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Politically correct?..... May be not!!

 

 

How many ‘country men’ does it take to found out the wind has died?

A Korean, a Swiss, an Englishman, and a French.

None of them was smart enough to trust the others!

 

My favorite paparazzo

 

 

 

Let’s give credit where credit is due.

Thank you Kiyong Cho for your patience tracking us up and down and sending us only the glory shots ;-)

 

 

Illegal substance use

 

 Here is the infamous 5.8 taking off.

 

 Tim was disqualified for hiding jets in concave slots under his board and LN2 at lift off 

5.8 @ TI

 

 

That’s what it took to get going.  But then, we were really going!!!   Some were going back to change sail or boards.  Some were already gone to Crissy (to relax) !! (Emiko and Bob)

Anyway Tim jokingly said to me “I’m gonna watch how you’re doing on your 5.0 and I should be OK.  The wind might pick up since I rigged the 5.8”     No kidding!!!

To avoid the long swim out since it was weak and the wind line was 100+ yards from the beacon, Jerry treated me to a VIP launch where with Eugenia, they helped my gears down the slippery rocks and I just had to ease down to water start and I was gone.  On my 80L red Naish and the baggy 5.0 I got quite a ride.

By the time we walked upwind, the wind must have cranked up as I could have been on a 4.2 with a 70 L.   I just flattened the 5.0 and stay with the board as I did not want to spend energy swimming in and out of the cove (Kiyong, you’re with me there Right??).

My reaches were quite short as more wind was outside and I came close to the rocks to lose ground in the wind shadow because going upwind was no problem at all.

Finally I found a sweet spot just past the entrance of the cove.  I did not have to fight the board or the sail and I had a great time surfing the large swells coming by.  That was payback time.

A partial shut down put everyone down for a long swim, but I had spend so much time in the water already that it did not feel cold.  I must be coming addicted to TI.

Someone found a quarter for the wind machine and the usual suspects (Tim and Jerry) kept on sailing. Those wind suckers managed to plane all the way back

 

Cooling off

 

 

As soon as the readings went to 2^nd digit at SFO, I headed north to cool off.

When I got to 3^rd it was almost glassy.  Shade was at a premium.  I sat on the back of Mike’s van under his newly made canopy.

A few kites were pumped but nothing in the air as whitecaps were still single digit.

By 4pm, finally it turned into panic.  Someone counted 10 whitecaps and the rush started.

The wind was actually stronger than the water looked and my 16m was loaded as Cimeron almost got a ride on my back.

It was good to cool off but the relaunch got a bit tricky as the surface wind was near zero.

 

Treasure Island on Sunday

Say Thank you

You owe it to me.

I was a bit too optimistic listening to the noisy trees whispering 4.5  It looked 4.5, it was ebbing and the trees know, there here all the time!   So that’s the size I chose.  But trees are not reliable about direction and that’s when it went south!!  First measure was to get more volume to past the wind line, but after 25 minutes the channel itself went dead.  So I had to do something.

If I did not re-rig, it would have stayed holy.  And if I would have put the 5.0 it would have stayed SW.  Making the sacrifice to 5.5 made sure it would kick in.  AND IT DID !!.

 Happy to see everyone smiling,

At your service.

 

(No, I am not a tree whisperer)

Taking the Autobahn

 

After watching nervously a Word Cup semi-final played in Germany I had to relieve some stress.  So I went to Palo Alto where there is no speed limit.

I took my 5.5 to the “Autobahn” and let it rip on the flat water.  It did not start too fast as plowing the mud can slow you down a bit.

 But once on the fast lane I red line the tach.

A la Zizou

 

 

Someone sighted Zidane at Third Av. San Mateo California, a few days ago.

 

In fact the famous number 10 “bleu” jersey was on the water proudly worn by an older player and a big fan as a thank you for a fabulous victory over Brazil.

 

 

“Nutmegs”,  “roulettes” and curving passes are hard to duplicate on a sailboard, but this “old guy” made sure he made his hero proud by pushing the envelope a bit himself.