Session Report: March 31, 2006
The wind just exploded Friday. I started with a 5.7 in the morning. I had a few good reaches and then started to get overpowered. I hate rigging and walking the path with my gear so I decide to stay on the 5.7 a little longer. I barely made it back to beach on the last run with the 5.7. I rigged a 5.0 and tried that for a while, but it seemed like I was in a rigging race with the wind. The windspeed was increasing faster than I could rig smaller sails. I was overpowered once again and decided to try a 4.2. By the time I rigged the 4.2 the wind was more offshore and we were in a wind shadow on the beach. I went out and when I broke through the wind shadow, I was hammered by the wind. When I tried to waterstart, the wind would lift my gear off the water and throw it downwind. It’s funny now, but I was getting pissed then. I made it back alive, but just barely(complete exaggeration). I was tired from all the rigging and carrying around gear. I have now decided what wind speeds I like and which ones are too much work.
Session Report: March 30, 2006
This was a good day. The wind was consistent, which kept me from rigging more than one sail. When the wind did die off, I used the same sail(5.7) on the Nova and was planing once again. I followed Master Glen so I could watch him jibe. I completed one planing jibe on the Nova by following his lead. I stayed so long I had to call into work Thursday night. I only got 4 hours sleep and my body wasn’t ready for anything that resembled work. So I slept another 8 hours and then came Friday…
Session Report: March 13, 2006
I was absolutely thrilled to get going on the Kombat. I thought it would take me much longer to adjust to the new board. I went from a 186ltr board to a 105ltr board. The feeling of the smaller board is great. Unlike the Nova, it is very responsive to every move I make. The Nova was great for letting me get up and going quickly, but it was slow to respond to anything I tried to get it to do. I can’t really give a good review of the Kombat yet, as I only have a few reaching rides of experience on it. Give me a few more times out and I will post a full review. How about that mast? Well, I don’t think it was meant to be used on a performance wave sail. We got it used with a Pacific 5.0 trainer sail. I’m surprised the downhaul didn’t kill it first. I’ll be on the lookout for a more appropriate 400cm mast. Luckily I had a spare 400cm mast.
