April has come and gone, but along it's path was a month of very good wind. Air temperatures, however, were not so friendly. The month of March spoiled us a bit with the warm air. A local meteorologist reported that Jan-March of 2020 was the warmest for that 3-month period since 1939. April, well, brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
In spite of the chilliness there were 24 days of at least 15-20mph+ wind for at least one hour with over 40 degree air temps. The average sail size on those 24 days was 4.5m. That's a pretty good month. That's 5.6 days per week on an average sail of 4.5m with air temps over 40 degrees. Sounds good! But, keep in mind that many of those days were right near the 40 degree mark with no sun. So, it was chilly riding. I passed up many sessions simply because I wimped out on the air temp.
Windsurfing When The Walk Is Far (6min 49sec)
This season I decided to add 2 additional categories to the wind log. There is now a category for sessions with at least 50 degree air temp, and a category for sessions with at least 60 degree air temp. I thought this would be useful data for those riders who only sail on warmer days. It's not that much extra work to sort the data. So, here it is so far: The total sessions for 2020 with 40 degree air or warmer and at least 15-20mph wind for at least one hour is 39 sessions and average sail size 4.4m. Sessions with 50 degree air or warmer is 8 sessions with average sail size 4.0m. Stay tuned for sessions over 60 degrees. It is interesting to note that in the warmer category there was a resulting smaller sail size. My hunch was that it would be the other way around. The warmer category is a much smaller sample size, so maybe I will go back to the 2019 data and sort it by air temp. I don't think there are many conclusions to draw from that data, but it's nice to know that there have been 8 sessions in 2020 that were warm so far.
On a side note, we got our foil and board, and I was able to get one session on it so far. Just AWESOME! As you may recall, I tried 2 sessions of foiling in Florida for my first time this past February. Here is that blog post My First Impressions of Windsurf Foiling. I've been waiting for a warm enough day here at home to try foiling when I do NOT need to wear thick mittens. That day finally came earlier this week. IT WAS AWESOME!!! The board popped right up on foil in 12mph wind and gusts of about 15mph with a 5.3m sail. It just rips once you're on foil. I had several beginner challenges, but got some good rides too. Improvement over an hour was very noticeable. Hopefully we will have it on the waves in the open lake soon. The gear is as follows: GoFoil Maliko200 wing (1922sq. cm.) with 29.5inch mast, and Top Gun Iceman board which is 120 liters, 7feet long, 31 inches wide and designed for windsurf wave foiling. Can't wait to get the next session. It is equally as exciting to foil in 12mph wind as any good day of regular windsurfing! I"m HOOKED!!!!
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