March 23

Bonaire Lac Bay. NP EVO 5 7.8, iSonic 107, Drake Carbon DW 38. Wind: ENE, Started at 13 - 14 knots, ended session at 18 - 20.

The morning started off with frustration when building materials that were supposed to be delivered never arrived. At 2 PM I said "F* it", loaded up and went to the bay. It had been blowing 20 all morning but by the time I arrived the afternoon doldrums had kicked in with wind maybe 13. Plugged the 7.8 EVO into the iSonic 107. Hit the water about 3:40 PM and had a great time for a while messing around with NM runs. It became clear after a couple of runs that the afternoon wind bump was kicking in. Made the 'white knuckle' broad reach run through big chop back to the car - unfortunately wasn't a NM as the average speed was 2-3 knots faster than the full NM runs (per GPSResults). 

Talked to Taty about stance, confirmed the discussion on the web about raising the windward rail for faster speed. Even though the wind was now stronger than I would normally go out on with the 7.8 I decided to do a mini-HTFU per Roo and make a run or two across the bay. Started off great and was having a fast, but barely in control run. Made it almost through all the big swells when I relaxed too early and ended up slammed down on the sail. Not a biggie except in the larger swells I could NOT clear the luff sleeve of water to waterstart (might have been able to uphaul, didn't try). Anyway, finally decided to just drift downwind until I could touch bottom, clear the sail and get back to the car. 

Lots of 'learning practice' today :)

March 21

Bonaire Lac Bay. NP EVO 5 5.8, iSonic 90, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind 16 - 18, Gusty, ENE.

Wind a little more NE than yesterday and more gusty. Decided to gut up and rig the race sail - was actually slower than yesterday 

March 20 - PB 5x10

Bonaire Lac Bay. Sailworks Retro 5.5, iSonic 90, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: 17-18 knots

Another good workout day. Was a little tired from yesterday so wasn't pushing it as hard as I might have. Had a couple of runs where the fin broke loose but didn't let go entirely. Still pleased with the fin as it is allowing me to experience flat water runs in the Mangrove shallows :). Obviously still have a lot of learning to do to get max performance out of the gear, but still happy with the results so far.

March 19

Bonaire Lac Bay. Sailworks Retro 5.5, iSonic 90, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: 17G21

Fun workout day. Tide still a little low to feel comfortable in the mangrove shallows. Ran aground once, had to walk the rig upwind to get deep enough water.

March 18

Bonaire Lac Bay. NP EVO 5 7.8, iSonic 107, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: 15 kts E

Conditions similar to yesterday, maybe a tad lighter wind and water level a little higher. With the higher water level was able to take better advantage of the mangrove shallows.

I got spoiled during the 'off season' by having the bay to myself. Today, when I first went out and wind was maybe 12-13 knots I only had to share 'my' sailing area with one other person. When the wind picked up all of a sudden there were 40 freestylers cluttering up my back-and-forth run - particularly the mangrove jibe area. The freestylers probably were not any more pleased having this one guy on slalom gear buzzing them than I was having all these moving jibe buoys 

March 17

Bonaire Lac Bay. NP EVO 5 7.8, iSonic 107, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: 16 G 18 E

Wind returned to a more normal direction and increased a notch or two. Water level still very low but with the FreeDeltaRE I made some excursions into 20 cm mangrove shallows anyway. Amazing feeling blasting along on almost glass smooth water :).

Blew a gybe in the wind shadows of the boat dock - really struggled to keep the sail luff free of water and also waterstart. For me there is a fine line between having this sail powered for a comfortable waterstart and a situation where the sail will to pitch you forward while you are still in the water. This will take some more practice - part of the reason I like the Sailworks Retros as they are very easy to waterstart.

March 16

Bonaire Lac Bay. NP EVO 5 7.8, iSonic 107, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: started at 12 knots from E, increased to 15 from ENE by end of session.

