Mother's Day Report

[Geoff]

Oneida Lake report – Mother’s Day 2016

After a very disappointing 2015 season, in which I sailed maybe 12 times and on shortboard <10 times, followed by the non-winter of 2015-2016, I was hoping for a good maiden voyage this weekend. Alas, windsurfing has a way of serving up humble pie, and I had a good helping today. I suspect, very strongly, that the reason kiting has overtaken windsurfing is that kiters don’t have to have as big a portion of humble pie. At least the half-dozen or so kiters – the Oneida Lake regulars with whom I’ve sailed with several times – scored a good outing. Kiters 8; Sharks 0.

Back in the day when I was a real runner, I did my fair share of pumping iron. But since I gave up competitive running (a long, LONG time ago now – 1992), I have used windsurfing and XC skiing to build upper body strength. I had under-appreciated how a bad season last summer and a bad winter for skiing set me up for a piece of humble pie. Ah, the retrospectoscope brings it all into focus…

So the start of the day was with my folks, celebrating Mom’s Day, and then helping my 88 year old step-dad clean fallen wood out of the yard so that he could run the rider mower. I hope I’m snowblowing and riding mowers when I’m 88. But he needed help cutting down a big branch of maple, about 12′ up. The tree was on a fairly steep embankment, so the scenario of a chainsaw on tippy ladder was unappealing. The option was a branch saw on a 12′ pole, and 30 minutes of sawing a 6″ piece of hard rock maple. Once we had it down, we cut it up with the chainsaw and I was free to go.

On my arrival, Oneida was going off reasonably well but due W. Sylvan Beach used to be my main launch and in my opinion the best winds are WNW, and a due W can make it quite difficult to get through the shore break once it’s ~20 kt winds…especially when it is gusty enough to kick up the swells but holey enough to leave you underpowered in the break. Which is what it was doing when I got there.

Being ever the idio…errrr,…<i>optimist</i>, I rigged for the outside. It was 17-22 on shore, so I rigged a 5.8 Super Freak. Water level was up, so the break was pretty well extended out, probably 80 yards from shore. Sylvan beach has 3 shallow sand bars; kiters can sail in the shallows but windsurfers need to fin-up to get across the break, which means wallowing out beyond the furthest bar. More than once, I’ve been rejected by the break on really windy days (<5.0) and resorted to just sailing on the inside. But that necessitates a weed fin (small to match the wind is helpful) and great care to avoid dragging on the sand when you’re in the troughs. But I had a 13″ swept fin, so no sailing on the inside. Unfortunately, the 5.8 proved inadequate to get going in the holey inshore wind. After spending 30 minutes or so, in and out of the rinse cycle with a few catapults as the wave rocker stuck to the water but the gusts were huge, I gave up and came in to rig bigger. I wasn’t going to get out beyond the break without a bigger motor.

Only to find that the extended time swirling around in the rinse cycle had washed sand up my mast and locked the mast pieces together. Fortunately, it only took 5-10 minutes to get them apart, using the boom-trick and a rubber mallet to break them loose – every windsurfer needs to have a rubber mallet in the tool kit. Carrying all the tools around is probably <i>another</i> reason there are more kiters now!

Finally, I got back in the water with the 6.7, and – of course – the wind had filled-in to where the 5.8 would probably have worked (anyone could see that coming). But at least I got out! Only to find that the sawing trees and wrestling in the rinse cycle and my cold-water gloves had sapped all my grip-strength, right as the big overpowering gusts required a lot of ooomph. Not many options when you’re sapped-out, very overpowered, and can barely hold the boom…I resorted to end-to-end runs. I think I made 3 dry jibes all day…just couldn’t control an overpowered sail after flipping it in the jibe.

Finally, spotting a line of grey clouds at the west end of the lake and seeing the wind build, I realized I needed to get out of there before the wind got stronger and I couldn’t hold on at all. Found a modest nose ding when de-rigging, from one of the launches no doubt. As Robby Naish once said (paraphrasing)…sometimes you win a few, sometimes the sea wins. I started working with my Gripmaster to get my hands back in shape for the windsurfing season, so I can get some wins myself.

Water temp at Sylvan Beach is probably about 60ºF – not too bad, not warm by any means, but not as cold as I anticipated.

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