Columbus Jeff's Clinton Lake report

We had a good turn out at Clinton yesterday, probably 8 sailors in all.
Glen and I gave a new kid some tips on how to rig and water start his first
short board. He'd sailed 4 summers in Greece on what sounded like ancient
long boards. He had a Mistral Explosion 273, 105 liters of skinny,
nervousness. He mentioned that he'd have to learn beach starts in a hurry
because his boom couldn't handle an uphaul. Whoa. We talked him into
staying in the cove where he could more or less touch bottom and fixed him
up with a mast protector (that fixed the boom) and a psuedo uphaul. He was
anxious to see if the prototype 2000 Neil Pryde Jet 6.7 would work on the
board so Glen took it out for a run or two. When it picked up to 6.2 wind,
we left him in the cove to fend for himself.

We sailed 6.2-6.3 for a bit. I had the sail very full with a very long fin
suited for marginal planing. When gusts started to hit, the fin lifted the
board about a foot out of the water and I began that slow spin that gives
you plenty of warning that a catupult is immenent, but there is nothing you
can do about it. After clearing the water out of my sinuses, I went in to
flatten the sail and get a smaller fin. That worked for about an hour
until the wind built to solid 5.2 conditions with gusts to 4.2. We sailed
till around 6 pm then called it a day. Reed managed to get in a string of
bottom turns on the bow wave of a big boat - he said it was like being in
Maui.

LLCJ

ps No storms, just lots of sun and wind.