Windsurfing Magazine

Andy McKinney
2010-03-26 15:01:05 | 1137 views | 11 Comments

You’d better budget a few minutes for this one, folks! I have LOTS of cool stuff to tell you about!

First: I am now the proud owner of my very own windsurfing shop: Wind North Carolina! Sailworld’s owner Brett decided to close his shop over the winter so that he could move on to a more traditional lifestyle in the mid-west. This created an opportunity for me to open my very own shop! I’ve stayed in the same location — in the back of Hatteras Island Boardsports and Village Video, right in the middle of Avon. I’m also sticking with most of the same brands and adding a few more, so don’t worry you’ll still be able to get your RRDs, Tabous, Starboards, World Sails, Gaastras, Sailworks, Chinook, Dakine, NoLimitz Masts, Gath Helmets, etc. Here’s all the contact info:

The website (wind-nc.com) is still a work in progress, so please have patience while I get it up and running. I’m trying to put together a Hatteras Windsurfing Guide for you guys to help you choose where to launch from, based on the conditions of the day. Right now, it’s searchable based on sound or ocean launches and wind directions. I hope to incorporate swell direction and size, too, but I’m not a web designer so all of the programing stuff is Greek to me. But I’m trying! The guide also has some helpful local hints and general seasonal weather trends. I plan on incorporating a lot of technique and gear-rigging articles as well, but all in due time. You’ll also find searchable archives of this blog, and a new shop blog to keep you updated on new gear arrivals, sales, clinics, events, etc.  Oh, and an online store. Anything else that I forgot? Aye yae yae! Anyway, check it out, and feel free to make suggestions!

Moving on. Second: Congrats to Anne, Laura, Bobby and the other few thousand people who ran in the Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon last weekend! It was beautiful spectating weather, but a little hot for the runners. As the sun got higher, there were people dropping left and right, but Anne pushed on and finished with a respectable 4:24. That was a bit behind her goal, but just finishing was challenging enough in the heat! I’m very proud of her Here she is after the finish:

Third: It has been HOWLING out here! WINDSURFING mag editor Josh Sampiero showed up the other day with a box truck full of 2010 boards and sails to test. Man, have we been putting them through the paces! The first day of testing was absolutely perfect: Gusty 20-30-something WSW in the Buxton Slick. That place is awesome for testing — the wind is a little gusty so you can get a great feel for the planing ability of the boards, both getting up onto a plane and gliding through lulls. You can also figure out how well the board handles chop when you go blasting out from behind the island into the open water of the sound. Then you get the choppy-water jibe, the butter-flat-water jibe, the jumping, the freestyling, the speed, the comfort level — all in two tacks back and forth! Unbelievable!

I can’t really tell you anything about the specific boards yet, but the quality and standards of performance of the gear is just completely unbelievable. Every board I tested outperformed its 2008 or 2009 predecessor, hands down. I have no idea how the designers keep coming up with a better product, but they do! The wave boards had better early planing and a tighter carving radius, the all-rounders did EVERYTHING well, and the dedicated freestyle boards were faster and carved and slid better. I am really very impressed with all of the gear! Obviously, there are lots of specific quirks and characteristics, and you’ll learn about those in due time, but as a whole, the gear is just incredible these days. Check out some pics:

After three-plus hours of testing and a lunch break, we took the wave boards out to Old Lifeguard Beach and met up with Bill and Keith for an off-side-off wind, chest-high wave, evening sesh. It was pretty fun, but we were all pretty spent by that point and the super-gusty wind was challenging to deal with. Regardless, everyone caught a few great waves, and no one got blown out to sea or anything, so it was a great sesh! Bill has a report with a few pictures posted here.

The wind died the next day, so we snagged a sunset SUP sesh in Avon. Knee to waist high, pretty clean, very fun conditions. Josh gets the award of the day for going out in baggies and a rash guard and somehow not getting hypothermia! Meanwhile, I ditched the gloves and hood for the first time since December and was rewarded with an ice cream headache after every dunking!

The Charlotte Crew showed up yesterday, and we scored another great day of testing. This time we sailed at The Hole and went through everything from 7.5s down to 4.7s and 135 liters down to 95 liters. There was so much gear on the beach, and so many testers, that it was like a free for all.vGrab whatever you can and hit the water!vIn all the mayhem, Ken noticed that his super-beat-up, five-year-old JP was missing.  We couldn’t find it anywhere, so we started to think that maybe someone had stolen it, but we couldn’t figure out why someone would grab such a beat-up old board when there were all of these beautiful 2010s lying around on the beach! Eventually, we found it — when Ralph came back to the beach after sailing it! Turns out, Ralph was so stoked on testing all of the gear that he grabbed Ken’s ding stick and duct tape special and tried to test that, too! Ha! All’s well that ends well!

Looking ahead, it seems like we’re in for another rowdy day of testing. What d’ya think of this forecast?!  Yikes!

One more thing before I let you go: The water’s warming up very quickly this year! Check out this infrared map. That’s about 60 degrees in The Sound and on the Southside and more than 50 degrees on the east beaches! Amazing, considering it’s not even April yet! Come on down and get some of this weather for yourselves, folks! Spring is here and the wind is cranking! Yeeee haw!

Andy McKinney Rides:
Read more of Andy’s blogs at lostinhatteras.blogspot.com.