As usual, I first state that I windsurf in the summer on water and in the winter on ice n snow. It is now September, which means I will be between seasons soon ☹️
This year, I added the aspect of improving my summer season by exercising with free weights and later I added squats for the thighs. I feel that this helped me a LOT. Whenever there was a "situation" on the water, I could power my way out of it !!
My Mistral Equipe 2 XR was shipped to the "country" thanks to the help of my windsurf buddy (and ex-colleague), Helmut. I am loving using it on the lake - without the centre board AND with the decrepit HotSailsMaui SpeedFreak 8.5....
Ideally I would like to bring a longer powerbox fin than the current 40cm one.
The board of 2023 has to be the Fanatic Shark HRS with 145 liters in volume and 75 cm in width. It came with a 50cm PB fin, which can handle my GAastra Swift 10m² sail. The board also goes well with my GA GTX 8.5 and the perfect combination is with my old NS Duke 6.9 on an RDM mast !!!
The latter sails obviously take smaller fins than the original 50 cm fin lol
This board is a little long - by today's "standards" @ 263cm ...
I did also get to take out my Fanatic BEE 124 LTD on a number of occasions. It can take the 8.5 free-race sail and the freeride 6.9 sail no problem.
The JP SLW92 probably only made it out ONCE, but that board kicks ass with a 66cm fin and the 10-oh sail. Later (after the original draft of this post) I went out on Lac Muskinonge with BERT - him on his SB Formula 167 and 9.2 race sail and me on my JP SLW and the GA Swift 10-oh. ....AMAZING SESSION !!
....This BIG board even runs fine with the Wolfgang Lessacher 42 cm weed fin !!
... and just when you think," That's a lotta boards !!" ...
There still is one more ... it is used on the waters of Lac de Deux Montagnes. It's the AHD SL140, which is absolutely AMAZING with the free-race GAastra GTX 8.5 sail !! It too was tested late in the season and thus had to be tried with the Lessacher weed fin.
Did I mention that that is a GR8 fucking weed fin --> only 42 cm and does what a 66cm fin usually does !!
In terms of sails, the 520 mast is getting old, but otherwise all is fine for me ... One day that combo will need to be replaced with a 9.2m² sail that goes on a 490 mast that is either hard top or soft top - as I have MauiSails and NielPryde 490 masts ...
......Perhaps I should start looking now ??
Bought an old SW Retro 9.5 & SW 490 mast
b.t.w. There are still the BIC SL200 and Mistral SLE at Nonni's chalet lol
The SL200 was THE board used up north before the Mistral Equipe 2 arrived
Mistral SLE303 was tested this year and the decision was "keep it"
What I liked with certain boards that are a little wider is:
I feel more assured that I will be spending LESS time IN the water. The JP SLW92 is HUGE at 92cm wide and even the AHD with 80cm is BIG. My water starts are improving and I am guessing perhaps that is next year's attack point. Once there is no fear of getting going again - straps ?? lololol
At the time of this writing ... I have been out on the water 23 times this year. Actually more than that cuz I do NOT count all the sessions at the lake - some are short and others "just okay" :-) Final tally = 41 water sessions in 2023 and 9 on the ice/snow = 50 outings 🔥 🤙
Addendum: After having written the above discussion(s) ... JF passed me a Chinook waist harness + Bert gave me way too much stuff = WTF man !!
