Windsurfing Changed My Life

I was living on a lagoon in Foster City in 1985 when a friend gave me a windsurf board and sail. It was a Bic and very much a beginer board. Perfect for me. I had been surfing for 15 years and now I needed to figure out how to harness the wind. I picked it up quickly and sailed the summer away. Soon I purchased a Klepper board and it was very fast and took me out on the bay and delta. 3rd Ave and Coyote Point became my new hangouts. I started a windsurfing club called Windpower that brought like minded folks together for weekend adventures. A few years later, I was sailing 60-80 days a summer on the bay. I loved the feeling of skipping across the bay at 20-25 knots. One very windy day, waves formed in the deep channel near the San Mateo Bridge. Riding them was a thrill! I kept sailing for over 20 years and had an epic last sail on a bay near Hatteras called Pamlico Sound in 2008. I rented a hot board and was ripping it up in 30 knots of wind. It was an epic way to end my windsurfing voyage. I miss the speed and exhilaration but I love sailing my 40' sailboat even more!

Bernoulli's Principle

In 1738, Daniel Bernoulli plublished his book: Hydrodynamica. The book explained his theory of fluid machanics. He showed that when a fluid speeds up, its pressure drops. He was using water and liquids in pipes as well as lots of math to prove his theory. I found this fun depiction of his principle: When most people think of a sail, they assume the wind blows from behind and pushes it, perpendicular to the cloth. This is incorrect. Instead, the wind flows parallel to the sail, across the surface. But that leads to a new question: if the sail isn’t pushed, where does the force come from? It turns out a sail is actually a wing that uses lift to pull you forward, not a scoop that catches the air. The same physics that keeps a jet airplane in the air is what moves the boat. Because a wing is curved, air has to travel a longer distance as it blows across the front of the sail than behind it. To go a longer distance in the same amount of time, the airspeed over the front of the wing has to go faster. Faster air has lower pressure, so it basically creates a partial vacuum pulling you forward. This is called lift, or Bernoulli’s principle. This is why you can sail upwind, and why the sail is always at an angle to the wind, never directly in front or behind. You manipulate this angle with the rudder and keel to determine your speed and direction. It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, but fundamentally, a sail pulls, it doesn’t push. Check this vid from some NASA scientists that goes even deeper into the subject, 250 years later.

El Nino may be the biggest and baddest yet!

If you have not heard, El Nino is coming this winter. The warming of equatorial waters affectionity called El Nino, happens in December or so. It affects weather all over the world with extremes of snow fall, drought, storms and much more. Currently, were seeing some of the warmest waters across all oceans. In some cases 3 degrees higher than normal. The warmer water creates more moisture in the atmosphere and on the west coast of the US (I live near SF), it will bring very strong storms from the Gulf of Alaska in the form of rain, wind and snow in the Sierras. It's going to be a wild winter. Currently, the winds on the SF Bay have been extremely high due to the warm water. Normally the winds are in the 25 knot range every day. This summer, the winds have been in the 30's most days. That's alot of wind and not very comfortable. We will see what happens. Time to buckle your seat belt and hold on!

I love this commercial prank!

Three Time World Surfing Champ and his Sailing Life

Mav's rider chases biggest wave in the world!