"4.0 & Outta Control"

The title refers to one of the comments today from a sailor coming off the water. The descriptions ranged from "pretty wacko out there" to "ugly," "out of control," "nuclear," and "a danger to life and limb."

I went down early, thinking that I would get it before it went too nuts. On the water at noon on my 4.0 and was immediatly maxed out. Got to Uppers in one reach to the wave garden where there was actually some occasional fun little waves to play in - generated by the wind swell. After about half an hour though, it built a bit and it was just insanity to stay out. 3.5 would have been more appropriate.

Went out again later thinking that the wind had dropped a bit. Wrong! It was just a little lighter on the inside but it was actually stronger and gustier on the outside. As I sat chilling out I overheard this conversation between a couple of racer guys as one of them came off the water:

Racer 1: "What's it doing out there?"

Racer 2: "Getting gustier and windier."

Racer 1: So what do you do to handle that?"

Racer 2: "Go in! Derig!"

There was a noticable absence of most of the racers today despite this Saturday being the next race. They shoulda been out practicing, it's only supposed to get windier tomorrow and Saturday. National Weather Service is calling for "Northeast winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 45 mph" on Saturday.

Congratulations and props go out to local Kanaha sailor Jazz who landed his first forward loop today, sailing out if it clean. Very ballsy in today's conditions.