best free curb pickup ever

[Tom King]

Listed on our local Nextdoor ap was some free windsurfing equipment.  It was only a couple of miles away, so I went to look at it.

This type race board hasn't been used for 30 years, but we already had one from a sailboat and sailboard business we had that got destroyed by a tornado in 1988.  It hasn't been used  for 30 years because it's not much fun to go out by myself and we didn't have a small enough longboard sail for Pam to use.

Now we have two.  This one came with high end, lightweight carbon fiber mast and boom and a quiver of five sails that look like they have never been used, including some smaller ones that will be good for Pam.

It is dirty from being stored in a boat house on the lake for 30 years, but a test spot that you can see in the picture cleaned it right up.  It needs a few parts, but I know how to work on them.

This was thousands of dollars worth of gear back in its day.  Now we can go out together.

[Coop]

Tom, I used to surf when I was younger and didn’t know what skin cancer was and the skeg or fin was much shorter than the one on your paddle board. What is the advantage to having one that long? I’m going to guess and say that it gives you more stability as you’re having to move side to side paddling as opposed to being pushed by a wave? 

[Tom King]

There won't be any paddling.  It's a sailboard also called windsurfer.  This particular one is a course racing board.  There used to be races around courses that require you to go upwind as well as across the wind and downwind.  For any sailing craft, you need something in the water to keep you from being pushed sideways in order to go upwind.  Think of it as a wing or wings in the water and a wing in the air.

The long fin helps to stabilize it when going upwind when you also have the centerboard down, and when you are going too fast to have the centerboard down the length gives you the high speed wing in the water.  You can't point as high into the wind, but you get your speed up much more to make up for the lower angle.  

Sailing craft that can sail faster than the wind require a smaller wing in the water.  Say when the wind is blowing 20 mph, you might be going 30 or above with your feet in the back footstraps, the mast slid all the way back in the mast track, and hooked into a harness you are leaning the sail all the way back and pulling it in as hard as you can.

I found a video of someone sailing this exact same model board.  The wind is pretty light, but it will give you some idea.  They will go a Lot faster than this.  We will primarily use this and another one we already have for sailing in conditions pretty much like this or a little stronger.   I started to say something about this person's sailing ability, but I'll not.  It's just an example I found.

His biggest problem is he's not powered up in that wind with a 7.8 square meter sail.  That would be good for a 105 pound Pam.  He or I would be powered up enough to use the footstraps, including the front ones for going upwind, with a 9.0 or better still a 10.0.

I think the reason this one has never been used but a time or two was because it was at a lot on the lake way up in a small cove on a small side shoot of a creek.  Whoever bought it just put a lot of money in the best of everything probably not knowing much about it or how big a piece of water you needed to put it to use.

 

[Mark J]

That board is really moving along at a good clip.  

[Tom King]

Hardly....  It could go a lot faster than that even in that 10 knot wind if he was powered up with a bigger sail.

I found one by a guy who knows what he's doing.  Powered up in even lighter wind than the first video.  You can see he has enough power to be in the footstraps. 

But this is not quite enough wind for him to be in the footstraps going upwind.  You can see he's not having to stand out on the edge of the board going upwind. 

Notice there are not even any whitecaps on the water but he still has it planing pretty good going downwind and at the end he says that the fin was too small.  I was wondering why he wasn't sheeting all the way in, which would have made him faster downwind, but it makes sense if the fin is too small.  The fin needs to be balanced with the sail you are using.  If it's too small, you can spin out.  You can use a larger fin with a smaller sail, but a little bit more drag, but a small fin is a balancing act with a big sail.  I tip my hat to this guy.