said. HPL booms are bomber. Skinny masts rule. Freestyle Waves are really good all around boards, I'm partial to the RRD's but JP's and Fanatics are good too. Ezzy's are definitely well built sails and lots of good sailors use them but they've got a feel some people like and some people (like myself) hate. To me they're twitchy and gutless. I love my Sailworks Huckers, also built for use on an RDM. Have fun.

[justcuz]

Pretty much everything Core Shot said. HPL booms are bomber. Skinny masts rule. Freestyle Waves are really good all around boards, I'm partial to the RRD's but JP's and Fanatics are good too. Ezzy's are definitely well built sails and lots of good sailors use them but they've got a feel some people like and some people (like myself) hate. To me they're twitchy and gutless. I love my Sailworks Huckers, also built for use on an RDM. Have fun.

HPL is definitely bomber. Chinook booms are super solid as well. In my opinion, anything less than a 160ish cm you can get away with aluminum and not sacrafice a whole lot of weight and performance.


If going skinny, I'm anti Gulftech, as I broke a 430 and totally felt it was a defect. Stay away from Dynafiber (Dynasnap) for everything.


I'm also anti Ezzy.....I'm a Naish guy. I would seriously consider Sailworks, too. Pricey, but so good.


2000 was the revolution....nothing older than that.

[BigDaddy]

It looks like it's gonna be a new HPL boom... with a new skinny thrown in to the mix. Time for me to enter the new millenium! Thanks for all the info.

As far as the Ezzy goes, I like my 5.7, but know what it is to have favorites. It seems to work well for me and to be pretty strong. I'd love a Naish or Sailworks, too. If I can get on the water with Core Shot, I can see how bad my "old" stuff really is.

This past Saturday and Sunday I went minimal baggage and forgot my harness... I had to use a vintage 1970 PFD with a wooden harness spreader (plastic hook) dug out of a friends basement. I broke it five times, but just kept retying lines and it let me have two fun days! I was the lone windsurfer along with five kiters and they must have wondered WTF?!

[yemntftb]

damn you guys were seriously ripping. sweet.

[jpcski]

I grew up maybe 10 minutes from there. Brings back some memories seeing the bridge. Heading back that way in a few weeks. Definetly going go head over there to see the sites.

If windsurfing and kite boarding were going on there back in the day, I might not have headed west.

Thanks for posting.

[BigDaddy]

Last Thursday I had the chance to finally meet up with CoreShot on the Cape and do some more sailing. It was blowing 25-30 knots, great wind, with only a few rain squalls. That just added to the fun on the water and I got a couple videos of him ripping through the rain. We were the only ones crazy enough to be out there, but it was well worth it, gusting near 40 knots at one point making for some fun liquid smoke!

I arrived shortly after noon just in time for some perfect 5.1 conditions:




A shot from the water:




Core Shot ripping in the rain:




Core Shot tail wagging and walking (shot while straddling my board so a bit shaky):