FINALLY A WINDSURFING COVER!—Thought many readers but Carrie Pearson of Marquete, Michigan wrote us a sobering question. “I have read your 8.3/4 issue cover to cover and really enjoyed the interviews, articles, and photographs. I have one question: Do women windsurf?” That was enough to send us scrambling through the magazine for a little soul searching and realized what a male dominated issue it was. Well Ms. Pearson, this one’s for you.
Cancel My Subscription!
I’ll use the money to buy toilet paper. Bill Cimikoski’s article is driving me crazy! Vol. 8(3/4) takes the words right out of my mouth. When I got this issue I didn’t think it was American Windsurfer. It actually had a windsurfer on the cover. How original, and no New Age crap. Sorry, I mistook your magazine for Windsport. The ED’s rebuttal was absolutely ludicrous. What % of the population are pilots and New Ager’s? My advice to the ED is to appeal to a little larger segment of the population, find a job on a variety magazine, and you boys are committed or should be! Please keep up the articles on pilots, airplanes, new age crap, or any other interest you have outside of windsurfing because I wouldn’t want to have an excuse to renew. Ah, consumers revenge. I can’t wait until my subscription runs out. You have just appealed to one less person out there. Or better yet, cancel my subscription as of this issue. This way I won’t have to roundfile them at the mailbox. . Barry Wells a.k.
(The WING hog) Santa Fe, NM
PS. I absolutely DARE you to print this. Please take me off any mailing lists to renew, because I’ll spend my money for this magazine when hell freezes over.
As your subscription ended with the last issue, regrettably you won’t know whether we dared. As to the % of New Agers and pilots, I dare say their numbers are far greater than windsurfers, which makes me wonder about your pretense of narrow interests. If so, shouldn’t your nickname be “WIND Hog” instead? ED
Enough Already
I receive the latest issue of American Windsurfer (Kevin Prichard on the cover). I get to the forecast section and read your crying because nobody windsurfs anymore. Boo Hoo!! You guys are such martyrs, sticking to your guns, etc, etc. I’m tired of the whole, “Windsurfing is dying trip.” Enough already.
Here’s an idea: stop trying to push more gear on us with every single magazine. The sport requires too much gear as it is. Yet mag after mag is filled with gear reviews and previews. Leave the advertisers with their ads. Don’t sell out the rest of your mag to them. Reviews are NOT what the sport is about. This issue was such a refreshing change. Interviews!
Pictures! Interesting! Please follow the WindTracks format more often. I know it’s tougher and you can’t sell vacations while you fill the magazine and butter up your advertisers, but it really makes for a more interesting read. Good issue! Two in a row? Christopher Hill chill2772@yahoo.com
Skin Cancer
Your points are well taken regarding attempts at expanding your reader base with different covers and sparking interest in the sport. I really love your magazine and although I was very strong about some criticisms regarding the covers and a few other things, overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. I know I was over the top at times. But, I also know that you guys are very good sports about such things and freely take it all in without any hard feelings. I have to say I have been a big admirer of yours, through your writings and compassion for others, and your mag since I first was introduced to AW around the time of its third or fourth issue when I was at the Can Am Windsurfing Expo in Cape Cod. Robby Naish was there, and so was Bjorn. I picked up some complimentary issues there and got Robby to autograph the one with he and his wife on the cover. It sits on the wall in my bedroom, framed. Ever since, I’ve subscribed to American Windsurfer.
Your points are well taken regarding attempts at expanding your reader base with different covers and sparking interest in the sport. I really love your magazine and although I was very strong about some criticisms regarding the covers and a few other things, overall, the positives far outweigh the negatives. I know I was over the top at times. But, I also know that you guys are very good sports about such things and freely take it all in without any hard feelings. I have to say I have been a big admirer of yours, through your writings and compassion for others, and your mag since I first was introduced to AW around the time of its third or fourth issue when I was at the Can Am Windsurfing Expo in Cape Cod. Robby Naish was there, and so was Bjorn. I picked up some complimentary issues there and got Robby to autograph the one with he and his wife on the cover. It sits on the wall in my bedroom, framed. Ever since, I’ve subscribed to American Windsurfer.
Recently I was diagnosed with Melanoma skin cancer. I lived on Maui for ten years working as a charter boat captain for “Trilogy Excursions”, surfing and windsurfing on my time off. I have been back in California for the past seven years. I guess there is a price for having fun in the sun.
I remember hearing about Matt Schweitzer getting Melanoma just before I left Maui. And I was searching the web to see if I could find any info on his progress with this.
