"Stop that boy! He has our hurricane!"
Lost in Africa (movie). A white couple look for a lost tropical storm in a continent full of dark people. We're sure they have a black friend. But he probably dies.

One of the standard scripts of windsurfing in Atlanta is a bunch of us standing on the shore of our favorite local spot, staring at the still water and asking, "Where's the wind?"

It's usually a rhetorical question, of course. The wind is somewhere, just not here. We recently posted a clipping from an English newspaper where this summer was projected to be the windiest in two decades. Let's be more clear: the windiest English year in two decades while this summer, locally, has been more true to norm, i.e. dead as our social life. To make things even more annoying, we actually read the article (usually, we just pretend to and then purposely make vague statements). This is the part that got us: "Just eight days this year have been 'calm' -defined as when at least 20 weather stations record maximum gusts of 11 mph or less." Wow. Around here, an 11 mph gust gets categorized as breezy, not calm. And, pretty much any summer day without a thunderstorm qualifies as calm.

But, back to our question: where's the wind? Try... Africa.

Typically, one of the few opportunities for wind in the summer comes from tropical storms. While we don't wish a hurricane on our neighbors in Florida or North Carolina, a good tropical disturbance is enough to kick up a bit of breeze during a time of year a wetsuit isn't mandatory. This year, so far, has been a poor one for producing tropical storms in the Atlantic. It's not for the lack of warm water in the Atlantic (good try climate deniers ), but because of strong pool of warm water, El Nino, in the Pacific.

Nonetheless, we are starting to see a few disturbances in the tropics - near Africa.

Hurricane Fred recently formed east of the Cape Verde Islands. Fred is historically very rare as there are only a few recorded instances of hurricanes that far east. Fred is the "most easterly hurricane formation location ever observed".

The early track of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fred. That's Dakar just to the right, as in Dakar, Senegal. We're assuming that since most of our readers are American, who have zero familiarity with world geography, we'd have to point out that the Cape Verde Islands are really far away, like near Africa. Yes, Senegal is in Africa, and, no, Africa is not a country but a continent. Except for South Africa, which is a country, and in the south of Africa. However, north Africa is not a country. Egypt, a country, is in north Africa.

Gawd, how we hate the American education system sometimes...

- source (for the picture, not for the geographical information)

Did you lose your hurricane? Now, a children's book!

Yes, that's right. There is tropical weather this year. It's just not here. Some of it is almost in Africa. Windy Britain, hurricanes off the coast of Africa and nadda here. The worst part? We sure that none of this surprises you.

Dakar is windy, too. Just about any place in the world other than Atlanta is windy (sigh).

We go on and on about Le Défi Wind because it often is such an epic event. A thousand windsurfers starting a race in 40 knots of wind. We try to do it justice but as outside observers living in such a windy place as Atlanta (see above), we feel we come up short.

We recently found a couple of posts that we think give you a great feel for it.

The first post is by Peter Bijl on the Angulo Boards site. Here's just a taste:

Day 2
Yes just when you thought it wouldn’t be possible the wind picked up. Not 5 knots but 25 knots. Yes 25 knots from 40 knots means a lot of wind. With gusts of up to 73 knots they choose to take it easy in the morning and let the wind wear it’s self out a little before sending us out there.
So when the wind dropped down to about 40 knots they called the hour announcement and moved forward with getting race 2 on the way. For the safety of sailors they choose to go for a shorter race, 20 km total and with reaches of only 5 km instead of 10. So the pain in the leg due to sailing on one tack for an extended amount of time where limited and we where able push much harder without the problem of fatigue.

Read his whole post here. And, when your are done, return here to read the next part.

Okay, you read the post above, right? Because what comes next won't have the appropriate context otherwise.

Julien Quentel raced Le Défi Wind for fun on a 101 ltr freeride board (65cm wide) and three freeride/wave sails (5.7, 4.7, 4.2). Julen came in 11th. Okay, he's a pro windsurfer and won a few world championships as a junior. He's that good. But so are a lot of other people that he was sailing with.

Wide board, wave sail. Still, he's faster than you.

Why did you choose to use this [equipment]?
Primarily for the promotion of brands who support me and especially to show that you don't necessarily need to have pure Slalom gear to go fast. The boards and freeride sails today are super nice, very comfortable and they combine speed and price.

If your French is good, read the original article. The products of the American education system can read the google translation.

One of the things Formula windsurfers have learned over the years is that the correct fin flex is very important. Most racers prefer pretty soft fins in lighter air. Dave Kashy was one of the first to really refine it and why his fins often commanded a couple of grand if you needed one quickly. A soft fin flexes towards the tip and almost provides a bit of a foiling effect.

But, really, is this for real? Do fins flex that much? Watch and learn:

- source

Maybe in Brittany? Sarah Hébert, who sailed most of the way across the Atlantic with a pacemaker among her many accomplishments.