Radar ~ Peter Hart

ra·dar is used here to indicate that someone or something may not have come to your attention. 



Santa Cruz Goya Windsurfing Festival 

 

Robert Bruce Swift, Jr passed away May 16 at the age of 63. His obit reported "Bruce was fluent in three languages, traveled extensively in Europe and the United States, while enjoying hiking, cross-country and downhill skiing and camping. He was also an avid windsurfer, played hockey and enjoyed biking, swimming, reading and listening to French and German radio." If you frequented iWindsurf Forums over the last decade, you might have been  tricked by one his demented rambles. Take a close look (left) at Mo's satirical cartoon eulogy. Those names in the background are the many personas of, perhaps, America's most famous forum troll.

When I ask the racerhads here in Florida why slalom isn't more popular, they always say it's not windy enough. But on the PWA, they race in 7 knots. At this year's recent Korean event, a chronic light wind venue, the average big sail was a 9.5. Finian Maynard had the biggest sail at 10.0. Check it out.

American Ben Barger, ISAF Athlete Representative, reported from the ISAF Mid Year meeting that President Carlo Croce would ask the IOC for an 11th medal for Kite Board Racing. Olympic sailing is now only permitted 10 medals. Ben added, kite is widely supported among the meeting participants. ISAF President's Report

AWT Tour Director, Sam Bittner, revealed in a recent interview that she's working on bringing the AWT and the PWA together for an event at Ho'okipa.



The Jason Voss website JRV Windsurfing is back online. Somebody forgot to pay the server rent. His website was incorrectly reported, by this blog, as having passed away.

Mike Godsey, from Weatherflow, reported what it's like at a new sensor location on the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge 746 feet above sea level. The new sensor will be used to help forecasting during the upcoming America's Cup competition beginning this year in July and ending late September.  

The America's Cup is by far the biggest sailing story in San Francisco and the United States. There is a mountain of news, discussion and opinion ably and thoroughly covered by Florida based Scuttlebutt.



Windsup for Florida

 Alex Morales is offering Formula, Slalom and custom designed boards. All are built in Miami by his new company, Tilo International.

Mark Angulo has been very busy ever since his arrival last year here in central Florida. Catch up with his latest work on his FB page Mark Angulo Custom Maui.



134 L 8'9 x 30 15.5 lbs w/o deck pad

Dwight Fisher on windsurfable sups: "I think a lot of industry have been puzzled by the flop of the windSUP. Most thought it would be a big hit. Now most brands have dropped the windsurf option from their SUPs. Well its the rocker folks. Change the rocker to a windsurf rocker and strapless rocks."

His latest creation, a strapless windsup with a windsurfing rockerline, has exceeded all expectations: "This board wave-sails, so much better in typical summer conditions, than a true windsurf wave board, or a windSUP... Light on the inside, honking outside. Side off wind. You come smoking in toward the beach. Searching for a wave, find one, and try to surf it. It turns into a lame ride, as the sail power goes away, and the true wave board, bogs like a dog. This is where this new board kicks ass. It doesn't bog on the inside. The tail floats and flies. I could get on the tail, spin without bogging, flip the sail, sail clew first out of the bottom turn, smack the lip and redirect and the board takes off again. Repeat, again and again. Jibe in light wind right in front of a set, and still not bogging down. Just effortless and fun. So ideal for our summer conditions... Find out more on the blog, SUP SURF MACHINES

Internal structure of the M 1

Perhaps the newest, most nerdy and interesting idea of the last decade in board building is additive manufacturing or 3D printing. When we use CNC machines, the shaping process is subtractive. Router bits carve away a solid slab of EPS foam. 3D printing uses a heated coil to drop plastic material on multiple levels to create a 3 dimensional object. The process allows for internal space and structure, meaning, you can make a hollow board with ribbed internal structure or whatever else you could imagine. I think one challenge will be for the shapers who must translate good shapes via CAD software into finished products. Large printers are very expensive. If you want to make something as large as a windsurf or sup board, most likely it will have to be made in sections. But worry not over the details, there are board builders who are pioneering this new technology: Made Boards.  If you're curious visit their Facebook Page for more photos and information.

Peter Hart ~ If there was a contest for "Best Instructional Communicator," Harty would win. He has a special gift of putting you at ease, making it painless to laugh at yourself and getting to the core of what you need to improve as a windsurfer. Thanks to Windsurf Magazine for sharing many recent articles. Peter Hart Website

Peter explains why and how the sailing sup will teach you the skills of wave sailing: Wave Riding - The Long & SUP of It

 

If your windsurfing is stuck, the rut you're in may be physical as much as technical. Peter Hart suspects the wrong body parts are being used at the wrong moments in the wrong way:  Plateau and Body Parts

How big? It’s the hardest decision the buying windsurfer has to make. There’s no easy answer but Peter Hart helps you unravel the volume conundrum: Understanding Board Volume

There are contrasting ways to describe the challenge of completing a planing carve gybe. Peter Hart, who has helped millions off this over-crowded plateau, offers advice – and not all of it technical: Completing a Planing Jibe

The harness, the lines and you are windsurfing’s single most important relationship and, like all relationships, you have to work at them to keep the sailing smooth. Harty suggests that another level of comfort and joy beckons if you’re prepared to experiment: Harness Issues

You use your whole body windsurfing, but, is there one key part? Harty reckons so: The Long Front Arm of the Law

