Kona Worlds Follow Up

The Kona Worlds were pretty fun. I was content with my 13th place finish, but wish I had done a bit better. Wind was pretty good - almost all races were in 10-15 mph. I wish there had been more races in the 15-20+ that had been forecast for most of the week, but at least there were no drifter days.

Links:
Final Results
Photo Album with pictures from me and Ann Gratton
Official Kona Photos-1
Official Kona Photos-2
Freestyle video that Del Carpenter posted to Facebook

Here are a couple pictures from my photo album.

Me sailing #1470 between races

My gracious room mate for the week, Andy Gratton, on #2657

Andy gringing upwind with Nevin Sayre

Me approaching a finishing on port tack. I'll comment more on this later.

Me crossing the finish line on port tack ahead of #1875 on starboard. 1875 protested me on this crossing, and I ended up losing the protest hearing. I'll comment more in a future post... but I think this picture shows someone trying to head up and losing power in their sail from being clearly underneath my crossing.

Freestyle contest, while I was still upright ;)

Mile Marker 0 in Key West

Winter SUP

Weather was warm for this time of year, over 40F, so I took the SUP for a spin in the water that opened up near shore.

Ice Sailing

The ice was great on Lake Winnebago at the start of December. I was able to catch one of the days Dec.7, using a home built freeskate and later borrowed a Hiberna board from Kevin at Windpower. Also of note, these videos are my first use of the GoPro since recovering it from being lost in the Lake for over a month.

Great ice and 10-15 mph wind. Lots of sailors enjoying the day. I'm on a homebuilt freeskate and twin cam 6.0 sail.

Kevin Gratton and Alex Monroe in the smaller steel tube ice boats. Don Altmeyer on the Hiberna with a white and red sail. Andy Gratton on one of the stern steer speed demon ice boats ;) Several DN's and other ice boats out there too.

http://youtu.be/vUvyRkXdSSE

In the second video I switched to a Hiberna board. FANTASTIC BOARD. I wish the battery in the gopro had lasted longer. Probably sailed with Don for another hour or so.

http://youtu.be/rdT_aZt8HFM

Here is a picture of the gps track from the day.

Here is a zoom in of the gps path. Pretty cool how circular some of the arcs are from doing 360's on the hiberna. The area marked with the arrow is when Don and I were chasing around with each other and showing the hibernas to Joey. The 26.3 is during the best alpha500 on the track, with max speed of 26.3 mph on the way in, 17mph average through the 500m and almost all of that is while doing a 360. On that one I think I had planned to turn around, but didn't feel comfortable jibing at that speed so just did a full 360 and kept going - jibed later after slowing down.

Elkhart Lake August 2013

I ran across some nice pictures of my brother Adam and I sailing on Elkhart Lake last August. Clear water, sunny skies, and wind!

Recovered GoPro

Update since earlier post. I got the GoPro out of the ice and it still works. It actually was still on when I got it out of the ice but it wasn't recording. I had stopped recording on it when I went in to tweak my gear right before it tipped over and got lost.

I was able to retrieve the files off the card and verify that it still will record new video. I attached one of the frames from that session.

Found my GoPro - at least the tripod

Winnebago has been windy so hard to paddle around and look for the GoPro on the tripod that I lost a little after Windpower Championships (around Oct.3, I think).But the lake froze over the last couple days so I took another look.... And there it was with a leg sticking out of the ice. It initially was placed probably another 150 yards further from shore so the swell helped roll it in to shallower water.

Now I just need to get it removed from the ice and see if it still works. Fingers crossed!

Alligator Lighthouse trip

I attached pictures of my gps tracks from sailing out to the alligator lighthouse Tuesday afternoon after we finished racing. About 7 miles out and my total distance sailed was 17 miles because of tacking to get back upwind to Islamorada.

I also attached a couple pictures I found online of the lighthouse.

Wind was pretty good 15-20 the whole time. Kevin Gratton also rounded the lighthouse on his kiteboard.