ABK Windsurfing Camp at Sherman Island

Although I have been windsurfing since 1991, I have never taken formal lessons. I learned by watching other sailors, first in Houston, Texas, then later in the Gorge.

Since I had problems with my jibes, I enrolled in the ABK Windsurfing Camp on Sherman Island for 4 days: Thursday, July 26 - Sunday, July 29.

On Thursday, July 26, I woke up early (loaded my van with all the gear the night before) and stopped by the House of Bagels in Almaden Plaza. The drive to Sherman Island was reasonably uneventful, and I arrived at around 8:15. There were already many windsurfers sailing on the delta.

I parked my van in the "Access" next to Sherman Island County Park. I rigged my Ezzy Elite 5.0m and Elite 5.7m sails (anticipating needing multiple sails). I unpacked my Mistral Flow 276 and put on a slalom fin.

The clinic started by introducing the staff (Andy Brandt, Brandon, David) and all the attendees. There were 18 of us with varying levels of ability. Some were just learning to water-start, while others were doing "Spocks."

From 10:30 to 14:00, we had a free sailing session where the instructors observed our sailing skills and provided helpful pointers. I also ate lunch during this time, including a turkey bagel sandwich, a croissant, an apple, and a peach. I was starving!

Here is a GoPro Hero6 video recording of my first day of sailing:

At 14:00, we met up for a session focused on jibing. The main pointers are as follows:

Sailing Stance

1. Set the boom at or above the shoulder level. It allows us to get the board planing earlier (mine was set too low because I wanted to use the tail of my board to help lift up the boom during water starts)
2. When trying to get the board planing, point the front foot forward, i.e., toes to the mast foot. (I had mine always sideways)
3. When planing:
• Keep the front leg straight and knees almost locked (this will stabilize the ride)
• Try to keep the rear leg straight
• Control the board with a little bit of pressure on the toes
• Trim the sail with your shoulders (keep your arms straight)
4. In choppy conditions, push down on the boom with your hands to push the mast on the board and keep the board horizontal
5. In the front foot strap, you can point your front foot more forward to get better stability in wind gusts

Here is a GoPro Hero6 video of my first successful jibe:



Carving Jibe Pointers

1. Head: look before starting a jibe. Make a plan of where you want to jibe. Visualize it
2. Hand: move your backhand far down the boom to allow for more control (when sailing clew first later in the jibe)
3. Hang: detach from harness lines and hang back to keep the speed up (you should not slow down). Bend your knees and continue on a broad reach.
4. Hoof: take the back foot of the strap and put the toe on the rail. The back foot should be parallel to the front foot.
5. Push the front arm to initiate the turn while bending your knees. Do not put much pressure on the board with your back foot. 
6. A long jibe requires a slight push on the boom (slow, steady pressure is better than quick, sharp movements)
7. When approaching a run, move the sail back into a clew first sailing position while switching foot positions: the front foot is taken out of the foot strap and placed next to the rear foot, with the heel of the foot on the rail. The new front foot is gently placed on the rail. Keep pushing on the rail with your heel to keep the board carving.
8. Sail clew first, heading upwind.
9. To prepare for the sail flip, move the arm closer to the mast, straighten the mast, and then let go of the sail with your other hand. As the sail swings around, grab the opposite side of the boom with an underhand grab (New Jersey style)

Friday, July 27, 2018

On Friday, July 27, I woke up early and stopped by the House of Bagels in Almaden Plaza. The drive to Sherman Island was uneventful, and I arrived at around 8:20. There were already many windsurfers sailing on the delta, but the wind seemed a little lighter.

Like the day before, I rigged a 5.0m Ezzy Elite and a 5.7m. I stashed away the 5.0m as the wind was too light and started sailing on the Ezzy Elite 5.7m with my Mistral Flow 276.

Our first lesson was to learn how to perform clew-first water starts. I have never attempted to do water-start this way, and it took many tries to get even one successful. I spent a few hours failing but started to get the hang of them.

Clew First Water-starts

1. Point the board sideways to the wind.
2. Keep the clew arm far apart from the mast arm (it should be at harness straps)
3. Keep the sail very low on the water, de-powered
4. With the rear foot gently on the board, start raising the sail
5. As the sail fills up, start turning the board downwind
6. When the board is directly downwind, raise the sail gently and step on the rear of the board
7. If overpowered, lean back more
8. The board will turn left when the mast is leaned right
9. Sail for a while until an opportunity to flip the sail presents itself

During lunchtime, I got to demo a Fanatic Stubby Freestyle Wave 95-liter board. It seemed stable, but I could not get it on a plane due to light wind conditions.