Apparently getting more used to the FreeDeltaRE as didn't have spinout issues today. Wind was light when I arrived so rigged the Neil Pryde EVO 5 7.8. Tide was still unusually low so plugged the FreeDeltaRE back in. About 5 slalom rigs sitting on the beach when I arrived but no one on the water. Eventually Oda (N500) sailed in and looked powered so finished rigging and went out. Soon Oda was joined by Amado (NB22) as they raced together. I had one chance to pace myself against them, of course I was slower but over the length of the bay run they only pulled ahead by maybe 75 meters. Later Taty (NB9) and Tonky Frans (NB7) also went out and were racing each other - Taty was definitely faster.  As I was coming into the beach Taty did a screaming jibe behind me then a couple of seconds later I heard actual screaming - it was Tonky coming from upwind behind me and trying to squeeze through the opening of about 5 meters between me and the beach. I immediatly started to jibe to make room and Tonky made it through - no problem, but definitely gave me an adrenaline rush... Later, on the beach Tonky came over to me and apologized - he thought I was going to do my normal close-to-the-beach jibe and realized almost too late that I was actually headed to the beach and there would be no place for him to go. He was on Taty's new race gear and really didn't want to crash it into the beach. He was very concerned that I was upset about the incident. Initially I was but we had a great chat that resolved any problems I might have had. Both he and Taty are great guys and certainly great ambassadors for windsurfing. 

Two observation from today:

1) I still have a long way to go to even think about keeping up with the pros :).

2) In looking at my tracks, the 'slingshot' into the shallows of the mangroves were consistently my fast 10 sec segments. Glad I have the shallow water fin for when the wind picks up...

March 14

Bonaire Lac Bay. Sailworks Retro 7.5, iSonic 107, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21. Wind: 12.5 knots ENE

Light wind but sailable with some pumping. First chance to try the FreeDeltaRE on the iSonic 107. As on the iSonic 90, it is much easier to spin the fin out if too much pressure is applied - typically for me this occurs when trying to beat upwind. The slalom fins work much better for pointing into the wind. On the other hand, the tide was MUCH lower than I had ever seen it before so I had no worries with this fin. Sailed into the edge of the  'rental area' twice and saw multiple catapult dismounts from people hitting the bottom where normally they would have been fine. 

March 10 - PB 2 sec

Bonaire Lac Bay. Sailworks 5.1, Sailworks Retro 5.5, Hi-Tech 8'4" SVF, iSonic 90, Black Project FreeDeltaRE 21cm, Wind: 15 - 20 knots variable NNE

After 9 days the wind finally returned but from a much more northerly direction than normal. Started out on the 5.1 and the Hi-Tech but was underpowered. Rigged the Retro 5.5 and was comfortably powered. After a while of sailing the Hi-Tech I decided it was time to deploy the Black Project FreeDeltaRE fin for the first time. Plugged it into the iSonic 90. As one would expect with a short fin, a few good bounces over big chop highlighted its primary weakness - the fin was pretty easy to spin out if you tried to sail the iSonic as if it had a regular slalom fin, i.e. a using a lot of pressure on the fin. After a couple of 'learning runs' the spinout issue seemed to become much more tolerable. Considering that I got a new 2 Sec PB and a 4th best 5x10 sec, I can't complain about the fin slowing me down 

March 1

Bonaire Lac Bay. Sailworks Retro 7.5, NP EVO 5 7.8, iSonic 107, Drake Carbon 38. Wind: 12 G 15

Wind slightly lighter than yesterday - was marginal on the Sailworks Retro 7.5. After one run across the bay I rerigged to the the Neil Pryde EVO 5 7.8. Worked a lot better for power but had to up my game on gybing - the practice with the Retros seems to have helped in gybing the NP EVOs. The difference between the Sailworks (marginally powered) and NP EVO powered was about 5 knots! Curios to see what the difference would be if both were powered...