2006-07-27

What's Up with Hatteras Windsurfing Skill?

My buddy Caleb was over the other night for a few beers, and I slipped in an old windsurfing video from the mid 90s titled "Spring Loaded." Spring Loaded Video boxIts a classic video with a great soundtrack and wavesailing footage. Immediately after watching that video I entered our latest Hatteras video "Northeast of Maui." After watching both videos, we thought to ourselves... why do we still seem kind of "JV" (junior varsity) as compared to those guys in that video from over 10yrs ago? Now, granted there are some windsurfing icons in Spring Loaded such as Robby Naish, and other Maui world champs, but there are many unknowns that still blow us away. The young kid doing dry forward loops in the Gorge, or the kid going off the lip in Dominican Republic, to name a few. We in Hatteras, sail some pretty wild conditions and there are some really good sailors here. Most of us have been windsurfing well over 10 years, but what are we missing? Is it lack of aggressive competition in the ranks, and/or the "go for it" attitude? Is there an east coast "softness" when it comes to windsurfing?
Keith heading off the lip. photo: Martine

Hatteras is the best place on the east coast of the US for wavesailing, but why do we still seemed to be outclassed by the west?

Though..., is it the filming/editing differences between the videos?
In Spring Loaded, there is about a maximum of 5 seconds between clips. Short bursts of action, rather than longer drawn out segments. In Spring Loaded if a longer clip is playing, it usually involves an interesting camera angle such as a helmet cam, or an acting segment. The core wavesailing action is all edited to only a few seconds per clip. Perhaps, we will try this approach in the next Hatteras video out this Fall.

Regardless though, that young kid doing the dry forward loops is pretty impressive, and I have not seen anyone here in Hatteras pull off anything like that... why?

Emo bottom turning on the green wave. photo: Jim Myers