2025-09-05 Viento

September 06, 2025

Viento - the wind dropped a bit so we all came to the beach!

When we got up it was raining! The forecast was for Light and Variable in the afternoon. Damn.

Kent, Brad and I rode our bikes down to the waterfront around noon to check out the Windsurf Tradeshow and the action on the water. Of course we weren't allowed in the show, but I did run into Tyson Poor who I know from Pro-Windsurf. He is doing well and REALLY enjoying being a father!

I checked the Slingshot booth to see if Bobby was there, but they said he must be in the office today. Missed him.

We checked out the action on the water. A big wakesurf boat was driving past with four or five wingers and pump foilers following and surfing in both the first and second wake. Cool. Also - it was windy enough that people were foiling! WHAT! There wasn't supposed to be any wind today!

We raced back to the townhouse, but then had to decide where to go... Moiser? Hatchery? Viento??? You would think with only five of us it would be an easy decision... NOT!

We finally settled on Viento. When we got there, we ran into Greg, who was coming off the water after a good foiling session. Maybe we missed it...??

I was definitely light, but it looked sailable. People were out, some foiling and some not. I rigged my 8m Wing, my big board and big foil, I figured I may as well go as big as I could to make sure I could get going. I was first out from our group, and was comfortably powered, although that big wing has a lot of momentum in it that you have to overcome to turn it around in a jibe.

Kent was next out on his 6m Sail, followed by Blaine and Brad, also on their 6m flyers. Ross went out on a 7m kite.

I think we all had a lot of fun in the flat water conditions. I had lots of fun with the big wing, foiling all the time while most of the other wingers struggled getting on foil due to the light wind (and their small wing size and probably their skill level).

With the narrow river, it seemed we were sailing a lot closer together than usual. We had lots of fun trying to chase each other down, use each other as jibe markers, and generally get in each others way.

We all came off the water around 4:00 when there was a big lull in the wind. I fell off the foil on a jibe, and then couldn't get going again and slogged all the way back to shore. Brad, Blaine were caught downwind and had to slog quite a bit before making it back. Ross and Kent were way upwind. Ross caught some weeds so crashed and lost his shoe. The hunt was on and after about 10 minutes they found the shoe and were ready to head back downwind but the wind had dropped off a lot. Ross caught a gust and made it back, but Kent slogged most of the way, although the wind came up just as he was getting to shore, so did another few reaches before coming it. The wind actually came up again later, but I think everyone was done!

The day wrapped up with a beer in the parking lot. It turned into 2 beer when we realized we had no pressing things to do back in the hood and it felt awesome sitting outside in the shade by the fan. The traditional cookies were passed around and a lot of sailing issues on how to jibe and go fast were resolved.

For a day that started out with no wind and rain, it was a great session! Kent sailed over 40km and I sailed over 20.

Blaine drove us all up to Kickstand for supper. The service and food was excellent as usual!

After supper, some of the guys went down for ice cream again. Nice.

Another great day!