The Woody's at Windpower Championships!
A-Fleet start at the Windpower Champs
My mast before/during/after race 1
Busy racing at the jibe marks
Ulf ‘The Crazy Swede’ leading a pack through a jibe mark
Can you spot the four Woody’s on the water?
What a terrific weekend we had in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin racing at The Windpower Championships! We stayed at Don Altmeyer’s place nicknamed “Club Altmeyer” right on Winnabego Lake with Team Iowa. OMG we had alot of laughs!! Friday’s winds were cranking up to 70km/hr (39mph) and produced some great wave action on ‘Windy Winnebago’. We arrived late on Friday to catch the tail end of the wind, but Josh and Woodette managed to grab some of the wind and waves before it shut down. I just relaxed with a couple of pints after making the 12hr drive in the Moose.
Saturday’s winds were not as big as Friday’s that’s for sure, but perfect winds for longboard racing. 59, that’s right, 59 competitors were racing in three different fleets with none other than our son Josh whipping alot of butts out on the water (including mine!) to grab 1st in the Juniors class, and 1st overall in Sport Fleet beating out 22 other racers. Wow, what an accomplishment for his first regatta ever! We are so stoked to say the least!! Josh was on an IMCO board with an 8.2m sail. A little overpowered at times, but managed it very well. Woodette also sailed a great regatta grabbing 2nd overall in B-Fleet. She smoked alot of the ‘boys’ out on the water and is very happy with her results too! She raced the Prodigy with an 8.5m sail on Saturday and a 7.5m sail on Sunday. Me? well I had managed to bust my 520 mast 2 pumps on my way to the course before the first race on Saturday, thus pretty much eliminating my sail quiver in the process. I did manage a 7th place in one race on my Superlite, and ALOT of slogging with my formula board for the majority of the rest of the races. And, when there was enough wind to get planning, I’d pump my ass off only to look behind me and see 3′ of weeds dragging behind me off my fin…I was pooped after racing like that! Lots of fun as always though!
Big thanks go to Kevin Gratton and his crew at Windpower Windsurfing who organize this awesome yearly event complete with boat-burning-bonfires! Also thanks to Matt Schmitz for taking all the pics. I’ll make a photo album as I sift through the hundreds of pics he gave us.
Stay Cool
14 Comments
Congrats to the Woody’s for a job well done, fantastic representation…especially Josh way to show them. Just thinking Woody the sail I sold you was an 8.2. Was that the sail Josh was using??? Daniel is holding on to a 4.5, I guess he will need some biggerguns if he is going to compete with Josh… Anyway see you soon at Mille Lacs. Leaving Friday morning about 8:30am. Hope to get some sailing in on that afternoon. Short board all the way sounds good. I will bring my old Bic Allegro. It’s a speed needle. Maybe I will finally get a chance to try it cause I haven’t sailed it yet.
See ya soon….tbayray
Yes, Josh used your old 8.2. Isn’t that amazing? First time we had an official B-Fleet which started with the A-Fleet. The scrambling, rush and awesome competion on the water within the Fleets was just fantastic. The conditions for the regatta were fabulous, from high wind in some of the races to pumping in others. Also 30 C degrees made the cold beers afterwards even tastier. An excellent organized, fun event!
By the way we got a Mowind trophy for Daniel!!
Nice work Josh, congrats on the awesome racing in your first official MOWIND regatta. Keep up the good work, and go out and practice more on that beat up OneDesign.
Did anyone see / pickup my Sony point and shoot camera? It is in a black little case. I really want to find it.
Until next time, keep it real and rig big and sheet in hard…
/ Uffe
USWE 22
I sooooo much wanted to go on the trip with y’all – I even was all packed and ready to roll. Glad it was a hoot (except for gear trauma)
Look forward to Fun du Mille Lacs!
Way to go Josh!
Looking forward to the weekend ahead.
Great to see a large fleet. We Southern Ontario people should try to make it to a race one day. Not much racing going on down our ways. Josh, keep that One Design afloat. Look to see if there is any water seepage and fix it. Mine is now 14 years old and still wins alot of races!
Hi Everyone;
Just by chance I got that address on Google. I had no idea what I was looking for. Seems like I hit the right time to send a reply. I am heading out to Mille Lacs this coming Thursday the 27th of September and was just a little bit curious what is happening with all of you. I haven’t gotten an email from the group this time around so I was a little concerned that maybe no one was going this year.
Hope that all of you are heading out for the crossing. I have registered to do the kite version of the crossing but I am bringing my windsurfing gear just in case.
ANYONE get’s this mail before I leave in the morning can send me an email to bring me up to snuff on the plans for the weekend. AND, where is everyone staying?
Roland
is that an x-9 mast???
Nope. That’s an X6 prototype mast from Neil Pryde Maui. I got the mast with a 9.2m RS Slalom sail from a friend who picked the gear up in Maui 2 yrs ago.
Hey Woody! Tell me how Mille Lacs was this year. How many kiters and how many windsurfers? I’m going to put it on my priority list next year and bring the whole family as hubby can kite. This time I’ll plan my vacation better. We’ll have to post it on the new Canadian Masters Assoc’s website. Great job Guin!
Hey Andree!!
The Crossing so far has been AWESOME! 65 registered with 23 kiters battling it out in the 25 knots of wind on this inland ocean Mille Lacs.
I exploded a few times on Marg’s JP160 with a 7.5. I tried my formula with a 9.2 prior to the start, but I was getting hammered in the big waves!! LOL!!
Gotta make it next year!!
We out here in the east have been watching the fronts that are out there in the mid-west. They will be here by Monday! Just in time to return to work. Frustrating. It may be a sick day tomorrow. So you got pounded by the wind? I hope the crossing went well and not like our around the island race where we lost a few. Have fun and safe trip home. We’ll see you there next year!
Only 4 in the photo?! But… there are 5 of you! Who slacked out and why?
Steph, was commited to pet-sitting in the neighbourhood and couldn’t come. But Jeremy was out there windsurfing