SE Friday

[Alton]

Aiming to be there for 3 pm. Is Centennial the spot to be, or White Rock?

Jeff - Blow Me-

[tweegster]

7M boosting session in WREB after leaving work early. Heavy rain, blowing SE and high tide. So with two people helping made it out and back in safe (one to hold kite, one to hold lines above the weeds). Three kites and one windsurfer in gusty 20-40 knots. Fun, tiring and lots of big (chest) disorganized waves.

It just switched SW, getting sunny and is still blowing, so maybe I should have been more patient. Still... beats not leaving work early.

[Simon]

Best session at BB. 84l and 4.2m sail from 9 to 11, then 3.7m but overpowered. Sun appeared for a while. Water conditions seemed a bit messy but still fun. My day at Dougs this summer in 10 to 35mph wind was good training. Great to see everyone enjoying the day. Quit when everything started flat lining, needed smaller sail. Still smiling

[Alton]

I hope to be off the water before it gets too insane before noon

Holy Crap what a forecast and gradient setting up. Great call Alton........it's going to rock today locally!!

Have fun out there

As promised the early birds catch the worms ... but late arrivals got punished.

What an epic day - off the charts!!! Waited patiently for the wind dummies on 7m to struggle through the early morning lulls (5 kites down at one point) before we hit the water on 7m kites at 9am in SSE 30+ knots.

Small disorganized chop/waves inside in the shallows. Once outside it was paradise. Waist to chest high clean breaking waves - 40 to 60 feet apart!!! Most kiters and windsurfers were way upwind by the boat launch. Wanted to join them but constantly got seduced smacking breaking waves on toeside rides ... too much fun downwind.

Wind steadily ramped up to SSE 35+ at 10am then SSE 40+ at noon. Some smart kiters (like Jerry) returned to shore and switched to 5m - Jerry had a perma-smile when he returned to shore.

Very civilized and always in control until becoming barbaric at noon (SSE 40+). Struggled to return back to shore. Saved by Francis who flagged out, wrapped up his kite then landed mine on a sandbar down by Centennial ... phew! Many thanks!

Only minor casualties including a lost board and a 4m kite that buckled before waterstarting - that's how strong the gusts were (50+). Nice of Benito to run out and grab the buckled kite.

By noon, the windsurfers outnumbered the kiters. Well done guys.

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[Alton]

We made the news today ...

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Jerry and Jack

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Jack

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[Tony360]

Best day of the year for me .

I only had a short window before an 11am meeting but the timing worked out great. The tide was perfect and set up some great waves all along the bank, ranging from steep clean waist high faces on the inside with nice whackable sections to big frothy monsters by the mile marker. Some of the big outside bombs were easily overhead on any scale and a few of the outside ones hooked onto the bank with a section you could race down the line. Adrien was in that zone and was boosting airs in the big surf, that's the last thing I was thinking.

It felt like the coast out there - like a cold good winter day at Kanaha. Weeds were a very minor annoyance, only got snagged once.

[Michael]

Insane day! When Mike came in to go down to a 3.8 I should have just re-rigged then, but I hadn't been on the water yet so I headed out on my 4.3 anyways. Struggling through the break, yes there was an actual break at Centennial today, I got catapulted and smashed the nose of my favourite board! Made a quick trip home to get my quad and by the time I got back it was really nukin. This time rigged the 3.8 and by then it was still too much. Survival sailing all day but it was worth making the trip to the outside just to see some of those massive swells. Almost impossible to ride in those conditions but managed to ride straight down some of them completely sheeted out. Got worked outside in some of the biggest waves I've seen at Centennial, actually worked through the rinse cycle a few times and couldn't get back up, just getting pounded. Got lifted off the water a few times just trying to get over the swell. A few bad wipeouts thrown in, one completely spun me around like a cheese roll! Lots of bruises to my body and ego, to make it worse Chuck threw an awesome forward right next to me when I was struggling just to hang on, you got balls man!
Hope I got some gopro footage of some of those waves. I'll check it out later.
Great to see so many windsurfers out today, and the few kiters that braved to storm.

[Ryancr500]

I have to agree with Tony and Michael, it was an awesome day. Great to see so many familiar faces out there!! I started slightly late.. Like 9ish, just when things were ramping up. Saw a couple 4.2s out there but the wind felt strong.. I had a feeling it was going to pick up, so rigged 3.7M. Made the mistake of assuming my nuclear speeds would allow my wave fin to slice through the weeds like a samurai sword... I was sorrily mistaken. Board was slowwww and couldn't stay upwind. Came in for my larger board with a weed fun. Felt huge out there but was still fun. I came in when the wind was so strong my 94L would lift off every wave. Luckily Dave C36 lent me his coveted weed fin and i was able to launch my 74l Evo off the shore. That's when the real fun started. Once past the initial break, the swells out there were huge!! Played it safe though and didn't venture too far out. Had some good hangtime on many occassions but didn't try anything fancy!! Just tried to stay upright. Those huge waves further out were a
Challenge if you missed a gybe and had to endure a rinse cycle. Packed it around 2:00 Great day!!

[ShonanDB]

Was late to the water this morning and with low tide on the menu, launched from Maple Beach in Point Roberts, about 200m South of the Boat Ramp. I had the parking area to myself and found it easy to launch from. I had about a 100m walk out to clear the sandbars at low tide around 10:30 am. Met Kiter James who had set up his 5m kite when I first arrived around 9:45 and he was thinking of putting up something bigger but he went out on the 5m anyway. I think he was glad he did as he was ripping when it stepped up about an hour later when I could barely hang on to my 3.7.
Rigged my 4.2 and took out the 73L and it was just right. Ran into C36 on the water as I was launching and we had a laugh as he had said earlier that he thought that there might be a wind shadow off Maple Beach....there was definitely no wind shadow anywhere today!
Lots of nice thigh to waist high steep faces to launch big floaty jumps on the way out and solid chest to shoulder high faces on the outside with the odd bigger swell train rolling through with 2-4 waves, many with breaking whitewater. Was getting dialed in but then it lulled up for about 10 minutes where I really had to work to keep planing. After that it ramped up quickly and the 4.2 was soon a handful so I went in to rig down. Rigged the 3.7 but should have gone directly to my 3.0 as the next 30 mins on the water with the 3.7 was survival sailing at best. Got some nice jumps and some portside lip smacks on the way in but was never sheeted in, just too much sail. The waves sized up on the outside with the incoming tide and felt like the average was now head high with bigger sets rolling through. Couldn't really enjoy them though as the gusts coming through were unreal. Took a few last runs and called it a day shortly after 12 noon as I had to get to a meeting for 2pm. Really noticed how out of shape I was today. Fun day overall!
DB

[Chris Klohn]

Awesome......just awesome!! So stoked for everyone that got a piece. Thanks for taking the time to write the post session comments here on Alton's site. The next best thing to being on the water is the pictures and stories from all of you. Looking forward to C36's legendary post session pictures too:)

Cheers,

Chris