March 3 - Lac Bay

4,727 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.8, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake 38

Kept going too deep in the mangrove shallows and snagging some turtle grass with the fin. Also, was getting good runs to the south and consistently sailed into the wind shadow and blew the jibes.

March 2 - Lac Bay

4,711 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.1, 2015 iSonic 107, MFC KPR360. 

Launched at about 1650, derigging at 1750. Starting to get some stamina. Recently it would have taken me four hours of 'sailing' to go 12 km.

March 1 - Lac Bay

4,698 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.8, 2017 iSonic 127, Drake 44. Wind 15 G 16 knots

Made one run and the wind dropped a couple of knots. Just enough of a drop to keep me from planing.

Launched at 1320. I apparently need 15 knots with gusts to 17 to get this setup on a plane...

Feb 20 - Lac Bay

4,693 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.1, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake 38

Was well powered (to overpowered a couple of times) during the sessions. Chop seemed bigger than normal for some reason.

Time to try a 36 cm or 34 cm fin in these conditions to see if the board is more controllable. Good workout.

Spent some time talking with Bernardo from Berlin (retired engineer). Good chat.

Feb 19 - Lac Bay

4,675 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.1, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake 38

Wind on the light side for this rig combination but once on a plane the ride was great. More cruising than pushing. tide was low so even though I tried to jibe close to the north markers, I still managed to run aground a couple of times. This was partly caused by a slight North cant to the wind causing jibing to be more to the west than normal.

Feb 18 - Lac Bay

4,657 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2015 Sailworks Retro 5.5, 1985 Hi-Tech 9' Carbon Slalom. Wind: 20 G 30 knots. Very heavy rain at times.  Fully powered for first and second launch. OK powered for third but could tell wind was dropping a little by the way the board was starting to feel sluggish. Decided to stop so I didn't have to swim it in... Launched at 14:56, 15:40 and 16:20. Wind gauge gave only sporatic data from 15:00 to 16:00

Feb 17 - Lac Bay

4,648 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.1, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake 38 

Good day. Doing some fine tuning adjustments is helping to minimize the effort required to sail.

Today moved the opening of the foot straps from 4 to 5 (about a 1-2 mm larger opening). Made a huge difference in my ability to get my foot in the back strap.

My approach today was to sail over/back twice and then stop and rest. This gave me a chance to jibe on the port reach. Jibing went decently on the starboard reach. Only made one jibe on the port reach but that was mostly due to running past the wind into the light wind area.

Feb 16 - Lac Bay

4626km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2018 GA Phantom 7.1, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake 38 Wind: 15 G 20 Knots

Good session. Slowly getting the switching of feet and then flipping the sail down. Jibes are still stall-jibes but at least I'm finally making it around on the slalom gear without falling ...