After eating lunch, we returned for more sailing (first learning about the complete jibing technique). Depending on whether the board is carving, there are three potential jibe exits.


Saturday, July 28, 2018

On Saturday, July 28, I woke up early and stopped by the House of Bagels in Almaden Plaza. The drive to Sherman Island was uneventful, and I arrived around 7:55. We were told to come extra early due to all the locals who could also come. There were already many windsurfers sailing on the delta, but the wind seemed much lighter than on Thursday or Friday.

There are two types of jibes: planing and non-planing:

• Planing jibes require a lot of speed and are controlled with the board (i.e., pushing on the rails to carve through the water)
• Non-planing jobs are primarily influenced by the movement of the sail (right or left) to turn the board (instead of using feet)

During the jibe, one must be aware of whether the jibe is turning into a non-planing jibe at any time, as the technique needs to adapt to the current situation.

After an exciting discussion of jibing, I came up with another list of jibe pointers:

• When initiating the planing jibe, keep the body looking forward, even as the knees bend
• It's essential to keep the body facing forward through the jibe (even as the knees bend and shoulders rotate either left or right)
• When flipping the sail, first slide the boom so that the mast hand is closer, but do not look at the boom. When releasing the clew hand, do not look at it, and grab the other side of the boom underneath the boom (New Jersey style)
• When releasing the clew hand, squeeze your muscles to help grab the boom

Sailing upwind planing vs non-planing:

• When planing, move your weight forward onto the front foot and your head beyond the mast (while keeping the sail in the same position). This creates a more extended edging surface for the board and helps to track upwind.
• When slogging, sheet our so that only about 25% of available wind power is used. Press on the rail to give more surface area and prevent sliding sideways. Do not use more wind power as it only facilitates more lateral drift.

Brandon also talked a bit about the proper stance and how to control direction and board speed when planing:

• To go downwind, shift more of your weight to the rear leg
• To go upwind, shift more of your weight to the front leg and move your head beyond the mast
• Jem Hall also recommends bringing your arms closer together
• Do not sheet out the sail - this is how one gets launched
• In a lull, push the front toe down
• In a gust, push the front toe up

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Ah, the last day of camp. My hands were full of blisters, and putting on gloves was even more painful.
The day began with Andy discussing Sail-Chi: how to handle the sail.

The essential lessons from the discussion:

• Always move your arms independently, push or pull on the sail one at a time.
• From the mast to the harness lines, the sail responds one way and differs utterly from harness lines to the clew end.
• With the sail back-winded, you can play boom-boxing by pushing on different parts of the boom or sail
• The center of effort on a sail is usually at the harness lines - this is the most challenging part of the move

After this discussion, we had another debate on Duck Jibes. The main points of a Duck Jibe:

• You can never begin too early. You can release the front hand as soon as the jibe starts (no need to push the sail).
• Avoid using huge sails
• Only attempt duck jibes on smooth water when everything is going smoothly
• There are two types of crashes possible:
• Easy, with the sailor falling backward
• Spectacular when the sail hits the water, stopping the board (catapulting you across)

Duck Jibe Pointers

1. Preparation
• Head: look before starting a jibe. Make a plan of where you want to jibe. Visualize it
• Hand: move your backhand far down the boom (as far as possible)
• Hang: detach from harness lines and hang back to keep the speed up
• Hoof: take the back foot of the strap and put the toe on the rail. The back foot should be parallel to the front foot
2. Execution
• Push the front arm forward to initiate the turn while bending your knees. Do not put much pressure on the board with your back foot. 
• Release the front arm and cross the back arm, grabbing onto the boom near the clew.
• Throw the boom toward you, catching the boom with both of your arms
3. Clean Up
• Switch your foot stance

After this discussion, we had another discussion on talking with Brandon. Unfortunately, I could not practice these - my board is too small. Brandon suggested a board with a volume of at least 120 liters.

