JWSP Saturday

[Alton]

TAF upgraded!!! ETA 11am.

[Michael]

TAF upgraded!!! ETA 11am.

I'll see you guys there! Looking to arrive a little later for the late afternoon/even session.

[C36]

TAF upgraded!!! ETA 11am.

I'll see you guys there! Looking to arrive a little later for the late afternoon/even session.

Got my 'lunch + dinner' sized Burrito and ready to rock!
11:20 OSR

[Chris Klohn]

C36 - Alton Smith Island just jumped 12 knots to 26 gusting 31 knots @ 2pm with a peak gust of 38 knots. Your wind and waves are about to arrive in a big way

Have Fun!!!

[Alton]

D-cup swell!!! ... so titillating. Out 1hr on 10m strapless. Now overpowered. 10 kites out. Dave/C36, AJ and Michael windsurfing.

Having lunch then pumping 7m.

[Chris Klohn]

So stoked for all of you guys Alton. The pressure gradient just keeps getting better. At 3pm your +2.2mb down the Strait and still strengthening! With the usual 1 hour delay to JWSP and 13-15 knots per mb you guys should see 30 knots+ by 4pm Have fun out there in the head high playground

[Chris Klohn]

You guys score some waves and wind before it tanked? Hope it wasn't a rig fest chasing the up and down conditions.

[Alton]

Epic day at Whidbey Island (JWSP). AJ and I were the wind dummies on 7m and 10m kites. At noon we could barely keep out kites in the sky in W 12-15. I persisted practising strapless waterstarts in shore break ... very tricky in light air. 30 minutes later, it picked up to W 20-25. Don't understand why a dozen kiters just waited at the beach for an hour while AJ and I had the wind and waves to ourselves. Definitely, D-Cup swell - some so steep it felt like free-falling. Scored some amazing front-side rides riding toe-side. Even nailed some sweet loooong gybes. This was my favourite part of the day. By 2:30pm it hit W 25-30 a little too much for my 10m so it was time for a lunch break.

Back on the water at 3pm with my 7m. By this time a dozen kiters and 3 windsurfers (Dave/C36, Michael and AJ) all hit the water way overpowered in W 30 gusting 40 survival conditions. I've never seen so many breaking waves at Whidbey before. It was very challenging winding through the break riding strapless. I could only get out so far before waves would close out on me. I believe kiting was more fun than windsurfing because kiters can ride slowly through the waves in survival conditions - overpowered windsurfers just outrun the waves.

The second half was very intense but a great learning experience riding (and waterstarting) strapless in breaking waves. By 5pm the wind finally backed off to W 20 - much more civilized but most of us were too exhausted.

Ended the day at Jumbo Burritto with Michael and AJ for some serious "hard-belly". Man, am I ever sore after 3.5 hours on the water.

WhidbeyNAS_Sat_Apr_11.gif (12.16 KiB) Viewed 6644 times

[C36]

Arrived at the beach at about 11 am (with my 'lunch +dinner" burrito) and waited until about 2 pm to let the wind and waves set up. The wind and waves continued to ramp up to create a full-on freak show during the core of the session. Conditions included over head-high close-out waves in the impact zone, too much wind (for my 4.5/92), monster swell on the outside covered with confused square chop, lots of strings and not enough courage. It felt like I got rolled more times today than all of last season put together. Once on the water there was no place to hide - wide-eyed overpowered control sailing most of the time (no points for 'style'). I had things happen today that I have never experienced before (two examples - firing more than half way down the face of the medium-sized - still huge - outside swell to have my board drop over a lump on the face and have my board free fall; getting a one-two punch of getting bounced two back-to-back square gnarl that I didn't even see amongst the larger concerns - board was twisted out from under me). A VERY challenging day!

Nice to sail with M, AJ, Alton, Carlos (from Oz), the Locust crew and all the local kiters.

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Slideshow

Pre-Session OSR

Post-Session OSR

[Chris Klohn]

Awesome pics Dave! Loved the overhead breaking wave and big swell on the outside. It's crazy to see that place with such little water. Looks like some huge chop on the face of some of those swells. Did you get any frontside rides up towards Deception Pass? The swell looks to be upwards of 8 feet on the outside. The buoy 10 km upwind was reporting 10 feet @ 6 seconds at 3pm today. Good to hear you got a good session too Michael & Alton. The wind came back and steadied out 20-28 mph from 7pm until 11pm. There's another identical forecast setup for Monday / Tuesday this week