26FEB2011 winter sailboarding

Ok, the blog is starting to take shape and people around the world seem interested, butt no comments. That's okay cuz I'm doin this for myself .. "Journalize" here or in my WORD document ...

Today the sun was shining, there was about 1/2 inch or 1 cm of snow on the local river. Winds were light out of the west and were supposed to pick up. They never really did. Put the MS Pursuit 8.5 sail.

The skis did not seem to bite and made me wonder if 30 degrees would be better than the current 20 degree setup ?? When the wind picked up, this did not seem to be an issue.

These are my 30 degree braces/bridges with a metal reinforcement:

At one point I was able to blast downwind and I checked my speed compared to the cars on the bridge. They seemed to be going only slightly faster and they are at 60 or 70 kph. This suggests I was going approximately 50 kph or 30 mph. DECENT !! Time to get a GPS ?

The board seemed to pick up speed whenever on bare ice. Also what was fun, was pumping the sail to try and get more oomph :-)

One thing I felt that I missed today was the harness. I donut have footstraps and I have not been using a harness. I only go out about an hour or so anyway. When I want to push hard, I place my boots on the side of the skis and the snowboard. This allows full hanging down on the boom for decent speed and control :-)

The ferrule cap ALMOST came off once again %^&*() This time I put a little white glue ...

They are announcing big winds on Monday. Perhaps I'll get a chance to try n rip then.
Just double checked the weather - winds shifted and announcing freezing rain - perhaps I can go in the street then ? :-) Too bad, rain in the city and wet snow @ home and NO winds in the pm :-(

SUN 20FEB2011

Today was a little colder than yesterday  - like about minus 10 Celsius and slightly more wind - up to about 8 knots on the meter. NW and later SW.

Stuck to the Gaastra Flow 3x 7.0 sail with 490 mast though.

I had also moved the mast base back ANOTHER inch and a half.

All this is to help the turning of the board.
It is now actually only five (5) inches forward of the original board #1.

The session was EXCELLENT and ten (10) times better than yesterday !!

The only issue was the ice -> snowmobiles, wind and natural cracks all roughed up the surface.

Used my BIG winter boots which were actually GREAT and only my fingers were cold. 
Somehow this seemed to disappear after blowing on them a few times...

I was still a little apprehensive and so , did NOT let it rip except on the snowier sections.

There I actually was going so fast I hopped over some chop :-)

Saw a kite surfer on the other side of the bridge - he let it rip a few times as well :-)

The ferrule top stuck again - perhaps the silicone was not dry yet ??


Anyhow, next week I am on-call, hopefully I will still be able to get out :-)

here are some shots of the River

SAT 19FEB2011

First BLOG post :this section of my blog is devoted to my journal entries - that I used to do in a WORD journal. The idea came from my eighteen (18) year old son, who is more web savvy than I :-) so far I am enjoying posting and I hope others enjoy it as well ...

Yesterday the temps went way up around 10 degrees Celsius with rain i.e. lotsa water ...

Last night it got colder - froze - and there were BIG winds overnight and some left-overs in the morning. After dropping my daughter off @ work , I checked the ice and it seemed fine !!! Got my gear and put the helmet too. Winds were about 6 to 10 knots NW and temp was around –5. Things went well except when I went into the snow section I suddenly fell and I quickly found out why. There was still water under the snow. So, tried to stay away from the snow. Had about two (2) other falls and one pretty good one where I thought I hurt my knee. Butt in the end, all was well… The board kept turning upwind – tried raising the boom which helped a bit – need to move something like the mastfoot forward or back ?? 

Again the mast got stuck - used the car heater as usual, butt the ferrule top piece stayed in the top of the mast again $%^&*(. 

Had to get it out with a LONG soup spoon and duct tape. After that added more plumber’s tape and put some silicone at the joint – to try n keep things together !! Originally considered going to the country because it would be a couple of degrees colder, butt once again, no-one wants to go !! Maybe tomorrow with the little one??

coupla extra points

1) was using the Gaastra Flow 3x 7-oh sail
2) did i mention my feet were soaked n frozen ??
3) also, i moved the mast foot back about 1.5 inches
the board is starting to resemble  the original more n more
the only difference is the angle of the skis
oh yeah - the skis held the ice well - at 20 degrees
and they sink into snow - so flatter is better on snow - Guy Trudeau's design time ??
think Pierre told me he had some skis :-)

AND, which mast goes with the training sail, the North 3.7 ??? does NOT seem to be here

here's how much the mast foot went back ... in total 

see How I started Winter Sailboarding for more information - just below  ;-) {in older Post}

to continue with older journal entries go back to index and choose the original journal ...