Tacking Pointers

1. Preparation
• Get out of the foot straps and place one foot in front of the mast base and the other on the other side. Gently lean the sail away from you and start sweeping it around.
• Put your front hand on the mast at waist level
2. Execution
• Put your rear foot in front of your front foot while at the same time using the sail as a counter-balance
• Quickly stomp on the back of the board and continue back-winding the sail (you have not tacked yet)
3. Clean Up
• Tack my moving the sail forward 

Sherman Island Pointers

1. Sailing on the Ebb tide is much more preferable. If you get too far upwind, you can always sail downwind.
2. Floodtide has a powerful current, so going upwind against the current requires a giant sail and a fin.

I learned a lot at the ABK Windsurfing camp and plan to enroll in another one next year.

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Windsurfing Sherman Island

After finishing watching Wimbledon (watching Novac Djokovic destroy Kevin Anderson in 3 sets) and the World Cup Final (where France beat Croatia 4-2), I decided to check the weather.

After reviewing a highly favorable iWindsurf wind forecast for Rio Vista, I decided to take the risk and drive 90+ minutes to windsurf at Sherman Island County Park.

I picked up a turkey bagel sandwich at House of Bagels on the way (to have something to eat for lunch). I arrived at Sherman Island right around noon.

The Sherman Island County Park was already quite full, and I barely found a space for my minivan. There were lots of windsurfers and kite-boarders sailing.

I asked around, and many sailors used 4.5m to 4.0m sails. I rigged my Ezzy Elite  4.5m and chose to start with the Goya Quad 84 liter. The sail was fine (though, at times, I could have used a 5.0m), but the board was too small for the gusty conditions.

I struggled at first to get the Goya board planing reliably, but the gusty wind was a nuisance.

After a few back-and-forth runs, I switched to my Mistral Flow 276 and sailed through the lulls much better. I had many exciting high-speed runs, even passing a kite-boarder!

Here is a GoPro Hero6 Black video of my sailing at Sherman Island:



I had a fantastic time overall. I did have one minor casualty - my old fin broke on my Mistral Flow 276 when I hit an underground rock ( I should have known better and avoided the area where rocks were marked).

I stopped by Delta Windsurf on the way home to get a replacement screw (I already had a spare fin). I did not realize that Delta allows demos of boards. I will demo the Fanatic Blast and Fanatic Stubby FreeWave (to replace my ancient Mistral Flow 276).

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FIFA World Cup: Russia vs Croatia

With Russia in the FIFA World Cup playoffs, I wanted to see the 11:00am playoffs of Russia vs Croatia.

I decided to surf at Pleasure Point with Alex in the morning, using our two 8-foot Wavestorm surfboards. The waves were 3-4 feet high and inconsistent, but I rode a few to shore. Alex did far better, catching dozens at Pleasure Point and then at the Hook.



At around 10:30 am, I returned to the minivan, and Inna and I drove to the East side of Capitola, which we'd never visited before (while Alex continued surfing). It included a long, sandy beach but lots of car traffic. We parked our minivan in the Capitola parking lot (pre-paying parking for 2 hours) and took the free shuttle to town. We decided to watch the FIFA World Cup at Britannia Arms - a well-regarded British pub on the beach.

I ordered the Castroville Omelet, while Inna selected the Fish & Chips. The omelet was sufficiently edible, but the fish in Fish & Chips was tasteless. I ate a large portion of it, as Inna disliked it.

The Fish & Chips portion was enormous - but I would have preferred a more minor but better-quality portion. Fish & Chips is a staple for a British Pub that must be well prepared. This was a huge disappointment.

The service was also prolonged, but we were there to watch the playoffs (showing on many TVs), so it was not a severe issue. Overall, I wouldn't eat there again, but I could come to watch more matches.

The FIFA game was entertaining, with Russia taking the lead 1-0. Eventually, Croatia tied the score 1-1. The game was headed into overtime, and Croatia scored 2-1. I thought the game might be over and returned to the parking lot to add more time to my parking meter (which was set to expire at 1:00pm). However, Russia returned with a goal, and the game was now headed for penalty kickoffs. Inna, normally disinterested in World Cup matches, was excited and did not want to leave until all was finished. She was disappointed with the penalty kickoffs, where Croatia beat Russia 3-2.

After finishing the match, we rushed back to our van to pick up Alex, who was finishing his surfing session. Once picked up, we drove to our usual Pizza My Heart in Los Gatos and some C&C and Mocha at Great Bear Coffee.

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