A blog about a group of windsurfers and other water sports enthusiasts, and their friends. Established 1993.
At the gym this morning I remembered that I wanted to start excercising my neck muscles. I’d had the original thought about a week ago, approximately three seconds after a nasty crash that wrenched my noggin pretty good. And seeing as how one of my New Year’s resolutions for windsurfing is to get no less then 20 feet of air on a jump, more rough tossing of the head is likely in my future.
But not like these guys. Hopefully…
(clip originally spotted by Chas in the Yahoo LI Windsurfers group.)
I’m curious. When a windsurfer gets on a wave – are you still actually sailing, or do you hit a takeoff point where it becomes more surfing than sailing?
And do those particular lunatics that windsurf Jaws-sized waves have some extra heavy-duty rigs? That’s a whole lotta water to have land on top of your equipment.
There are moments where it’s more surfing than sailing, but it’s always a combination in my opinion. There’s a neat phenomenon where even if the wind is too light to get you planing, as you begin to surf down the face of the wave you pick up speed…the sail’s apparent wind speed increases…and all of a sudden you’re powered up and can sail the board (in addition to surfing it) even though there’s not enough wind to otherwise do so. Speed begets more speed.
Re sailing Jaws, (or Peahi as the Hawaiians call it!) from what I understand everything but the boards is standard wave sailing gear (all wave sailing gear is heavy-duty.) The boards (usually custom made) are a bit longer to accomodate the various needs of surfing down those 30 foot faces. Sailing Jaws is specialized stuff, and the people who do it are generally pros, and always with a support boat there to assist.
Meanwhile it’s a regular occurence for people to have top of the line wave gear snapped into pieces by waves less than six feet high if everything goes wrong. The standard nightmare is the mast getting stuck in the sand or a reef, then a wave grabs the board (still attached to the mast) and pogos it. Snap, crackle, pop!
That’s one hell of a video!!!
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