Congratulations - It’s Twins

After a long wait the twins-er arrived today weighing in at 6.1kg hand delivered by Oisin. Father and 84l twins-er are doing very well. Hope Helen doesn’t mind sleeping on the couch!

20th December 2008

The Summer is Gone.

It looks like the summer is truly gone and the winter is on our doorsteps. It is hard to get motivated when the temperature outside is 3 degrees! Here is a little slide show of my summer. Time for another cup of tea.

How Was it For You?

Boards mag was way better this month! Carlos, Trish, Fionn and myself had our mugs printed on page 128 as part of an article written by local sailor Sue Honan. Here is a small segment of the article.

The great thing about windsurfing is that everyone has a different experience of the same day at the same sailing spot. There you are having a survival session while someone else is just grooving along enjoying the view. It makes for good conversation afterwards while you're having a smoker and a strawberry Yop (THE best sailing food) in the van. Maybe later in the pub you can compare more notes with others who were out. Windsurfers love to recount their session to understanding souls, and we listen and feel your joy -and sometimes your pain! Sailing on your own (yes, we all do it at some stage) obviously reduces the opportunity to share. This is a problem if you have a non-windsurfing partner (NOWP), because NOWPs simply do-not-understand-you. It's a windsurfing fact. You come home massively excited about a session and start gabbling on about how it was the best sesh ever and you should have been there "cos it was mast-high [okay, over my knees] and it was really windy - at least Force 5 in a couple of gusts maybe - and I caught this in-cred-ible wave [all 30cm of it] and I sailed so fast and made three gybes and all my tacks were dry".

The Turbo Tunnel has Landed.

I had a good session today at Malahide on my 5-0. I landed most of my vulcans and had a few long sliding ones. I will have to root out my hat and open palm gloves tonight as the temperature has taking a dip over the last few days.

I came across this fin in a surf magazine. The turbo tunnel fin. It is designed like a sail and works by redirecting the water coming in the front of it. They claim that it increases speed over a normal fin and will turn better. I couldn't find any ref of windsurfers using them.

I'm currently working on a booster cape to be worn around the neck that will help me learn to Spock! I reckon with my cape and a turbo fin i could probably take over the world!

Last Orders for Evening Session

The clock goes back an hour tonight and with it the chance for most people to have a quick evening windsurf session. So make the most of this long weekend if you can. I had a good session today and also my first time on my JP 68l twinser. It was a bit of work in the lulls on a 4.5 but great when the wind was up. It really does turn very fast on the tail. Can’t wait to sail on it again!

News Flash – Windsurfer Attacked by Crows!

Earlier this week local sailor Oisin Van Gelderen became the innocent victim of a malicious attack from a flock of adolescent crows. One bystander said that the crows had been gathering in the trees at Kilcrea and didn’t seem happy with the freestyle action going on. One crow expert said that the crows might have mistaken Oisin's new Neil Pryde 'fly' sail with the Brazilian colours as an aggressive spinning tree.

Partners of windsurfers are recommended to keep there windsurfing other half in over Halloween to avoid repeat incidences.
If you do feel the urge to go sailing experts recommend you to keep your hair short in order to avoid nesting and bring a sliced pan!

And remember. Beware the Crows of Kilcrea!

Small Leap for Mankind

Sorry, I haven’t been blogging much in the past few days. Busy with a sore throat, cold and loads of windsurfing. Hope you are all having fun on the water this week. No point complaining about the cold cause it's only going to get colder from here on in!

Churchill's Windsurfing Quote of the Day

I came across this Churchill quote in a magazine . " Success is the ability to go from one failure to another, with no loss of enthusiasm." Thats pretty much how i view windsurfing. So what if you can't do it now, keep trying with the same enthusiasm and some day it will happen. And remember, lifes about fun!

Merry Christmas - Time for the presents!

Dear Santa.

Thanks for the new Neil Pryde Fire Fly 6.1 that I got today from surfdock to replace my Expression 6.1. Great looking sail and i'm told that its super to sail. Can't wait! Think i'll be going for a light wind session tomorrow. I also ordered an Jp Australlia 84L twinser wave board. Should have it in a couple of weeks. Yes, I was a good boy all year and deserve these new toys.

p.s Sorry about the vid not working at the moment. Something got to do with you tube, Blogger or the matrix imploding!

Caesar Finies - Bonaire- Light Wind Freestyle

Looks like another day for the bike. No wind. Not even a breeze. Maybe it will improve later, just enough for a light wind session. Here is another clip of Caesar Finies showing what can be done in lighter winds.

Shed Biking

No sailing today. I spent the evening in the shed trying to balance on the bike. Here is a move called the Lawn Mower. I managed to get into the position but cant get out of it yet.

Not Bad for October

Today I sailed at Rush beach. I had an enjoyable session on my 5m combat and 91L JP freestyle. There were only two windsurfers on the water and plenty of kites. My back survived the session after tweaking it last week. The sun was shining and one kiter was out in a pair of shorts and rash vest! Not bad for October.

Shove-its and Slam Gybes

It’s great to have a week of wind at last. I had some fun on Monday and Wednesday trying to learn ‘Shove-its’ on the estuary. I managed to kick the tail out a couple of times. Most of the time I didn’t even leave the water and took a dip. One attempt on Monday I over rotated the tail and landed clew first switch stance. I managed to flip the sail and continue the other direction.
As a bonas from trying Shove-its I also figured out how to slam gybe when overpowered. I hope this will come in handy in waves. The downside to the week is that I tweaked my back a bit from all the twisting so today I gave it a rest.

Here is Ricardo showing how it should be done.