Category: The Prudent Puffin (Safety)
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I worry about gear breaking…in particular anything that would leave me unable to sail back to shore, and expecially anything that might separate me from my board (perhaps you caught my rant about two bolt bases.) I've been fairly lucky in regards to uni breakage (it's only happened to me once…my safety line held, and…
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My feet are size 10 1/2 (American) and standard width. In 16 years of windsurfing I’ve never had any issue with footstrap width, whether I was sailing barefoot, with booties, with winter booties, whatever. Until I bought my new Fanatic. The board (which I otherwise love) has its footstrap inserts set too narrow for comfort…
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DEFINITION Violent overstretching of one or more ligaments in the foot. SIGNS & SYMPTOMS Severe pain at the time of injury. YES A feeling of popping or tearing inside the foot. TEARING Tenderness at the injury site. HECK YES Swelling in the foot. YES Bruising that appears soon after injury. YES RISK INCREASES WITH Runners,…
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The idea was inspired by Dana Miller’s wind chimes created from broken masts. I’d seen some he’d made at Barton Decker’s shop in Hatteras, and he also wrote a piece about recycling masts as art in New England Windsurfing Journal. I made this a few years ago when I snapped an old boom windsurfing on…
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Note to self: don’t combine the following: Unfamiliar waters. Power boats charging through a narrow channel with strong currents. Fog. Nightfall. It started out as a low-key little session: Jeff and I were driving around the North Fork hoping to catch some of the late day wind forecasted by iWindsurf. South Jamesport wasn’t happening, so…
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Ever since trying a free sample at an ABK windsurfing clinic years ago, I’ve been a staunch supporter of Bullfrog, and used it for all my sun protection needs. No matter that it smells like vodka when you put it on…it stays on even after repeated dunkings. I have been a Bullfrog man. But according…
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Everyone gets catapulted, particularly in the early harness days of their windsurfing careers. There are brutal catapults of course, but most of us are also familiar with that particular twist on catapults: the "I’ve just been slammed into the water, had my breath knocked out of me, and now I’m hooked in underneath the sail"…
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Not mentioned in yesterday’s post about the session at Sebonac Inlet was Jeff’s breakdown. We all saw Jeff spending some time in the water working on his rig. He was in the shallows and only a few hundred yards out, so while everyone had an eye on him nobody was particularly concerned. After about five…
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We’ve been having a lot of fun sailing in crazy cold conditions over the winter. But when a recent commenter (Chris) mentioned safety concerns on the same day that I happened upon an excellent item about hypothermia I thought “there are no accidents, and accidents do happen.” (I used to get paid to do paradox…