Windsurfing Magazine

iberger
2010-07-02 13:49:08 | 154 views | 1 Comments

The old phrase being sent “up the river” means going to jail, but it has its roots in the Hudson Valley. When some criminal was to be sent to jail, that meant being sent “up the river” to Sing-Sing prison in Ossining. After a week stranded on dry land, I finally got onto the water yesterday with my friend Scott. Winds were weak in the little inlet we launched from, but out on the river the winds were 15-20 mph.

It was today that I would learn an eternal lesson: Do not sail with the equipment you want to sail on; sail with the equipment you need. I was in the mood for shortboarding, so I brought along my short/wide board, an Exocet Cruiser 150. I like this board because it’s a small wideboard but also has a daggerboard to get you out of tight situations, like the sailboat-filled cove Scott and I were launching from, just north of Sing-Sing prison. But it was not the board I needed.

Once I got out past the moored sailboats, the winds died. Then I was left with a 150 board, 6.5 sail, and not much fun. A little voice kept talking in my head: “Hey Stupid, if you had brought your Kona board, you’d actually be having fun instead of floundering around like this.” Of course, once Scott and I left Ossining, the winds picked up to their former glory. The wind gods still hated me.

I’m actually moving here. Must have been some sort of fluke. The scenery’s pretty nice though.

To appease the gods, the ancient Greeks would usually sacrifice one or more “hecatombs”, which means one-hundred oxen, to the gods so they would smile on a person’s request. Odysseus or the other important Greek kings would do this to get his ship sailing in the right direction. Being a public school teacher I can’t a hecatomb to get the wind going, so instead I just watched the iWindsurf and NOAA projections obsessively. I knew the wind would pick up. Soon.

Today I caught a break. The winds looked good today (13-16), and, gods be praised, I had some free time! So I decided to make ago of it, my last local sail before leaving to Cape Cod on Saturday. And down at Peekskill Bay, my little launch by the river, the winds were good. I rigged a Neil Pryde V8 7.0 to my Kona and headed out into the gusty winds.

I should stop here and make clear that I’m not an experienced high-wind sailor. I’m not a really into adrenaline rushes and have never really craved speed, so heading out into planing conditions is always a little intimidating. Before rigging, I briefly considered rigging small with my trusty 6.5 sail, but decided against it. I needed to take a risk. Despite my misgivings about going fast (which I’ll explain another time) this was a great opportunity to push my intermediate-level skills a little. Winds were onshore and there were lots of people by the riverfront to call for help in case I got into trouble.

It was one of the best sails of the year. I railed myself out on the daggerboard to get out onto the river proper. Then the sailing got good. About 20% of the time I had the Kona on a nice plane — which for me is a lot. Sometimes the big board lifted out of the water almost to the fin. The great thing was that I had control almost all the time and never got into trouble. Yeah, I catapulted a few times, but every fall was worth it. I still stoked thinking about it. I only wished there had been another windsurfer around to share the fun.

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