Coyote Sunday

From: Ken Poulton (poulton@zonker.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis)
Date: Mon Jun 05 1995 - 03:27:07 PDT


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Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 03:27:07 -0700
From: Ken Poulton <poulton@zonker.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis>
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Subject: Coyote Sunday


============= Sun 5 Jun 95 - Coyote - 5.2,4.2,5.2/257 (185 lb)

"Hello, my name is Ken, and I'm a wind addict. It's been 17 days since
I last sailed."

I was at a conference in Denver last week, and spent the weekend
visiting my aunt and uncle in Boulder (nice town!). Sunday morning,
they had a golf date, so I tagged along. After 3 holes (my first ever)
I was smokin' - I was on a pace to hit under 200. :-) I decided I had
had enough to put golf on the "done that" list and high-tailed it to
the airport for my noon flight. I decided golf is okay if you're 1000
miles from water; I figure I'll get back to golf in another 40 years or
so.

Coming into SFO, the flight crew was too busy to answer my questions
about the wind (and the 15 mph they quoted over the PA system was just
wrong), but I could see serious caps and windsurfers out at both 3rd and
Coyote as we landed at 2:03. In the terminal, my pager says we're
getting 22 knots. Kate and the kids pick me up, and defying all
expectation, she says "Gee, it looks windy. Why don't you go sailing
today?" I guess the boys were better behaved this week than I thought!
It didn't take a lot of pushing on her part to get me to go.

Just as we get home, Malcom and his family drive by, and we chat for
a minute and his wife figures if I can go, then she better let Malcom go,
too. Malcom took a few minutes to load his car and we left to careen
up 101 to Coyote.

Unfortunately, in the rush to go, Malcom made a fatal mistake - he
forgot his wetsuit. He didn't realize this until he got to the gate
at Coyote, and then he was a sad camper. By then it was 3:30, so
he just gave up and went home. When he got back, his wife commiserated,
and then asked, "Do I still get credit for this afternoon?"

Around 4:00, I hit the water with 5.2/257. This turned out to be a bit
much. After half an hour or so, I rigged down to a 4.2. That worked
great - the chop was only 2-3 feet, but it's so steep at Coyote that
this makes pretty good jumping.

Around 5:15 the wind backed off quite a bit. I slogged in, swapped for
the (still-rigged) 5.2 and went back out. Now the clouds were over the
airport and moving slowly out over the bay. As they got closer, the
wind picked up a bit and the chop got back to decent jumping size.
About 4 of us sailed until 6:30. For the first time this season, I
made most of my jibes. I bagged it when the clouds were about
to cover us. To my surprise, I planed to the beach. 10 minutes later,
the other three sailors were under the clouds and slogging back in.

I needed that!

Ken Poulton
poulton@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis

"First things first! But not necessarily in that order." -- The Doctor (#4)



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