Steve's Windsurfing Journal

 I got a windsurfing session in today. I think I haven't sailed for about 7 years; last time was 2019 in Aruba.

Spent the morning with D. remembering how to rig a board. D. hasn't sailed in quite a while, either. It's amazing how much rigging knowledge just came back as I did it. The body remembers, as my yoga teachers keep telling me. Only had to rethread the downhaul once. Only made two assembly mistakes: the uphaul goes around the mast BEFORE the downhaul is threaded so as not to stress the downhaul line (I think?), and the boom was set maybe a few inches high, though maybe it was OK. I used to have a mark on my mast to help me set the height, but that mast is no more.

Took a little over an hour to assemble the whole rig. Used the Hi-Fly Magnum with the Ultra 5.5 sail and the North Sails 465cm mast. Same pin mast base as ever.

D. tried to rig the Neil Pride Zone 4.7 but the mast was too short without the a mast extension, and the only mast extension I have has a Chinook base but he only had a pin base. So we bailed on that effort. (Turns out that my mast base with a broken tendon is the Chinook base we needed -- I really should have fixed that and brought it with me, but I slacked. Next time!) So we decided to take turns sailing the Hi-Fly.

D. bought a used Bic 293cm board, with a mast and sail, etc. I think he said the sail was 6.0 and I think is some kind of North Sail. I didn't get a good look at it. Unfortunately, that sail is missing a batten and a batten cap, so it's less than fully useable.

The wind gods were messing with us a bit. The forecast had been for a 4 mph average until late afternoon, when it would go up to 7 for a while in front of a rain storm. So we were really thinking we'd just assemble to the rig to help us remember how and to validate that all the gear was present and serviceable. Just as I finished rigging the 5.5, though, I noticed whitecaps on the lake -- wind blowing more or less across the lake, neither onshore or offshore. I'd say maybe 10knots? Guess the front was coming in earlier than predicted. Sweet.

We had started our gear adventure maybe 930am. So I hurried up and and we launched around 11 or so. It still took close to 30 minutes to change and finish assembling and figure out how to launch the windsurfer off D.'s dock area. We decided to put the board in first, then attach the sail while wading waist high in the lake, as the launch area isn't wide enough for the board and sail together.

The wind miraculously held through all this, and I took the first turn. I paddled out so I wouldn't get pushed into the rockwall-lined shoreline while I figured things out. Slowly, slowly I remembered how to actually sail the beast. A slow uphaul raising and a quick angle upwind and off I went. The wind was strong enough I regretted not rigging the 4.7. Not that the wind was all that strong, but at 64 years old my muscles aren't what they were when I was sailing once or twice a month. There was enough wind that I could actually imagine getting close to planing, and after a couple of very sloppy tacks I could go sort of fast. I kept hearing Tino of Calema's voice in my head: "mast foot pressure!! mast foot pressure!!" and that stabilized the board and helped it start to take off.

Upper Greenwood Lake is not very wide. 100 yards maybe? 50ish? So the tacks where short but not uncomfortably so. I BAF'd maybe 3 laps and played with trying to sail downwind toward the dock. I think I forget how to sail downwind properly, so that needs a refresher. My tack footwork would make Andy Brandt very sad for me, but each time it got a little better. I managed a lazy jibe or two.

One tack was so integrated I did start to feel like part of the board attached to nature for a while. Bliss. I love this sport all over again.

So, after having tried to go downwind to get to the dock and failing, and decided to go downwind of the dock entirely (which worked somehow), and then tack upwind to land. No dice. Couldn't get back. I don't know if the wind shifted or I just couldn't reason it out, or I just got tired. My shoulders and lower back letting me know it was time to stop.

I started doggie-paddling the board back to the dock. D. came out in the kayak and towed me in, and I walked the board back to the dock from half a house downwind.

D.'s turn. He got up on the board and tried to balance himself to uphaul. He considered the unsteadiness of the board, the strength of the wind, the size of the sail, and perhaps his fatigue from paddling me in. He gracefully decided he'd try again with a bit less wind on another day.

But such a win. A day on the water is better than a day not on the water. D. and I high-fived and hugged it out. Big smiles. We are back!!

Tear down and stowage took longer than I remembered, as I neglected to factor in the time to let things dry out. I scrubbed down the 4.7 for mildew (the 5.5. is miraculously unmildewed after 28 years!).

We put the stuff away eventually, and the rain started falling right around 2pm, earlier than predicted but it made sense given when the front came through, The wind died down before the rain fell. The wind gods were with us; we had accidentally timed the sail perfectly.

A Hobie Cat showed up as we were eating lunch. Dude got up on one hull a couple time, and had no problems sailing up and downwind. Show off ! :-) Time to review my notes and practice up.

I was so pumped after the sail. I had almost forgotten the sheer joy of it. My muscles will speak to me tomorrow, I'm sure.

Feeling horribly guilty that I hadn't repaired and brought the Chinook mast base to the lake this weekend, I resolved to fix it so that D. and I had it available for next time.

It's a truism in windsurfing that no matter how hard you try and prepare, there's always one missing piece  and yesterday this was it. No more!

I used @windsurfcoach's YouTube short to give me enough information and confidence to do the repair. His mast base in the video is different than mine, but close enough. My guy here did the replacement in 2 minutes but I figured it would take me a half hour, and it did.

As I got into the tendon replacement work, it became more obvious why the tendon hand just broken on its own. Every time I tried to pull the broken pieces out of the base, bits of the tendon crumbled off in my fingers. At one point, an entire chunk just sheared off.

So the hard part was not putting in the new tendon -- it was getting the old one out. It was in the base pretty tightly and wouldn't pull out easily even after I removed the retaining bolts. Every time I pulled on it, pieces came off and what was left was stuck.

I took a wood screw and drove it into the tendon on the board side of the base. Magically, the screw had enough purchase that it lifted the tendon piece out completely just before the material holding the screw gave way.

No such luck of the mast side of the tendon. The screws just slid right back out. So, having a nice hole now through the center of the tendon, to took an Allen wrench, poked it in the hole, angled it slightly to provide resistance against the crumbly material, and gently pulled out the tendon from the base. Took a couple tries as the tendon crumbled before the whole thing cleared the base, but rotating the Allen wrench about 90 degrees to get a fresh surface did the trick.

The next fun was getting the retaining bolts back through the horizontal holes in the new tendon. I at first thought the holes were to small and that I would have to drill them out. But I was able to push the bolt into the hole using an Allen wrench to provide enough pressure. Aligning the tendon holes with the bolt holes in the mast took some precision but I got there.

I had taken enough photos beforehand to realign all the pieces in the same way as they were. Bolts tightened, line re-threaded and re-tied and off we go.

Good as new!!