Site Designed, Produced and Maintained by
Pixelwave Design.
|
|
| ||||||
| Member Details | Session Description |
Toys Used |
| Owner:
ajdesq Member  F-O-N Champion 2003  Member#: 6 Location: Registered: 24-07-2002 Diary Entries: 209 Mood: Living to kitesurf :-) |
31st July 2003 Windsurfing: Hood River, Columbia River Gorge Wind Direction: W Wind Stength: All over the place! Surf / Sea State: Flat/sm swell Air Temperature: 34 Sea Temperature: 20 Weather: Sunny & gritty Max Speed: Distance Covered: Arrived at 1130 to the wind blowing old boots, so opted for the security of the Marina as opposed to the Event Site. The wind was blowing about 30Kts as I was trying to get the Mystery off the truck and leave the Carve strapped on... people were getting hammered on 5.4s so I rigged up the 4.5. At that point, the wind dropped to about 10-15Kts. So after much sitting around, nattering with friendly canadians, and early lunch, I braved it. Near the beach was a huge wind shadow, but further out it was windier. I had a tough time getting out, even tougher time trying to stay afloat, and ended up swimming back. Half an hour later, it picked up a bit more. I tried again. Sometimes I was WAY overpowered, then suddenly it would drop to nothing (and I mean NOTHING!) and the board would sink. It was really pretty dire, but at least I got back in this time without swimming. All afternoon the wind varied from 5kts to about 25. I changed up to the 5.0 as I was fed up with sinking and would rather be overpowered than struggling to waterstart. Had a good hour or so towards the end, even ran into an instructor who gave me free tips on my carve gybing... she said my carving was good, but I'm releasing the rig too late. Something to work on. As I'd been doing loads of carve gybe practice with Sue, we ended up downwind. Halfway getting back up, the wind dropped. 200m from shore it totally died, and again I started swimming. After 5 mins I was already knackered, but I saw a gust coming towards me. It was a gift from the gods. It was enough to waterstart, get going, get on the plane, and pick up enough speed to cruise through the wind shadow back to the beach. Then there was nothing, except the 25 knots 30 mins later as I was trying to get the boards onto the truck... The Event site, a mere 500m upwind, had had good wind all day. Now I know why it's more popular than the Marina. This one gets three stars, but sometimes it was 1 star, sometimes 5! |
Toys Used:
Statsbar:
| |||||||
  |
|
|
|||||||
|
Web Design in Wales, UK by 
Pixelwave Design.
© Alan R Cole 2000...