Cape Cod Downwind 101 Saturday

[stoneaxe]

Any Cape zoners interested in joining me for a DW 101. I'm not the professor, that's mother natures job but it would be good to get a crew together to keep an eye on one another. I'm thinking taking it relatively easy for the 1st one. Saturday is 35 mph from NNE to NE. You Cape folks will know better than I do the places to put in and take out. Look for a 6 mile or so run. Wellfleet or Eastham to Brewster? Mid tide incoming would probably be best dealing with the flats...you tell me?

Any board will do but your obviously better of with something longer. I'll be using my Vec 14 but my 12-6 Starboard would be available and I can probably grab my daughters 12-6 as well. hopefully we can get a few folks and do a shuttle.....maybe a twofer if it works.....

I'd try and do something Sunday too but i'm helping my daughter with her breast cancer walk in Falmouth...something tells me the tents wont be going up....should be interesting.

[addapost]

I'm in. Tell me where and when. I have several SIC downwind boards available for zoner use: an original Bullet 14 with steering. An F14, and at least one Bullet 14 V2 (no steering). Let's do this

[stoneaxe]

Sweet! I'm hoping some Cape natives chime in...I'll call creek too...it would be good to get some local knowledge I scoped a couple of possible spots for launch and landing on Google. Trying to keep it somewhat mild. There is a parking lot/beach at the end of S. Sunken Meadow Rd in North Eastham that looks like a decent launch spot. NNE 8 miles to Breakwater Beach or NE 11 to Cold Storage Beach. Depending on what else we hear we can figure it out from there. Meet wherever we decide to land around 12:00?
I'll PM my cell.

[PonoBill]

Go big or go home.

I'm glad I didn't head off on my trip today. I'm starting in the morning. Today we had 30+ in the gorge, it'd say well over that, like 35 gusting to 45. Blistering. The angle was a little all over the place, crossed up and big. I wound up with earaches in both ears, like a winter windsurf session. Had some smoking drops, but couldn't connect very well. I spent a lot of time waiting for my Bullet 17's nose to reappear. Hard to find lines through the backs of the swells. Spent a lot of time standing on the rudder pulley. Fell six times, which sucks. The last crazy-wind runs we had I did three runs and fell twice.

[addapost]

Go big or go home.
I spent a lot of time waiting for my Bullet 17's nose to reappear.

I also have a Bullet 17 that has hardly been wet. I didn't offer that up because I'll be on that one.

[kayadogg]

If you guys end up doing a Cape run tomorrow, let me know. I'm in Brewster until Sunday morning.

[supthecreek]

ha ha... just saw this after I answered your text.....
I came up with a similar 9 mile route that could be aborted many spots along the way.... the Bay is going to be nasty. Short period, whipped up.
Launch time should be 1 pm or later to have enough water over the Brewster Flats which extend out 1.6 miles from shore

I figured First Encounter in Eastham, to Cold storage beach in Dennis is a good run for this wind. It's an easy drive and the wind won't blow you away from shore.

I can drive and run watch dog. I have had the flu all week, so not sure I'm up to making the run itself.

Call me anytime....you all have my number

[Off-Shore]

I'm watching with interest from Asia.  I get to the North East coast quite a bit and will be spending more time there as the years go by so if there is a North East Coast downwind crew forming I'm going to join you once day. I have a Bullet 14v1 in Long Island

[stoneaxe]

Yikes....got my ass kicked today. I thought I was going to be good to but that proved wrong once it started rocking. For the Maui crew reading this. Very similar to a good southside run. Bigger than any that I was on while I was there. It even gets crazy at the end but even more crazy than Maui, gets really shallow and all rolling sand bars.....up and down doesn't quite describe it.

If I hadn't screwed the pooch it would have been awesome. Addapost was rocking it. We had 4-6' drops in the middle. I had a few good ones myself but for most of this I ended up on my knees, pretty frustrating. I have video but he was always well ahead of me despite stopping to buddy up (thank you) It got good fairly quick. Surprising wave direction but in retrospect it makes sense. The big waves that are hitting the outer Cape are wrapping and sending in the dominant swell. The wind had been blasting at the landing spot when we met, steady 30-35mph. But it was only about 15 at the beach when we launched, straight out of the NE blowing in exactly the direction we wanted to go. Easy start, looked like it was going to shape up great. The big swells were all coming in straight out of the N though. The wind picked back up almost immediately once out of the shadow of the beach. 1st mile was cruising with smaller swell, we were trying to get further out so it was quartering sharply off our right shoulder.

