VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

wanted to ask how you've been reporting wind speed in your logs... as I read it the two areas to insert a wind speed is the average speed and maximum gusts... I could have this wrong but please let me know so people can enjoy reading my session logs of kite boarding and sailing my T Bird

maybe my skills have improved or I've lost a bunch of weight but I haven't been able to keep my ground on a 135 twin tip mako in less than 28 knots on the small kite!

I think it is like Hawaiian wave measurement. Divide by 2 or better yet take the square root.

Personally I use the log as minimum / maximum. Like "it was 10kts in the shore bubble I could barely get going", but "1km out it was gusting 30!" So, 10g30. Though that kinda makes for a massive range.

Average/Max may make more sense.

Lots of people really don't care , but I like to be as accurate as I can. Sometimes the numbers change with stoke for sure. Generally, I'm surprised how closely to each other most single venue session logs are. Maybe everyone waits to see what the first poster puts and then copies it, sometimes changing the number by a little bit? I don't think so though.

I try and guess average and high end gusts. For a while I made use of a handheld anemometer I got for Christmas one year, but I think on land it consistently underestimated what conditions were out on the water by 5 or more knots. Most venues you go out 100 m or so (almost always at the break line where there are waves) and there is Way stronger wind outside. A reading on the beach is going to be low. To calibrate myself once in a while, or if its been extreme, I do look at the local weather stations - the gov't ones take it at 10 m above water (kite Kountry), but many are in squirrely wind from topography. So at Gordons I usually take off a couple of knots from Sheringham, add a couple to the Gordons report and ignore Race Rocks because it has its own particularly nasty weather; Cook on a W or NW I know is 5-10 knots less than Ogden Pt, at least that less than Trial, but more than whatever Gonzales records show.

Usually I just go with how different size sail and board combo's felt.

I'd say the tendency is to over report the wind strength. I compare to the light house reports as that has to be your max most of the time. I also factor in what board and sail I am on and how it is tuned. It can never be that accurate over a couple of hours so I don't think it is worth worrying about. I do think that logging the speed does help you to estimate the wind strength so that you rig right most of the time. If I rig right I have a way better day. Check out the Beaufort Scale which relates wind strength to white caps, spray etc.

The Beaufort scale as it applies to the water is quite telling. Not so much on the twigs and branches part, that sort of depends on the size of the plant.

I'd agree with Eastside, the lighthouse is going to report the max to error on the side of caution. As you get better at Windsurfing or Kiting you need less and less wind for the same equipment, so I think folks tend to not really realize that unless they actually pull out a meter or sail beside a weather station.

That said, I log the lowest and the highest which to me makes makes sense as it is the range you sailed within.

There were a few squals out there, gusts on the outside that punched rain in your eyes.. seas were rolling, caps with spray!!!

The Beaufort system was designed to try and calibrate wind speed before anemometers were invented and also for deep-sea conditions, which we never see; it doesn't work so well for near shore or especially for semi-protected water. And interestingly enough the earlier versions included how much sail was needed to either get a ship going or keep it under control, things like "full-rigged ships labouring under close-reefed upper topsails", the equivalent of us saying "240# guys overpowered on deformed 5 m kite, musta been 40 knots+". Those sail-area parts have long disappeared from the Beaufort scales you'll find on most web searches, but they used to be used at least as much as the appearance of the sea. I think watermen have always used their knowledge of how their gear is performing (and gear of others near by) to judge windspeed, so we're following a long-standing maritime tradition when we do that. Arrrrrrr, matey!

Met some French windsurfers once, they described light wind whitecaps as les moutons (puffy little sheep) and high wind streaking caps as les chevaux (horses, like their manes galloping). I could have this wrong, was a long time ago, but I thought that was a pretty good description....another version of the Beaufort scale.

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.” (Steve Martin)

Let's create our own scale: 1. light airs. Sailors start to pay less attention to work, family & chores 0 - 6 knots ... 2. Breezy. Sailors begin to create reasons for leaving work, family & dropping tools 6 - 10 knots ... 3. Worthy. vehicles are loaded & sailors begin to congregate @ sailing spots 10 - 15 knots ... 4. Windy. Sailors are now rigging 15 - 20 knots ... 5. Filled in. A frenzy of rigging @ sailing sites & parking spaces are filling up quickly 20 - 25 knots ... 6. Fu$%^ng WINDY. Smaller gear is being rigged & sailors are running. 25 - 30 knots ... 7. Nuking. Kites are coming in & newbies are not being launched. Windsurfers are rigging gorge gear 30 - 35 knots ... 8. NUTS. Only a select few are kiting. Many sailors are standing around making excuses. 35 - 40 knots ... 9. FUC*&NG NUTS. Only the finest athletes are on the water now. Carnage everywhere & branches are flying around bouncing off cars etc. 40 - 45 knots ... 10. BLOWN OUT. The last people on the water are being assisted back to the launch sites. It's over. 45+ knots

That is most excellent JL.

Applying it to the last day I kited:

When I arrived it was F&*^ing windy, but declined a little to just nicely Filled In.
During the day it varied between Windy and Filled In, was just Windy near shore, but more Filled In way outside.
Once in a while it got F*&*ing windy during squalls.

That works for me!

Couldn't have said it better JL! Winddude and Kus must not have been on site at dawn and only witnessed the windy conditions! To those kiters who I crossed tacks with during one of the two squalls that rolled in, I'm confident there was a gust that pulled you off your line and downwind a little.

I've compared a few of the last logs and my estimates were fairly accurate and similar to wind surfers... There were a few slightly higher gusts recorded but I guess that's the level well above pole dancers mast height and jumping abilities! That upper 1% maybe!

Posting the wind speed doesn't make any difference to me, I always look to see what sail sizes are posted and that tells me the whole story !

abetanzo wrote:Couldn't have said it better JL! Winddude and Kus must not have been on site at dawn and only witnessed the windy conditions!

true in part but I witnessed no windy conditions When there over 2 hrs I saw people still kiting and nobody reported in their logs "near the end shit barely planing, had to sine/pump or slog like mad and kept losing my freakin' waves and falling in, having my kite crash/sail do the splush", so somewhere all that early stuff overshadowed the late stuff.....that's what I'm talking about.

I don't look at other people's reports and compare my estimates with peak wx station readings which are usually high (as per Eastside). I recall Ogden reading 29G 32 and I was barely planing with a huge sail.....it was barely 18 knots at times. Same with the Nat when people report 30 something days, I am on formula gear.....were we at the same lake The last SP sessions prime example....funny how I musta again missed that early rampage Anyway, my sail log entries provide the average (not that one hole I encountered near the beach) and some of the heavier but not heaviest single gusts that lasted 2 micro seconds. Alway seems to match the more experienced crowd.

Posting the wind speed doesn't make any difference to me, I always look to see what sail sizes are posted and that tells me the whole story !

Does it? What if people are sailing under powered, over powered, different boards, or currents... not to mention rider size. I try and be as accurate as possible on my speeds, so I know, usually cutting off the bottom lulls and top gusts, to get a general average.