Stand Up Paddle > Downwind and Racing
Sucko Downwinder
PonoBill:
How can a blue sky downwinder in the gorge with winds gusting above 40mph and textbooks drops right and left just totally suck? Well if your paddle breaks one mile into the run, that would probably do it.
I dropped into a nice fat river divot that was a little crossed up, so I braced hard and my handle snapped off in my hand. Not good. It was a crusty old extended ergo-T handle I had kicking around, and I installed it to gain seven inches with a shaft I'd cut short for surfing. Long stupid story. I thought at the time I should sleeve the handle with a piece of shaft trim. Probably wouldn't have helped--it broke right at the edge of the shaft. So not only did I have no handle, I had a short paddle.
I tried to soldier on with the short shaft in a position halfway between a chicken scratching for bugs and Conner Baxter doing a choke hold sprint--biased strongly towards the chicken. But I couldn't brace and the swells were too fast for the weak paddling. So I did six of the remaining 7.5 miles on my knees. sort of a kneeling surfski with a crap paddle and no steering kind of thing. I could catch bumps, and get going pretty fast, but the direction was kind of up to random chance.
In the last mile the bumps got flatter though the wind was stronger, so I stood and basically sailed to the event center, dragging my paddle stump for stability. In the EC the waves were huge--dredging the bottom. I got about halfway through and was amazed at my catlike grace, but a kitesurfer decided he needed to launch right then while I was smoking along in a waist high wave. I dropped off the board and grabbed it to keep from mowing him down--which was just as well since I needed to manage the landing, though I did comment rather loudly on the guys relationship with his mom. I got rolled around in the surf to the amusement of everyone on shore. My board kept blowing off the water as I tried to crawl on to it. Ugly.
Just getting the board out of the water was interesting. I left it plastered to the chain link fence at the edge of the EC and Gregg Leion shuttled me back to my truck. The Big Winds shuttle is now running, which means a lot more downwinders on the menu. Tomorrow I have to go to PDX to pick up Diane's old Tesla--she got a new extended range one. I talked her into it so she'd stop freaking about about range--and because I want to play with all the autodrive stuff. But Sunday is supposed to be nuking as well. Official start of summer.
So yeah, great conditions, beautiful day, awesome wind and bumps, and it sucked.
burchas:
Welcome to the club of “don’t try stupid shit in critical conditions”
I thought you get cured at a certain age but I guess I have years to go.
Had the same situation 2 summers ago, 1 mile or so into Viento
Broke a prototype shaft right in the middle.
The rest of it you pretty much know, ugly. 3 hours later with bruised
Knees and carbon splintered palms I stumbled into the EC.
2 weeks ago made a new fin template out of an old fin sanded the base
A little too much... beautiful conditions, 30+ knots consistent and I lost
The fin 3 miles to go...
50 board flips later I showed up paddling sideways
While my buddies looking and me strangely from the heated comfortable car.
Good Times ::)
PonoBill:
Next time you lose a fin tie something draggy onto the back. A camelback will do it, but almost anything, even a couple of wraps of leash will help. It even works on windsurfers. I got back in from so far out into the cold pacific off Manzanita that I could only see the hills behind the town. I say next time because in my experience there WILL be a next time. For example, I "fixed" my paddle and it's already nuking this morning. Turns out I don't have to go to PDX.
Onward.
eastbound:
good tip that i will remember, pb---could be a big help in a bad situation
burchas:
My go to solution is wrapping the PFD around the tail but I decided a worthy
Punishment for the stupidity is practicing the saving brace till the end.
I say stupidity because I usually carry a backup fin when testing.
I’ll have to say that catching and riding bumps without a fin was an
Interesting experience, not necessarily to be repeated.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version