Winter Windsurfing - Local Update

The locals had been getting restless. Between November and January, we had a streak of about six weekends in a row of windsurfing. Then the wind disappeared for a while, until recently. The local crew has been busy, along with the wind, taking advantage and sailing multiple times the last two weeks in primarily south and west winds.

On one day, some of the crew made the road trip down to Lake Monticello in South Carolina to take advantage of a long fetch for the west winds. Lake Monticello is a local reservoir that sits northwest of Columbia, SC and not too far from Charlotte. The report back from Dimitri and Donald was a great day on 5 meter sails that saw 15 sailors and 1 kiter (Dave) on the water. I missed this one but here are some pictures....special thanks goes to Donald Obst who took these pictures and was kind enough to share them...



Dimitri



Chuck



Jose in mid duck gybe



Dimitri in the chop trough


On another day that capped off three in a row of good wind, it provided 20-30mph WSW winds that had folks hitting the water again on 5 meter sails. I made it out late....rigged bigger (6.5) since I was getting out there late....figuring the wind was going to die down a little towards sunset. I maxed the downhaul and flattened out the sail a bit, and was still pretty overpowered at first. But then the wind started to lighten up just a bit as I thought it would and then I got dialed in. Big rollers came through the open channel that were almost waist high. Yes, I was "wave sailing" on the lake, riding and carving the waves downwind....big fun. It's been a great start to 2008 and hopefully many more windy days to come.