Once we turned more DW addapost took off. He was flying and disappearing into the troughs. As usual I was struggling to get glides. I think I need more board. Once it starts rocking on my Vec I have a hard time moving around, I get pitched easy if the nose is getting punched around like it was today. If you can't walk you can't trim so you end up wallowing in the troughs....today I wallowed a lot. Everything went south pretty quick after that, started cramping in my calf because of the fight, falling a lot, couldn't get rid of the damned cramp. The rest of the paddle from about the halfway point in was pretty painful, beyond torturous at times. Spent most of it on my knees, left hamstring starts to cramp....totally fucked now....fall in from my knees......

I did best when I took a few breaks and paddled straight with the swells but we had to go NE. As it turns out we still didn't hit the planned landing....very tough to find on this 1st venture. We actually did have a good idea but we should have gone a 1/4 mile outside of the buoy we aimed for. Those waves out of the morth were just pushing us deeper in. Once we got to it we were a bit too far in to make the cut across. If addapost had been solo or at least not with someone screwed up he would have finished an hour earlier and probably hit the mark. It looked like we were going to come up short. Then we saw what we thought was creek waiting for us in a parking lot with the lights on. We could see a break wall and there was one where we were going so we thought it had to be it....it wasn't. We had to paddle back across to try and make that beach, got pushed in a couple hundred yards downwind Thankfully though we made it in and I for one was glad to hit solid ground again. We called creek...also being very thankful that he had decided to shuttle for us It was a 1.5 -2 mile walk to the beach where we were supposed to be. That would have really sucked.

So any way we did it, or at least addapost did. Conditions were pretty good and I think for experienced good DW paddlers even further out would have been great. If we had taken the right line we would have been on the edge of that. No question that starting in P-town and heading in would be all time. We were way inside and it still got gnarly. I need to get back in better shape and even then maybe look at a new board.

I'll have some vid later and creek has some funny looking stuff I'm sure of us or at least me struggling coming in.  For now heres a pic that my daughters friend took on the other side of the bay at White Horse beach about the same time we were out.

[stoneaxe]

Funny...I happened to look at the world DW map I started awhile ago. I had put the run we made today in already but had thought of doing it in a SW run...would not have been anywhere near as dramatic in that direction,,,,no big swell just wind. Breakwater to Eastham

If you go to the map the run labelled Wellfleet to Dennis would have been all time today I think.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=zYn9LcVyH-YQ.kDYob8k86xEk

Here's a vid from todays intended landing spot before we went to the launch.

[johnysmoke]

Wow! Looks like an epic day! I really wanted to get in on this, but with the toddler couldn't get away today, but please keep posting if you do more downwinders. I've still got a F14 in the garage although I might be getting rid of it soon but it would have been perfect for this type of run. Might hang onto it just for getting the kid out next summer and the occasional downwinder. The 30+ knot winds also had me a little freaked out today, less likely to chuck myself into something like that since I've had the boy, than a few years ago. Was wondering if a Buzzards Bay run would have worked today starting near Monument Beach and ending before Woods Hole.

[stoneaxe]

A little more analysis. Even with my limited swell reading ability I could see that these were very linkable today. The bigger longer period dominant N swell had a smaller shorter NE wind swell mixing with it. I linked one sequence of what felt like 4 chained together basically by mistake.  Dropped into a trough, caught a smaller windswell angling across it and got enough speed to shoot into another big one forming on my right, had a nice glide going on that when I buried the nose and almost fell, killing that one. Those pathways were all over the place....even I could see them. To the guys that can read the lines and get into them this would have been very fast.

[stoneaxe]

Sorry Kaya didn't see your post until just now.

[covesurfer]

Nice! I love that you are leading the charge on getting some NE downwind action cued up Stoney.

Speaking of the south side of Maui, yesterday it was blowing hard off shore. It was difficult for some of our posse to make it in at Makena. We all went in boats yesterday, except Ralf, who went standup. Today, it was perfect. Went stand up from the ponds to Makena and it was as good as it ever gets. Wind just got stronger and stronger the further we went. Driving home, passing the top of the run, the wind had again turned, blowing straight out towards Kaho olawe. Meanwhile, on the north shore, it is huge, booming north swell. Surfed for a measly 1/2 hour in front of the canoe club, in the harbor (!) with overhead, near perfect rights. Overall, an unbelievable ocean day.

And on the other side of the world, there you guys are! I love it!

[supthecreek]

The guys did great for a pretty nasty day.
Unlike Maui, when we get winds over 30 mph.... it means nasty weather.
It was cold on the beach today.... cloudy, rain sprinkles,  50 degrees... and you could not see the destination....

So al in all.... well done for a first run.

I made a short video of the day.... I will finalize it overnight and post it tomorrow...... not too much DW... but shows the set-up and conditions.