Repairing the board nose

In my last post you can see some pictures and a description of what happened to my poor board. It was a sad moment indeed.

Being a let's give it a try kind of person I decided to repair the board by myself.

One of the hardest moments was when I used a electric grinder. The view of that fast spinning disk approaching my board was as if it was getting close to my own skin.

In the second image you can see my very focus and concerned face. I use the grinder to remove the outer skin from the board (the fiber/carbon glass) so that it can be replaced.

This is how it looks like after using abrading away the skin from the around the injured part. You can't see it in very well in the photo but the foam inside suffered compression and is a bit smashed.

To fill the hole left by removing the parts of the foam that were smashed or ruined I did a mixture of epoxy with fiber glass. This mixture has a really easy consistency to work with. One can just apply it in the hole and it will harden there without running away.

You can see that I used some pain tape to protect the board and keep the area "isolated". After the filling is hard then it was time to grind it down to a smooth surface.

When grinding it I found that my inexperienced had led me to create some holes. Fortunately abrading the filling brought thous holes to my attention and I could fill them (again with a mixture of epoxy and fiber glass).

After the second filling and grinding the board nose starts to look a lot better. Even if there is a lot that still need to be done:

1. use fiber glass to recreate the board skin at the nose;
2. grind it down to s smooth surface;
3. paint it (spray painting seams to be the best option)
4. polish it.

Until now I can't say that it was a hard task. It is a bit time consuming and the time waiting for things to settle or harden is quite long. The feeling that you're taking care of your own board makes it worthwhile.

When I get the fiber glass I'll continue... as I'm still waiting for it to arrive to the shop.

Crashed the nose of my board

It's been one year since I bough my RRD freestylewave board and yesterday I crashed it's nose. I have no idea how - I would guess either a jibe or a helli-tack that didn't go well. This are the results:

The mast hit the nose with enough energy to smash it. The impact made the nose bend and the lower side took the grunt of it. The result is quite visible. Now everything inside is probably smashed and dislocated...

I try to follow the advises and tips from The Board Lady regarding fixing nose crunch. Let see if I can fix it in a reliable way.

For now I still have my old slalom board to play (the one on the right). Let see if I can still ride it.

2 more hours

A after work session, starting at 18:20 and ending at sunset. Lucky lucky me. Around 20 knots, a bit gusty, some nice small waves at the Ria de Aveiro.

I have no photos or videos of yesterday but here is a nice video by Gollito at El Yaque:

At 01:01 there is a rather, how can I say it, back to the basics move.

Music interlude

N.O.H.A., Tu Cafe

5 or 6

Another good day. Wind always around 20 knots with gust approaching the 28 knots.

I went into the water at 13:30 and come out only after 19:00. With 3 breaks in between to let the muscles relax a bit, drink some water and eat something to keep up with the energy requirements. That's the reason for the title of this post: I was sailing something between five to six hours.

Unfortunately there are no photos. The came lay forgotten at home wile we rushed to get in to the water.

Forecast is looking good for Tuesday. Let's hope so.

What a great session

Winds approaching the 30 knots, sunny, warm water... what a day.

I did my first proper gybes, planning all the way through, keeping the speed, timing everything right. I feel stoked. And happy. Very happy. Another step in the infinite ladder of windsurf things to learn.

Thank you Tom Brendt. It's you voice that I kept hearing coaching me through the gybes.

Tomorrow forecast is promising too. I can hardly wait for the session after work.

Light air session

Another day with almost no wind but that's no excuse not to get wet. I took my gear in the Ria de Aveiro, my 6.9m² sail and my 100 liter freestyle-wave board and a 30cm wave fin.

Not only was the wind very light as it also had some big holes. It was never more than 10 knots with some gusts of 14 knots. So not exactly perfect conditions from the gear I was using.

Yet, some how, I still managed to get the board planning quite often. Which really surprised me. I was not expecting it at all.Not with such light air.

Even though it seams that it's possible to plan with my gear with such light wind I am happy that the forecast for next Tuesday is better. I really feel that I have much to train but I need some stronger wind for that.

Getting wet

A friend once told me that there is a saying about horse riding. It was something like:

A horse rider has fallen at least seven times but no more than seventy.

For windsurf I would say that there is no upper bound. A windsurfer will always fall unless he's not trying enough.

At the windsurf clinic we, the participants, were all into it, pushing what we knew and were capable of. Which, obviously, meant that we fell a lot. Unfortunately (or is it?) only some of those funny moments are registered in video.

Learning to jump at Lanzarote

There were three basic manoeuvres that I needed to learn how to do while at the Windsurf Clinic at Lanzarote:

• tacks,
• gybes,
• jumps.

Apart from that I really wanted to learn how to get to planning earlier and improve my stance on the board.

Although I was a bit unlucky with the wind (Lanzarote usually has good wind in June) I still managed to practice and improve (immensely) all those aspects of windsurfing.

Forgive me for the bad video editing... it is my first ever attempt at doing it.

I really glad to see me going at around minute 2 of the video. There was almost no wind and with a push of a small wave the board just picked up speed and then I managed to keep it going always planning. Actually Tom Brendt (the teacher/trainer) is the one that has to take the merit of it. His teachings were great.

One nice side effect of being able to plan earlier is that now instead of going with a 6.9m² sail I'm going with 5.4m² and I'm still planning a lot earlier and going a lot faster, specially when going upwind.

For the jumps... well... I'm a heavy guy and there's a bit of ballast around my belly that doesn't help much (shame on me). Still I'm starting to pull it off. I'mm have to go more into waves so that I can train better. Maybe I'll get comfortable enough to get another boost in my windsurf skill by joining the Moulay clinic...

As a side note... You know all those "loose weight" programs that never work? Well... In one week at the windsurf clinic, eating as much as I wanted (every meal ended with ice-cream and cake), I lost 3 kg of the mentioned ballast. So, having fun, eating as much as you want, get to know people and still slim down a bit. Not bad at all.