Utah Windriders Association

Agonizing Wed. night over Sulphur or Grantsville. Long reach with chop and threatening clouds or short reach, smooth water and get it in early before the rain hits. When I got up for work at 5:30, Grantsville was already 25 gusting to 31. That told me real quick where I was going and that work was getting shifted to evening shift. It was the right decision as by 9:00 I was already wolfing down some Ibuprofen. Arrived at Grantsville res to the 7:30 15mph lull and Kenny saying what happened to the wind. I rigged the 6.0 even though it looked more like 8.5. Kenny went out while I was getting my wet suit on. He suddenly got flattened by a huge, 40mph wind line and disappeared in a cloud of dust. The kite didn’t even resemble a kite as it inverted and then crashed. I was a little scared for Kenny but he finally body dragged back to shore spooked but ok. The wind settled down to sweet +20-25mph with some pretty high gusts. The 6.0 was rigged as flat as it would go and was still a handful. But I was fresh and pumped. The harder it blew the more jibes I could fly out of on a plane. The little 85L Sonic at only 12 lb was able to scream through the puffs, only tailwalking a little in the middle of the lake. At the Gorge I probably would have been on a 4.7 in the +25mph winds but at Grantsville you need that extra punch to stay on a plane as much as possible. Finally, close to 10:00, I decided to at least try the 5.3 before my arms fell off. But it started getting holey so I made 5 more runs on the Sonic and quit. Alvin showed up and went out on a 6.1. After about 20 min. of schlogging, he started catching a few windlines so I went out again and I milked those on the 135L board until noon. I was glad to see Alvin get some rides. As soon as I got back to Stansbury I could hear the lightening cracks on the radio and it was raining by the time I got to work.