Kitty Hawk Water Sports- Nags Head, NC

Above is Shawn Byrne at my favorite windsurf location, MP 16 in Nags Head.  This day was two or three weeks ago on a Sunday.  I started out on a 6.5 w/ my Longrider and was having a good time.  Shawn stopped by later after the wind picked up and had started blasting around w/ a 5.0.

Memorial Weekend is when activities start cranking up around here and we had a great day yesterday.  By the way, I counted 21 kiteboarders at one time.  Not sure where they all came from but they were definitely having a good time.  Winds were around 15 kts. out of the SW.

Below is an email from my partner at Dolphin Marine in Norfolk, VA.  As the local Hobie dealer we try to stay involved with the local racing fleet (32) and Roy Olive is nice enough to use one of his World Cats (he’s an official dealer) as a committee boat.  He was doing just that for last weekend’s regatta.

Be advised, Roy was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and he’s also an experienced sailor.  If he is on the water with a chase boat during a storm I’m going to feel a lot better.

Almost every sailor who’s a speed junkie has ignored a bad forecast to push the envelope and this was a classic example.  It’s happened to me and after surveying the damage I immediately regreted it.  It’s not worth the money much less the potential for injury.

Hi John,

We had a great turnout…33 boats preregistered and 29showed up.  We had
a Shark fleet of 6 boats, some A Cats, F-18’s, and numerous Hobie 14, 16
and Nacra’s.  I think we had 4 classes.  Got off 5 races on Saturday.
Event at Fort Story went well with a good time had by all. 

Sunday was a different story.  The wx was predicted to be bad but at
8:30 it appeared we could get off a couple of races if we started at 10
so a decision was made to set the course.  We went over on flat seas and
light winds to the state park, got the marks set and the committee boat
in place.  That’s when hell broke loose!  24 boats left the beach and we
were just ready to start the first race when the skies darkened and the
winds started to build.  At approximately 10am we had a full blown
squall developing with winds to 40mph.  Immediately we had many boats
capsized and people in the water.  Several boats lost sails, one got
caught in a fish trap and lost a mast.  We found ourselves in waves that
had quickly built to 6 to 7 feet and a short interval.  Two chase boats
had to retire as the conditions were beyond their capabilities.  The
World Cat 330 was the place to be.  We used it to police up the
scattered and devastated fleet.  We lost track of one boat and skipper
that was approx 1 to 2 miles off the beach so I contacted Coast Guard
for assistance with search and rescue.  Later we discovered he made it
to shore.  One of the sharks was running under a torn jib, when the crew
got thrown overboard.  We rescued him with the committee boat.  The
Shark eventually made it to shore.

Needless to say it was an expensive day for many cat sailors!
Fortunately no loss of life or injuries but it had to potential to be
catastrophic. 

Lesson learned was to heed the forecast and to keep someone on shore
with a radio to account for boats and crews.  We lost the marks and they
are probably halfway to France by now.

Hope you had a better weekend

Roy
 
Roy Harris Olive
General Manager/Partner
Dolphin Marine, Inc.
8166 Shore Drive, Suite 3C
Norfolk, VA 23518
        757-200-2628

Roy, thanks for all you do.

Our new windsurfing instructor is in town and hit the ground running with her first lesson which received great comments from her students.  Sharon Lowrance is from Cocoa Beach, FL and has years of experience. Like me she wants to increase the enthusiam for windsurfing.

Thursday and Friday had good winds (15+) but not many people were getting on the water.  I guess everyone had to work.

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Fleet 32 is having a regatta this weekend in Virginia Beach.  Go to http://www.hobiefleet32.org/ for more info.  We’ll be displaying our 2009 Hobie 16 for sale.  Some interesting features for the new Hobie 16:  it now comes standard with EPO rudder blades, the tramp lace line is smaller diameter, and the righting line is static, not bungee.  The rudders are great, not sure about the lace lines, and the righting line appears to be a way to cut expenses.

I’ve had a few out-of-town Hobie parts orders and I’m glad to take on the new customers.  Hopefully, we can keep you guys happy and on the water.  John in VT, hang in there.  Summer is just a few weeks away.

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I know I shouldn’t complain about traffic but everything’s relative.  I know on the DC beltway if you’re not going 10 mph above the speed limit you’re a liability.  Around here you can stuck behind someone going 10 mph BELOW the speed limit and when you finally get the chance to pass them while going the speed limit it’s as if they were standing still.

When people ask me about what kind of windsurfing board to buy for a beginner I can’t help but rave about the RRD (Roberto Ricci Designs) Longrider.  This board does it all.  Is it a knock-off Kona One?  You bet.  But RRD built a slimmed down version which works just as well and without the extra weight to lug around.

It’s got the floatation (180l) for the beginner, a stepped tail for planing, works well as a flat water SUP, and is great for learning how to wave sail.

Back in the early ’90s when windsurfing was still booming there were boards like the Fanatic Cat and the Mistral Equipe.  These were some of the standards for windsurfing enthusiasts.  We could learn on them, slog on them, teach our friends on them, and try to go fast on them.  They weighed a ton and after looking at the pictures in Windsurfing Magazine of professionals flying off the lip in Maui with a shortboard, most of us wanted to graduate to the next level.

But things aren’t always as they appear.  Learning to jibe is hard.  Learning to jibe like the pros is really hard.  Learning to water start is REALLY hard (I swear, I thought I was going to drown on the Currituck Sound back in 1994).  So much so that I conceded to my mediocre athleticism and never ventured to the ocean side where there are no chase boats to come save you unless you’re gone for more than 24 hours at which point I’ve missed dinner and I REALLY hate to miss dinner.

Where does that leave the middle-aged windsurfer?  Coming full-circle and back on the longboard.  I remember talking with the reps from Aerotech/Exocet at the Frisco Woods Windfest three years ago and they had a new Kona One that was just getting out to the public.  As I looked down my nose at this monster of a board I was thinking, “What’s the fun in that?”  But when I hopped on and got back in the footstraps with the nose slapping the waves while I’m planing I immediately remembered those days ten years ago when I finally got that Equipe dialed in and screaming.  And it was fun.

While I was there one of the Aerotech reps gave me a great analogy.  Marty said, “Windsurfing should be like sex.  It shouldn’t hurt, it should be fun, and you should want to do it again.”  Well said and I think enjoying more time on the water should be one of our primary objectives and the longboard allows us to do that.

The thing about the Longrider is that if the wind is marginal I can test it out and try to get on a plane.  If I can’t plane, no big deal.  I’ll just cruise along and not have to work as hard as I would on my short board.  The other thing is that the Longrider has a stepped tail which means that when you jump up on a plane the last 8-10 inches on the tail rises up above the water and shortens the length of the board, thus reducing the wetted surface.

What I like most about the RRD Longrider is that it’s a capable flat water SUP.  When the wind’s not blowing I can ditch the rig, grab a paddle, and get a great workout.  Don’t be mislead.  This board won’t surf a wave very well and because it’s narrower than a true SUP it’s going to be very tippy in ocean chop.  But if you just like to get out on the water stand up paddleboarding is a great option.

Finally, for those of us who have been afraid of venturing in to the ocean the Longrider may be the answer.  YouTube has great video of guys catching ankle slappers in non-planing conditions.  You can putt around in light air and wait for a little swell and practice catching a wave.  If that strokes your stoke let it be known that even the pros can be seen on a longboard carving big waves.  And if the wind dies down you don’t feel like you’re stuck out there for eternity.  You can still float and, worse case scenario, paddle back in.

The longboard:  give it a try.