Windsurfing Magazine

jdouglass
2010-05-05 11:38:04 | 1436 views | 2 Comments

Windsurfers are widely scattered across the state of Florida, but a few locations gather enough regular riders to constitute a “scene”. Stuart, a small city on the East Coast about 30 minutes north of the Palm Beach/Miami megaplex, has one of the best scenes. Stuart windsurfers gather and launch from convenient parks along a bridge over the Indian River Lagoon and enjoy great flat-water blasting in any wind direction. (Nearby Stuart beach also has decent wavesailing.) In the spring the area has a lot of warm, southeast sea breeze, which makes it the ideal time to hold a windsurfing event like the Stuart Spring Fling.

The Fling is being organized by Rick Randall, AKA Maui Malone, who I am pleased to note is establishing a small-scale windsurfing retail operation next to Stuart at the Cowabunga Surf Shop in Jensen Beach. Now I won’t have to drive all the way to Cape Canaveral whenever I break a mast or need a new footstrap or something. I think the sail brands he deals are Maui Sails and Gaastra, and the board brands he deals are RRD and Tabou.

Last year at the Stuart Spring Fling was the first time I had ever tried downwind slalom racing, and I had an blast, despite only having freestyle-wave gear and no slalom stuff. This year they will also be doing a long-distance race and some other fun activities, wind or no wind.

Yesterday after work, I dusted off my formula board to practice at my usual launch in Fort Pierce. I hadn’t sailed formula for a couple months because Florida’s cool and windy season had allowed me to ride mostly smaller gear. The breeze was only about 9-13 knots, but with a 9.8 sail I felt like I was blasting. Check out this boom-mounted camera video I took:

You can’t tell in the video, but another reason I was glad for the big board this day was because I saw more sharks swimming around under me, chasing fish and stuff, than I have ever seen before. Crazy.