6/26/08 Grants 6.7 Sulfur 7.5

[John Freed]

Ken and I began the "daily double" at Grants at about 7:00am. Rick was waiting when we arrived, as he had camped overnight. Wind was a little variable, not the full on 5.7 we had hoped and/or expected. Rick rigged 6.2, Ken 7.0, me a 6.7... sailed until about 10:00 when it started to die (as usual). A good session, with comfortable water temps and a rising water level (yippee). Ken and I packed up and headed for Wyo... almost stopped at DC, as reconnaissance with Tom S. reported good wind there, but my wife was counting on a shipment of wine, and figured I do better in Evanston than Heber. Arrived at Sulfur around 1:00, wind seemed to be up and down, rigged big 7.5 / 7.0, sailed until 5:00ish, with Ken actually on a 9.0 for the 2nd half of the afternoon. Another good session, we had hoped for a little bit more wind... but really not many complaints. Figured we had to get in shape for the Gorge somehow... kinda like a Viento to Roosevelt day. Also wanted to check to see if the wallet could handle the road trip to the Gorge and subsequent running around.

[kenonstott]

I burned a vacation day for the trip so I was pretty disappointed at first that the winds didn't match predictions. But by the end of the day we were nothing but smiles. I figure we got 5 hours on the water (2 Grants, 3 Sulfur) which is a lot better than we are going to do this weekend. And we were planing +80% of the time. At Grantsville it was filled in enough that I was able to pull off a bunch of full planing jibes. Heck, if the back doctor tells you to keep the board on the water what other challenge is there. For the 1st time ever, I sailed a whole day without going down, and for 5 hours of sailing that was a feat. I am not sure the inside of my wetsuit appreciated not getting flushed but it was fun. John came up with a new way to mount the harness lines, looped through each other. It makes it kind of hard to rig the sail through the boom but it packs nice and flat in the truck. It must be a proprietary method as he hid it before I could get my camera phone. It was good to sail with Rick for the 1st time this year. I love his theory on Rush water level. He thinks there were so many carp in Rush that it raised the level and when they died and ended up on shore, the level dropped. I figure there used to be enough carp to raise the level at least a foot. Enough for now. There isn't a part of my body that isn't sore.

[RickHeninger]

Couldn't get here til now... I was anxious to see how you guys did at Sulphur... Sounds like you had some rides... Great to sail with you guys. Hope we get more soon!

Oh, and you can't forget along with my new Carp Water Displacement theory about Rush that when there were carp in Rush, alive and well, they'd get caught in the "drain" preventing drainage... Nobel Prize here I come!