Windsurfing

My Dad is a sailor.  All my childhood there was a sailboat in the driveway and summers on the water.  As a kid, all the lines (what sailors call all those ropes on the boat) were confusing and scary to me.  The fact that a sailboat tips with the wind always left me a bit unsettled, too.  Once when I was a teen, Dad took my best friend, Natalie, and me out for a sail.  A puff of wind got a bit too strong at just the wrong moment, tipping us a bit too much and causing water to come rushing into the cockpit on the starboard side, soaking me to my waist.  Dad hollered to "get to the top!"  (Meaning, climb up to the port side and add my weight to theirs in order to prevent us from capsizing)  It was a stressful moment...

... it was Natalie's first and last sailing trip.  She decided that sailing is just too stressful, and I tend to agree.

Except when the wind is calm.  Then it is just plain boring.

At least, it was for me, the kid.  I might just enjoy a calm wind sail these days.

Anyways, Dad was always trying to get one or several of his kids to come out and learn to sail with him.  None of us took him up on that, and I think he was always disappointed that he didn't have anyone to share his love of sailing with.

That is, until Will came along.  One summer, oh, about 4 or 5 years ago, we all went sailing with Dad during one of our family vacations to the Pacific Northwest.  Will LOVED it.  He was interested.  He wanted to learn.  We finally had another sailor in the family.  I really think the Nordic blood runs strong in my red headed son.  He loves to sail.  He loves to ski.  He loves anything to do with Norway.

Once I realized that Will wanted to learn, we started sending him up to visit his grandparents every summer in order to take sailing lessons from my Dad.  I also wanted to give him a chance to know his grandparents and Nordic heritage better.  I couldn't afford for all of us to go, so I just sent him.  After several summers, my Dad pointed out that we should use the money it cost to send him up there to find him his own small sailboat, because he was ready.  Of course, I still want to send him up there, but I think this isn't the summer for a PNW trip.

So, we've been on the lookout for a small sailboat for Will.

That is a hard thing to find in the desert.

Every time something that looks like a perfect match crops up in the classifieds, it is snapped up before we have a chance to try for it.

But then, we started to notice the windsurf boards that would crop up in the search along with the sailboats.  They were much more affordable.  And seemed like a potentially fun time.

This past Saturday afternoon, I stumbled across a GREAT deal.  A board with complete rigging (mast, boom, sail, harness, etc.).  Actually, it came with THREE sails and two harnesses.  And the boom is adjustable to the sizes of all three sails.  The whole package was only $100.  HOLY COW!  The three sails are worth more than that!  So I called immediately.

The ad had only been up for 9 hours.  We drove right out and bought it on the spot (after inspecting it, of course).  The couple selling it were very nice and we found that we had a lot in common with them.

We didn't tell Will what we were doing.  We just brought home a sailboard.

To say he was excited would be putting it mildly.  He was over the moon, and that was before he realized that we bought it solely for him and that it now belonged to him, not the family.  He was also more than a little nervous.  I can pretty much guarantee he spent most of Saturday night on YouTube, watching every windsurfing instructional video on there.  He did have the advantage of his sailing knowledge, so the terminology was an easy crossover.

We spent four hours on the lake on Sunday afternoon letting him try it out for the first time.  I gave it a try, too.  Man!  It is hard to pull that mast up out of the water and even harder to keep your balance once you have it up!  But Will has a lot of determination and by the end of the four hours he had the balance thing down and was able to hold the sail up for about a minute before dropping it again.  I took him to the lake again today for a few hours, and by the end, he was able to sail it the length of the beach and even successfully tacked around 180 degrees a couple of times.

He is completely hooked.  And I am very happy!  The windsurf board will refine his sailing skills and help him to know the wind on a very personal level.  Once we do find him a sailboat, the windsurfing experience will have been invaluable in getting him ready for big sails!

He was dismayed to find out that we wouldn't be going to the lake tomorrow.  My house needs a cleaning, so I can't go.  I think we'll be spending a part of the fourth out there, though.  And as many summer days as he can finagle out of me, I am sure!