2008 Race Recap by Don Wagner

        For me, it was an early 2 hour drive on a cool morning, in the low 60s when I arrived at the beach.  Wind was NW about 5-10, so I knew we would be waiting for the forecasted 15-20 breeze to clock in--which it did around noonish, and with a vengence.  So the formula guys had all rigged 10 meter sails, but by race time I wanted my 9.0 or something even smaller, as I gazed out over a 3-4 foot short period shorebreak and winds gusting into the upper 20s.  I considered non-participation as I studied Fernando, then Ron, Pete and Alex eventually launch successfully through the relentless shorepound.  But I was rigged and ready and launched without incident, only to then miss the start by about 2-3 minutes.  I'm in the water, fooling with my harness lines, look up to see a Neil Pryde and 2 North sails barely visible about a mile out.

        I felt pretty good on the first tack out, had good angle and seemed to make up some ground.  But increasingly, I found myself misjudging the swell and chop, which would converge and I'd launch.  I managed to land all the jumps without getting pitched or falling, but jumping a formula board does not doesn't improve VMG, and by the time I got to inlet, I think I'd lost a couple more minutes from the leaders--which turned out not to matter anyway when I jibed around the buoy and couldn't turn downwind.  I just had too much sail for my board and I was too close to the mast, and at this point the wind seemed to pick up, all I could do was just feather the sail and progress slowly and painfully with bad angle and speed.  The "race" was over for me, and I switched to survival sailing.  I got pretty fatigued, and a couple times considered heading to the beach, but was pretty sure I could not negotiate the shorebreak without breaking equipement, which later turned out to be true.  I just stopped for a while, lengthened my lines and moved my mast base forward and eventually got back to the launch area, saw several buddies aparently willing to help me land, came in between waves, thought things might be ok, but then my formula fin made contact and I just jumped off and abandoned my rig.  I surfaced to watch my 9.8 being impaled by my fin, but really didn't much care at that point, just happy to be on land again. Thanks again to Ron, Alex, Eduardo and others for helping get my stuff back to the beach. 

        But pretty fun to fly over the swells and chop on formula.  Pretty wild to see lots of flying fish, even had one glance off my wetsuit, turtles, a ray.  Exciting to dodge fishing boats, speedboats, kiters, and fellow windsurfers.  Racing in the ocean on formula requires constant concentration, to avoid geting launched.  Somehow, I never want to spend much time with my body immersed in the open ocean, feels like I'm shark fishing.

        Good turnout for this race/event, great to see old friends and meet new ones.  Great job, thanks to Ron and Sue.