The accusations flew.
“You ruined me!” George accused Pete.
“You Vulcan like a starfish!” Pete hurled back.
It got ugly fast at Friday’s ABK clinic.
Okay not really, as Pete and George are good friends and were having a great time during the introductions at the windsurfing clinic on Friday. Still, the talk did fly.
Pete: "And he does his starfish Vulcan on both tacks!"
George: "You gotta…if you don’t practice on both tacks you end up like Mike Burns!"
If you don't know who Mike Burns is, he's the 2008 King of the East festival champion, the best freestyle windsurfer on Long Island. He may only throw certain moves on certain tacks, but “Ending up like Mike Burns” was kinda the reason most of us were at the clinic (us being Jason, Wilson, George Pav, Peconic Jeff, Buddha Mike, The Mighty Larry Hoff, Rich Simons, Voytek and your editor.) So George's comment had us all crosseyed. George knows how to be funny.
Anyhow this was just the freestyle mob, a small part of the clinic who were enjoying the sunny, windy, and warm conditions, of which ABK’s Ed, Tom, Brendon and Andy Brandt were exclaiming how they’d never seen Long Island be windy AND warm at the same time…where was the howling misery?
But soon we were punished, as the forecast of windy building to windier did a 180 (hey there’s a freestyle group at the clinic) so the afternoon ended up as strictly light wind nonplaning…except for Mike Burns (the cautionary tale) who was planing and throwing roto-spocks and whatever, but only on one tack.
I’m excited about tomorrow.
(Photo: ABK-meister Andy Brandt with Long Island's finest, Mike Burns, who may not be able to perform miracles on both port and starboard.)
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