Michigan Windsurfing

Windsurfing & Stand-Up Paddleboarding in Michigan

Hello All

     For you speed demons out there, I just thought I would add some food for thought.

     A few years ago Ann and I had a week off in September and checking the wind forecasts showing nothing to be found anywhere except a small town in Minnesota called Worthington on a small inland lake called Lake Okabena.(similar to Cass). We made the treck from Windsor which took some twelve hours of driving. Once there I called Craig Berg (cberg@iw.net) as we had previously contacted him to let him know we would be there to attempt a try at speed sailing. Try www.midwestspeedquest.com of which Craig is one of the overseers. I must say Craig and his wife Pam turned out to be some of the most gracious hosts we have ever come across. He gave us all kinds of vouchers (sponsered by the speedquest) for food and lodging and so the trip turned out to be way more inexpensive than we had budgeted for owing that to Craig.

    Once there we set up our gear  and were on the water sailing, at the end of the session Craig told us we could leave our gear rigged and just to put it in his garage and we could come back (his house is right at one of the launch sites), the next day and just pull it out and sail again, how great is that?

     We sailed all week and unfortunatley it did not get as windy as promised I still managed to turn in a decent speed  of around 28 knots, which gave me an eleventh place overall standing for that year. Annabel on the other hand was able to nail down a few 24 decent runs which won her a trophy and first place in the women's catergory for that year.

       Craig sells the GT-131 GPS tracking systems and he is the time keeper for GPS speed (www.gps-speedsiling.com ) All times must be verified by Craig before he posts them on the world wide site. Dave French and I both have Locosys GPS tracking systems one of the few systems accepted by the world speed sailing association. You must in order to get an official standing have a Locosys GPS on your person while sailing the tracking cookie is then downloaded and sent to Craig via e-mail and he will veriify it and post your speed.  He will then open it with "Google Earth" and run it through a program to clean it up (yes there are glitches so don't get too excited when the display shows 45 knots max speed it may turn out to be more like 30) and if you like post it on the world site.

     If you are interrested in speed sailing I highly recommend you contact Craig and check out the two sites I have added. It is very thrilling to see your speed posted on a world site to see how you measure up. Also it can be a bit of a reality check for some sailers, as I have had guyys come up to me and boast about how fast they were moving. If you think you are that fast then make it official and you can really have something to boast about. I have found from personal experience that at about 33 knots it begins to bercome increasingly difficult to go faster. Once you break through that speed things start getting pretty scary.

     A side note on this is that speed sailing can be a great event for newer sailers as well, and one does not have to jibe or turn to win. You just have to hang on an go fast. 

     One tip for quick sailing is to find the flattest water possible.  Don

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Don,
Thanks for the report. I've heard that Worthington event is a great time. Just gotta get the time off to make the trek someday.
Hi just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on flat finish hulls verses high gloss for speed sailing. A lot of advancements have been made as of late in the field of boundary layer for improved speed. At one time it was believed that the more high gloss the surface the faster the surrounding medium would pass over the object. Hence in the old days intake ports on race cars would be at times hand polished to a very high gloss to increase intake fuel/air mixture speed into the cylinders Nowadays when looking at a modern high perf motor intake one notices that the intake ports are made to be very textured on purpose. The thinking is that the medium will stick to the surface causing a boundry layer over which the main medium will slide quite rapidly.or at increased speed. Now the question becomes, do we sand the bottom of our boards for more speed or do we wax them? Eva Hollmann has a blurb on her blog which is worthwhile reading. I would be interrested in hearing any thoughts on the subject. Don
http://www.boardlady.com/fast.htm
Don,
I've read that the speed sailors and racers wet sand the bottom of their boards and their fins with a 600 or 900 grit. I recently read about a coating that can be applied as well, but I can't remember the name of it. In the America's Cup, they also apply a special finish (shark's skin or a name like that) to the hull.
Bottom line though, for all us who can barely plane through a jibe, it probably doesn't matter too much.
You'd be surprised. The beauty of GPS speed sailing is that you don't have to do any fancy stuff. Just hang on and go as fast as you dare. I have some "Holy Sh**" lines around my eyea from some crazy fast runs, almost too fast to consider trying to turn.

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