Ryan Schenk’s Wind Log

Went to Wood Neck at 9 this morning and kited until 4. Wind was up and down all day, but overall I had an excellent time. I landed two frontrolls in the morning, and did some big boosts in the afternoon. On my last tack of the day, I tried doing a triple or quadruple backroll, but got disoriented, ended up looping the kite, and hit the water harder than I’ve ever hit before. It knocked the wind out of me, and I couldn’t breathe for a while. Somehow during the confusion my kite inverted, or did something weird. I couldn’t relaunch it, and it kept just looping in the power zone. I was about 1/2 mile offshore, so I ditched my board and plowed downwind until I got close enough to the beach to activate the Oh-Shit Handle. Once I got my kite and bar situated on the beach, I swam back out looking for my board. After about 15 minutes of padding around looking for it, I spotted it! Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. I’m fine and so is all my gear, so I’m calling it a successful kiting session. I’m glad I was at Wood Neck instead of Chappy.

Had a nice time tonight. Headed down to Woody Neck after work and kited for an hour and a half. There seemed to be a big wind shadow at Wood Neck, so rather than risk my kite falling out of the sky, I did a downwinder to Chappy and hitched a ride back to Wood Neck with Dave. Supposed to be windy tomorrow!

Picture perfect conditions at Wood Neck tonight. Totally powered on my 9m, and had a blast. I attempted several triple backrolls and came very close to landing most of them. One person on the beach said one of the attempts was at least 20′ in the air. Sweet. I also tried a variety of other stupid things, and spent a lot of time in the water.

Underpowered at Black’s today, but it was just as well, because I only had an hour to kite before we went to Worcester for the weekend. Didn’t really do anything. Didn’t even stay upwind. Oh well. Should have brought my skimboard instead.

First time kiting since injuring my ankle two weeks ago. Took it easy, didn’t really do any big jumps or anything. My ankle is still sore, but is mending slowly; I made sure to wrap it very tightly with an Ace bandage before going out to ride.

Went to Wood Neck and had a really nice session. Mostly just cruised around, did a few jumps, and successfully landed a one-footer. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle pretty bad on another one-footer attempt, so I’ll be sitting out for a while.

Also, this is the 52nd entry in the wind log, which means that I’ve averaged over 1 kiting session per week all year. And, I’ve gone kiting every single month except February.

Had a nice session today at Chappy.  Rode pretty easy because I didn’t want to hurt my knee. I was working on this move I came up with…small jump off a wave with a inverted tailgrab thing. Pretty fun. I did a slow backroll from that position, too. I could have done a 1-footer from that position, but I didn’t want to risk twisting my knee any more. Did a couple big boosty tabletops, but not too many.

Pretty nukin today. I was tired from yesterday, so I just put on my 7 and cruised around on my big board. Did a lot of big floatie jumps, and otherwise just cruised around. A rain squall came through and cleaned up the waves really nicely. Wind started to suck after the rain squall, and I tweaked my knee landing a double backroll off a wave, so I came in.

Wind was not as good as predicted today, but still kiteable. In fact, I kited for about 5 hours. I tried a lot of tricks today. I landed a nice slow double backroll, several unhooked backrolls, a couple hoochie glides, and one reaaaally big railey. My fin hit a spot on my foot, and now my whole foot is numb. Weird.

Went to Chappy tonight. When you’ve had an awesome session, such as the one I had last night, the one after it is bound to suck. Wind wasn’t that bad tonight, and I did a few nice jumps and one really nice railey, but somehow I crashed my kite and it would not relaunch. I think it was a combination of not enough LE pressure, a lack of wind, and crashing it right in the wave breaking zone. Had to drive home with a soaking wet, sandy kite. Haven’t had to do that in a few years…