Looking to get one in the bag or improve them? Peter Hart describes the intricacies of his favourite transition – the Duck Gybe: Ducking the Issue

It’s the most powerful of human emotions, which both inspires and incapacitates. But in windsurfing, it’s usually the latter. Peter Hart suggests that, unless you understand, confront and conquer your fears, the learning of new techniques is, at best, impossible: What Are You Afraid Of

SIZE – so VERY important. Have you got the right amount of the right kind? Peter Hart examines the element that has the most immediate influence on your performance: A Sizeable Question 

Life and Death on the Internet ~ My Media Empire

 

.During my end of the year update to the Learners guide to windsurfing, I noticed the photo on the left (maybe the last artifact of teamcoyote in the public domain) was missing from its usual place on the California Community page. Buried in an off topic iWindsurf Forum thread was the obituary of Mo Gunn's website: "After 16 years of creating and maintaining a website that had more than 1400 pages of windsurfing and kiteboarding content — only one of which was cartoons — I decided its time was over. I toyed with the idea of recoding the site to make it more "web 2.0/interactive" but my desire to continue waned. If you're interested in a particular cartoon (they're all alive and well) I'm happy to share. Anything new would require the "narcissist in our midst" to provide fresh material — something he hasn't done in years." I'm sure many of you remember Mo's wickedly brilliant cartoon creations which unfortunately are now missing from the public domain with the passing of the teamcoyote website. Other California website passings: Waterhound, JRV Windsurfing, Pappasrock, Caliwindsurf.

 

Almost 2 weeks ago, DaNewsBlog came under fire when malware warnings were generated to a few of you who came to read the Skills post. DaNewsBlog was not infected but the source of the problem was a blog on the Blog List from Sunset Sailboards. Kevin Kan's website had been hacked and was generating malware warnings. The hack finally took control and replaced his website with the image on the right. Kevin has repaired his website  and Google has stopped their warnings. You can also visit Kevin and Sunset Sailboards on Twitter or Facebook.

 

Just recently, DaNews was caught up in a minor kerfuffle with a San Francisco Boardsailing Association news story. Here's the tick tock: SFBA posted, to their Facebook page, a link to a Coast Guard Safety Bulletin concerning kayaks and boardsports in the Bay area which was picked up by DaNews. In support of the original CG Safety Bulletin, they next published a related background document, amplifying the need for safety, also picked up by DaNews. Safety is very important but unfortunately the background document reported a remarkable and alarming, albeit fictitious, number of US kiting deaths in 2012. Taking the SFBA at their word, after all they are a kiting and windsurfing organization, I took the story to the iWindsurf Forum where a vigorous discussion ensued. Postscript: All sources of the SFBA background document have been removed from the internet. 

 

Windsurfing culture, like much of popular culture, finds a voice, educates itself and celebrates via the internet. Hacking a website is an act of terrorism. There will be no grave markers for your website when it's gone. Some loyal followers may never know what happened. Newspapers and magazines leave themselves as artifacts. And mistakes happen in reporting. Sometimes its not easy to fix them but we should always try.

 

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the Learners guide... has been updated. All the links now open in a new window which makes a quick look at the material and the return to the guide much, much faster. The guide has many new videos, mag article embeds, a new Intermediate Skills page and lots of other new material. The Windsurfing Mag's Intro to Windsurfing page, formerly excerpts from a brochure, has been replaced with a most excellent video series, created the year the Mag went out of business, featuring Josh Sampiero, Wyatt Miller and Fiona Wylde. The US Sailing WS Course, created circa 1999, a Fundamental Skills tome offering a deep dive into beginner skills, survives on a US Sailing server but is not linked to on their website. In fact, many magazine articles referenced in the guide are no longer accessible via their respective websites. If you've never visited, please take a look. If you like the effort, share a little love and let people know if they wanna learn windsurfing, they'll find help at the Learners guide...

 

I was recently asked: why publish DaNews on Facebook? For one, it's free to use. Free server space for my 2 other media projects: the Learners Guide...and DaNewsBlog was why I chose to use the Goggle sevices: Sites and Blogger . Most importantly, FB does an incredible job of automatically scraping the content of the link you want to share. You provide the link, they do the rest; plus, if it's not quite what you wanted, you can edit their info synopsis. This allows me more time to focus on finding the news. FB also keeps the reporting job cleaner, by directing attention to the original source. There's no conflict about stealing the thunder from someone else's work. DaNews is just directing more attention to it.  Finally, the best part is you don't have to be a Facebooker to see DaNews.

 

Since you're reading this on DaNewsBlog, just a reminder, the calendar on the right (the real links are page right at the top) is the only all in one place North American Windsurfing events calendar on the internet. The Blog List, just below the Calendar, recently deleted blogs that hadn't posted in 2 years leaving 117 still reporting.

Finally, all 3 projects in "My Media Empire" are "not for compensation" efforts. Why do it? For the love of the game; it's an enjoyable give back to a sport that continues to provide a challenging source of fun. So, if you like: a windsurfing news source focused on North America, easy access to a convenient connection for learning and improving windsurfing skills, a North American Community Directory and this reporter's occasional rambles on windsurfing culture, please let your circle of friends know about these sites.

Will this be the most gear on a beach in 2013 ? Photo by Windsurfjournal Le Defi Gruissan