The Peconic Puffin

Met Scott at Sebonac.   The forecast resembled that of two weeks earlier, when building winds brought us from calm to blown off the water in a few hours, so expectations were high.   With maybe 10 mph breezes Scott was worried that he hadn't brought his 3.7, based on the readings he was getting from up island.  I felt the need to rig something, so I picked 4.7.  5.4 seemed like asking to get flattened, but Scott's anticipation of nukedom seemed overly optimistic.

I'd rigged correctly, kinda.

Whilst some wingers (including Christian, John Nat and Dan) were out for lighter breezes, I got going on the 4.7, with Scott soon behind me but not quite as lit (over the winter I lost weight…Scott not so much).  Good fun, but the lulls got bigger and bigger, and ultimately shut us down.

An hour later back at home it started blowing 30 on the bays.   I'd had half of a good day and was cool with it!

(Photo of me and Dan.  Dan is a former colleague of the Wolf, though Winging is his first wind/water combo sport!)

It had been a year since I'd sailed my 77.   Someone said "check your footstraps for rot!"   I've never had gear go dry for that long!  The straps were fine.   I met Scott at Sebonac, where we were joined by Winger John Nat and another guy whose name I forgot but he used to work with the Wolf so he is automatically In.

Scott forgot his 4.2 ("I left it under my 5.8!" so he was in a pickle, as the winds built over two hours, but not gradually.  Ever so often it was as if a switch was thrown.  Me:  4.7 on the 93, 4.7 on the 77, 4.2 on the 77, and then in the middle of a run I (and everyone else) was flattened by a gust.  Liquid smoke.   I got back to the beach fully sheeted out, thinking my 3.4 was too big for what was blowing.   Everyone came in (John toughed it out for an five extra minutes) while sand blew down the road.

Derigged to a gorgeous sunset.

As I pulled up Scott and Joe Nat shouted "you killed the wind!"

I hate killing the wind.

They'd been on 5ish gear (Joe bigger, with a cammed slalom sail) before I got there, and were sailing lit.  We stared at the water for half an hour, with me halfheartedly rigging my 5.4, when it came back up.   I caught maybe 30 minutes of nice wind, and in my recovery from a year of practically no sailing I managed not to fall (my jibes are still shite however).   Then it started to rain, and as we didn't want to get wet we left.

Nice little sesh.

The Coastal Marine Forecast is singing our song:

Today:

NE winds 10 to 15 kt with gusts up to 20 kt.  

Jan van der Wolf…the Wolf…commodore of the Eastern Long Island Wind Chimp Association and a proud Peconic Puffin…has decamped for Florida digs.

“It’s too cold here in the winter” he told me.

I agreed. It used to not be.

“It’s the end of an era,” Scott says.

More than that, says we.   Ten years ago for Jan’s 70th birthday I wrote “The Wolf is the goal. The Wolf is a beacon.  Every time Jan vanderWolf catches a wave or launches off a ramp, we're hopeful for ourselves, that we can be out there decades from now.   Also we're having a good time, because let's face it:  The Wolf is fun to sail and paddle with.   "The Stoke of the Wolf" Jeff calls it.”

Have seen it all with the Wolf.  Supping a "party wave".  Snow sailing at South Jamesport.   Sebonac Inlet going off.  A mid ocean collision.  "You'll have that" Jan says.

Now at the age of 80 the Wolf is exercising some judgment. Good for him, sad for us. We all love the man.   But now we don’t get to sail or paddle with him.   He sold his beloved landscaping business.  And the vanderDome is closed. Our loss.

If he comes to visit everyone will lend him gear, of that I’m sure.   I hope he does.

Elvis has left the building.

(Air Wolf photo courtesy Jeff Schultz.)