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Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2014 Sailworks Retro 7.5, 2015 iSonic 107, Drake Carbon Slalom 40. Wind 13-15 knots (wind seems to be consistently ~ 2 knots higher at the airport than the readings at Jibe City).

Exercise day. Nothing particularly news worthy.

I did make one rigging change after being chided by Taty. I have always rigged the sails using the bottom (control grommet) rather than the top (power grommet). This applied to all my sails, Retros and Race. The reason has been that I felt I needed the control and since I was slow anyway, I would opt for control over power. After using longer harness lines, the control aspect seems to be better, well, under control , so I switched to the power setting. Of course, after I was all rigged, Taty happened to walk past, checked out the down haul, and out haul, than looked at me and said something to the effect that I rig weird. I use the power setting on the Retros and control setting on the Race sails. My counter to that was that this is the first time I've ever used the power setting, and it was because of what he had said a couple of days ago. He stopped, looked at me, and then broke out laughing as he remembered his comment. It is great having someone around on the beach that brightens the day - helps me overcome my Prednisone induced depressions. So, did the change make any difference? Maybe not in speed but the sail certainly felt more powerful. Hard to tell on the speed, of course, with all the variables (I didn't feel up to doing A-B comparison studies, figured Bruce Peterson and Dale Cook had already sorted that out ).

So, one more little-by-little step. I feel like I'm doing better handling larger chop in the bay while staying 'locked in', in part by using longer harness lines and in part by raking the rig to windward and sheeting in when I see a gust approaching, rather than backing off. Jibes - decent ones on the iSonic are still an aspirational goal. A couple of months ago I got so frustrated that I hauled out my 30 year old Hi-Tech carbon slalom board, which for me used to be very difficult to jibe, what a dream to jibe now . So, while I still look like a beginner at times, being able to outrun some of the guys on the water and every once in a while make a jibe seems to be keeping me interested in the sport...