Three Reasons Your Parking Place is Endangered

Say hi to the guy next door
Hey, don't judge. He may be rigging next to you the next time you are at Van Pugh. Say hi to your new neighbor.

It gives us great pleasure to inform you that your parking place is endangered. We are so happy that we could barely sleep last night thinking about it. We are excited. Estatic. Pumped. No, the Corps hasn't changed anything at Lake. We still have the same access - well, better since they've done some improvements to the walkway and grass at Van Pugh. The reason your parking place is endangered is that someone else will be using it. And, that someone else will be a new windsurfer.

Windsurfing is back upfront. It's always been cool but it has both slipped to the back of the public consciousness and become a bit esoteric (we call it the "Soccer Syndrome", to be addressed in a future article). Here are three reasons that is about to change:

It's Preppy (or, at least Vineyards Vinesy)

We mention this one with some trepidation. Due to the spending habits of of someone in our household (lookin' at you, Princess), we've found ourselves on the Vineyard Vines mailing list. If you aren't familiar with the brand, it's the current generation's answer to L.L. Bean. They carry the same theme of khaki, plaid and madras that's been found in fraternities and sororities since Delta house was banned from campus.

Vineyard Vines Windsurfing Spring Break

The owners of the firm are a clever bunch, setting photo shoots in really swell places while their friends back in New England suffer from frost bite. We don't know what possessed us to thumb through the latest issue shot in St. Barths but we found a very welcome surprises: windsurfers, windsurfing, people learning to windsurf.

Morning Windsurfing Lesson
Caption: "What better way to start the day than with a morning windsurfing lesson?"
Of course, a thousand adolescent boys will see this and offer an alternative suggestion...
Successful Lesson
Caption: "After our lesson, we were skilled windsurfers."
Umm... okay. We'll let someone else break the whole "planing jibe" thing to them.
Suiting Up for Windsurfing in St. Barths
Caption: "Suit up for the day" (or, suck on this all my friends back in snow-bound Boston)
Color is back more than ever

We pointed out years ago that when sails began to be made of clear monofilm rather than dacron, windsurfing lost something - the flash of color that made it so visually appealing. For fifteen years or so, it was difficult to find a sail that had color other than in the trim elements: luff and batten sleeves. We suggested that Sharpies were the answer but nobody listened (it's still on our to-do list, though.) We weren't the only ones. Jeffrey Henderson of Hot Sails Maui came out with his Superfreak line of dacron sails which are lovely and colorful but the industry didn't follow just quite yet.

Color slowly started creeping back into sails in a serious way about six to eight years ago. First, the freestyle and wave sails, and eventually the racier sails began to get color. The other day, we were exploring new windsurfing articles (that middle section on the first banner page: Latest Posts Elsewhere is really good for this) and we came across our doppelganger site: ABC Windsurf. The Atlanta Boardsailing Club (ABC us) has long had a cousin with the same name, the Adirondack Boardsailing Club (ABC). So we thought it amusing that there was an ABC windsurf website, too. The site is in Italian which is why it hasn't probably been on your radar. The front page features a number of articles and videos on some of the latest race sails. Europeans are much more into it that we Americans. If you want to see what you'll be buying used in five years, it's a good place to check out. Anyways, a video caught our eye, a long distance race in Noumea. It was fun to watch. And, then we realized something, There was a lot of color, profusion of eye-catching color, and that made it fun to watch.

Bright Sails at Noumea Long Distance 2015
Colors! Lots of colors!

The video:

DIABOLO FUNBOARD: LMA RACE 2015 from MorinThomas

HD Digital Photography + Drones + Big Screens

For a long time, it was difficult to relay what windsurfing was really about to a non-windsurfer. Unlike many sports, it's difficult to convey the sensation, the speed with traditional methods. Still film photography required expensive equipment and a steady hand to get anything more than a blur or a speck on the horizon. HD photo and video camera(s) have made it possible that even amateurs like club members can take photographs once reserved for the specialist. An easy to see the transition is to compare early albums in our club gallery to some of the most recent; the difference is stunning.

Close up jibe
Back in the day, to get a photo this close of a windsurfer required someone to sail on the lawn.
- source

Combine HD images, drones which mean the camera is no longer captive of either beach or a boat and large HD display screens, and non-windsurfers can actually see and almost feel what we do when we are out on the water. One of our favorite recent videos, which we nominated video of the year for 2014, is a great example. We showed this video to a couple of friends the other night, and their response was remarkable. While we recommend the entire video (whose premise is a spoof of a Michael Bay flick), try just this part but on a big screen. The biggest you can find. Display it on your big screen TV, full screen, if possible with the sound turned up.

But seriously, watch the whole thing if you haven't already. Just don't blame us when you spend the next five days figuring out some way to go someplace warm and windy.

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