Utah Windriders Association

I wasn’t expecting much after NOAA’s fiasco yesterday. We had quite a discussion Tue. about why Grantsville wasn’t nuking and decided it was going to be too warm for it to blow Wed. morning. But I checked on Grantsville before I left for work and there it was reading 26mph. Since my first meeting was at 2:00 I decided to give it a try. Thanks goodness I was still packed. I threw out the 100L board and substituted the 76L; boy was that optimistic. I got there to 20mph at the cars, which was higher than I expected for the west side of the lake. I hit the water at 7:30 a little over-rigged with the 6.0 and 85L board and it was ripping big time for about 1 hour. Then the clouds moved in and started making the wind more up and down. This left me struggling to get on a plane after a lot of the jibes but the windlines were still great. A little before 9:00 it dropped off a notch and I rigged the 6.9 while I should have been rigging the 5.3. Right after I got the 6.9 on the water the sun finally came back out and it started ripping big time. The windlines were easily 30mph for the next 45 min. It was so wound up that I almost sailed right up the west shore twice. Then the next cloud hit and slowed it down. I finished with some runs on the 6.9 and quit at 11:00. There was only a kiter sharing the wind with me and I failed to get his name. I assume the usual windsurfing crew burned their day off this week a day early based on NOAA’s predictions yesterday. I am still coming too close to the dam at times trying to eek out that last foot of reach but those Grantsville screaming reaches are as good as it gets.

Ken,

#&@* working &^!@a day early)(*#etc.!!! Yes you are right! We went a day early... I was working hard yesterday glancing at the wind meter hoping that somebody was lapping up the good wind there ... I could've gone yesterday had I not gone wed! It looked really good though... That's of course always relative...

So I am very happy somebody got it! I was surprised that nobody had posted sooner and figured it was lightning... Was there any strikes yesterday within earshot of you there?

I was the kiter on the water, so the two Ken's shared some nice wind at Grants. I was on a 12M kite and it was perfect. I didn't stay as long as Ken because I had a 10 AM meeting. I made it just in time, just had to shave in the office bathroom.

I did not see any lightening or hear any thunder while I was there. It was a nice morning with beautiful cloud cover to the east and high cirrus clouds overhead. I just wish the rest of the crew could have been there.