I found your site. I would like to know if there is any way to contact Matt in regards to Melanoma and the way to treat and beat this problem. If you cannot give me his email could you at least forward this to him and see if he would like to offer me any advice? Thank You in Advance, Glenn Shotwell Dana Point
Matt is doing quite well. We’ve passed your request on. ED
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Dolphin Encounter
It started out as a typical lazy, late August day at Brant Beach, Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Even if you’ve never been there, you probably know what that means: no wind out of anywhere at all at 9:00 am when the air temperature was already soaking us with 90 degrees of heat and humidity. Seaweed and black flies were doing their best to annoy us. There wasn’t even enough breeze to keep you balanced and moving across wakes from the cabin cruisers in the Inland Waterway. In other words, “WINDSURF HELL”. Oh well. Might as well call it a “work on the tan” day or “head across the road for a dip in the big pond to cool off” day.
My addiction was not gonna get fed and I was really bummed. I needed a day of getting trashed in the chop, overpowered. I craved a session of pure shredding. And it looked like this was NOT going to happen in the near future, for that matter in the far future.
After a few hours, though, the wind picked up to a measly eight knots and I decided to drag my lazy self off the beach chair and rig the good old 6.0 Spectro on the 310 XANTOS for a “road trip,” as my husband Tim and I call a long boring ride across the bay. While I was rigging, I heard some people talking in the background. It seems a pod of dolphins (porpoises, really) decided to take a free ride on the tide down the old Intercoastal. Several boats were pacing the pod and warning others to go very slow so as not to injure our unexpected guests, the first dolphins I had seen in Barnegat Bay since the 1960s. Everyone on the beach watched in wonder as this little pod played in the boat wakes while cruising on their way to wherever pods of dolphins go in August.
As the wind finally picked up to 10 knots—wow!—I launched. When I got about half a mile out, I met the wind just as she was starting to pick up. While not fully powered, I was on a marginal plane, and was able to spend my afternoon practicing jibes and tacks to my heart’s content. You probably know how that goes. Each tack takes you further across the bay until you get to the far shore where it can really be blowing strong. If you know Barnegat Bay, you know what this means. Thermals. Wind, glorious wind. Twenty to thirty knots out of the southeast, gusting like crazy . . . with me on a 6.0??? Ouch!!! Well, you know how it goes sometimes. From zero to cranking in minutes. There I was, five miles across the bay, with a thermal cranking 25 knots and a good two to three foot chop. You guessed it: I was overpowered and out of control. With every jibe, I went down into the drink. Every attempt to waterstart ripped the sail out of my hands and over the board. The chop soon got so rough I could hardly position the board correctly for a waterstart. With too big of a sail, the dreaded uphaul was not an option, nor was the Swim from Hell or the Walk of Shame we know so well, don’t we?
Then I heard it: a strange, creaking, chattering noise like the sound of my carbon mast flexing. But why was the mast flexing behind me? As I turned to find out, I was snorted with water! My own personal Flipper was chattering away, blowing water from five feet behind me, diving and having a good old time. WOW! I was so excited I thought I would die. My very own dolphin, so close I could touch him! What should I do? In my excitement or terror, I finally managed a successful waterstart, hooked in the harness, and planed off. Even more exhilarating: my new friend stayed with me for the rest of the ride back to the other side of the bay, jumping in and out of the chop! It felt as if he was pacing me and I was not only fully powered but also fully overwhelmed. I was so excited to have this sailing partner, it was all I could do to concentrate to keep myself from getting catapulted. I was loving the ride, loving the sight of my dolphin riding alongside of me, only three feet away.
As I got closer to the eastern shore of the bay the wind started to ease off, I was more in control which made it easier to enjoy watching my new friend without getting pitched. As the wind steadied down to around eighteen knots, my dolphin headed south down the Inland Waterway to meet up with the rest of the pod. Just like that he was gone.
Later, I heard that a few other windsurfers had close encounters of the dolphin kind on Barnegat Bay, which just proves you never know what can happen when you go windsurfing, even when the day starts out in the doldrums. Speaking for myself, this close encounter was an experience I will never forget; a gift that will last forever. Lynn Dilliplane HOST GSTDLynnX@aol.com
Lynn Diliplane hosts the AOL Windsurfing Chat every Tuesday Night – 10:00pm East Coast Time. Lynn is also the Editor of the “Masthead” AOL Sailing Forum Newsletter. Visit her on AOL. Go to KEYWORD: Windsurfing. ED
