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FROM ECWF June 12-13, 2010
Heckscher S.P., New York.


Word was that Kurt was in the process of executing a Kurt's Double Donkey, Double Monkey or a Double Monkey, Double Donkey as part of this sequence. All I know is that it's a good flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.



BOGGLED

What I find mind-boggling is that he was doing it all with a 7.3 sq. m sheet from North Sails. That's a lot of sail for anyone, let alone a slim, shorter dude. But Kurt and Mike Burns have worked hard at becoming sail ninjas.

The agility and balance of these freestylers blows me away. I remember when I used to try to heli-tack a 4.5 on a longboard, and it wasn't easy.

Neither was a 6.0 for that matter.

Ended up in the drink more often than not, and fail to remember ever accomplishing a clean one.
Maybe there was one.

But the results were usually ugly. Mind you, those old longboards were kinda twitchy to trick on.

REPERTOIRE DE FREE

I'm not sure how all the judging finally shook out, but Kurt's repertoire of light wind freestyle was impressive.

It wasn't until much later, after most folk had gone, that Mike, Kurt, Jake and Alex got the chance to show off their spocks, flakas, and I guess, vulcans.

These days, it would take a couple of Advil Liquigels just to get my kretchy old body's pain threshold down far enough to attempt freestyling.

PAIN WITH NUTS

At nearly 50, with 20 years of all-weather wind, surf and bike-crashing sports, and the same amount of years of soccer and rugby before that, everyday is like a box of pain chocolates. Pain with strawberry creme filling, pain with liquor truffle center, pain with nuts.

The stomach is no longer receptive to that kind of pre-medication -- at least not without a healthy helping of food and milk to soak it up. But I'm trying to lose weight, and that would be heading in the opposite direction.

(BTW. if you are not aware of the dangers of popping Advil like M&M's, get educated before your stomach develops a bleeding ulcer.

I've met a few folk who were just not aware of what the ibuprofen doing to their gut until it was too late.) These days, if I use them at all it's very sparingly. Sailing back and forth, aka "baffing" is more or less fine for that, with a few jumps here and there.

Somehow, today, I ended up buying one of Kurt's old boards. A much-repaired 18-lb RRD CD Wave.

I'm not sure I'll be attempting any Vulcans on it, anytime soon, but it does look like fun.

Come to think of it I do remember attempting some carve 360's back in the 1990's, maybe I'll try one of those to start.

There were also the days of attempted backlooping, with good old Charlie Kim (now a long-lost kite buddy, but I'm not so sure about revisting that.

At least not without a spin crashpad, as the landings used to get pretty splatty.


Well here's the new old ex-Kurt ride, and here's what RRD says baffing looks like on it.


I think I would like to exchange some of that Bonaire water for some of Heckscher's brown weed soup, but that's another story for another day..


Happy sailing ... at least until the next ECWF