Instructor Login
A Blast from the past
By Laurie Nadel



Regardless of whether your sail luffed, or the mast foot had to be wrapped in aluminum foil and

This shared feeling, that we were all learning something new, together; made those early years of windsurfing seem both a party and a celebration, where each of us discovered and tested our own strengths, focus, humor; persistence, anal limits.
And then went past what we had done before.

jammed into a horizontal slot in the center of the board, as soon as you stepped onto the water, the salty foam and crisp breeze took you into another reality. Your soul was free to find its way, along the edge of the wind, chasing sparkles along the flickering surface of the water. Checking in with a couple of touring gulls, overhead, the view from here made any problems you left on land smaller and less significant. Whenever the wind picked up, it felt like you were holding onto life with a capital L ..."steering the fast sail of the roses ... stuck into..solid marine madness.*" (* Pablo Neruda, "Drunk with Turpentine")

In my case, there was an eight-year hiatus between windsurfing sessions. It wasn't by choice, but when you come down with a life-threatening illness, the challenges of regaining the ability to walk and talk can take up as much energy as cranking along the crest of a swell at twenty knots. "You'll be lucky if you can walk up stairs," my doctor warned when I asked when I would be well enough to windsurf again. (You can imagine what 1 must have felt, on that day, eight years later, when I faced the water again, wondering if the Zen approach of "great faith, great doubt, and great determination" would work for windsurfing as well.)

Fortunately, I was given one of the original Windsurfers, with a bleached-out wooden boom and floppy, faded 4.5 sail. As if it had been only a few weeks, instead of nearly a decade, the moves came back, instinctively, and soon, the instructor was paddling as fast as he could to catch up. "Lady, are you sure you haven't done this for a few years?"

But it had been years, 1 found, as I started looking for a new windsurfer, only to discover that the new generation was an F-16, compared to that old Wright brothers' plane I used to own. Along

I started looking for a new windsurfer, only to discover that the new generation was an F-16, compared to that old Wright brothers' plane I used to own.

with "faster is better" and "higher is better" and "newer is better," buying, owning, rigging, and windsurfing were now serious business. Gone were the friendly exchanges of tools and tips. The gurus of duct tape having apparently vanished, along with cloth sails and teak daggerboards. Like the nineties themselves, the "New Windsurfing" was a purposeful, take-it-to-the-max activity.