Steve's Windsurfing Journal

I am just beginning to windsurf. It's fantastic, one of the best things I've ever done. I don't really know how to windsurf yet; I guess what I do called boardsailing or longboarding. OK, it might be more accurate to call it swimming with a float that I stand on once in a while.

The key thing to remember about this page is that I am by no means a good windsurfer. A rank beginner, in fact. But no less obsessed for all that.

How did I get into windsurfing? It came out of my decision in the mid 90s to get back into sailing after not doing much during my 20s. What a waste! My Dad introduced me to sailing when I was about eight and he acquired an old sailing Barnegat Bay Sneakbox that his friend, neighbor and teaching colleague Frank Tomasco found under his Harvey Cedars house on Lee Avenue. He had a sail made for it, taught himself the basics of sailing, and then taught me. I never dedicated myself to it, but sailed a few times each summer. For a while, I had a Stingray of my own, which was kind of a Sunfish imitator. In college, I took two half-semesters of sailing in Tech Dinghys on the Charles River. Dad went through a succession of sailboats -- a sailing pram, a wooden Sunfish, a Moth, and a convertible row/motor/sailboat of unknown types, all passed down from my cousins the Willsons as their kids grew up and moved out and when Aunt Mary and Uncle Harry moved to Florida. Now he has a 23 foot Kell sloop from the mid-1970s which he takes out on the bay when the wind is, say, below 12 knots. Anyway, I kept migrating back to shore communities during vacations and hanging around the docks. Around 1995 I noticed that I kind of wanted to actually USE the boats. I started out by taking some Coast Guard Auxiliary courses during the winters in Manhattan, but, um, these were on dry land. Fun, and it got me invited to Governor's Island during the last year it was a Coast Guard station and also to a party on an old ferry being restored on a pier on the West Side. And the Auxiliary folks, eccentrics all, introduced me to the notion that it was possible to sail in Manhattan on the cheap, by crewing or hanging out or bumming off of rich folks or volunteering on the Pioneer or the Petrel. So I figured since I felt like I could never afford to keep a sailboat in Manhattan, I'd sail on Dad's in the summers. Except that Dad never wanted to go out in less than optimal (meaning, to him, light winds and no other boats on the water). So I'd end up cooling my heels and maybe sailing once a year. Not acceptable. I figured I could rent in Manhattan, so I took a course with Offshore Sailing School in Jersey City. This was fantastic, but really a major pain to get to. Also, I still don't have enough confidence to sail in the Hudson without a motor. I don't like the currents and the large ship traffic there. Still looking for some folks to sail with, but haven't hit anything yet that fits my schedule and theirs.

That's when I hit on the idea of windsurfing. It was a way to sail without having to own a boat, can be done in light and heavy conditions, doesn't really depend on having anyone else participate, and I could do it myself wherever I travelled. Cheap to rent, too. Plus it's a great workout, something I really need the motivation to do. I started by taking some lessons in Florida and Hawaii, as I'll detail below. But, as I've discovered, being a Manhattan windsurfer has its logistical problems.

I've discovered that learning to windsurf requires a certain amount of obsessive behavior. Loading up, getting there, rigging up, waiting for wind, sailing, breaking down, getting back and cleaning up takes the better part of the day, and for a working person in the northeastern US there just aren't that many days. No one else I know windsurfs regularly.

Manhattan sucks as a place for a windsurfer to live. Even though it's an island, it's surrounded by water that only a few quite foolhardy people ever swim in, and for a beginning windsurfer, swimming is a big part of the sport. So there's nowhere to rent a board nearby. In fact, the only windsurfing shop in the city just closed last fall.

So far as I can tell, to windsurf in the area one needs the following infrastructure: a rig, a place to store it (big problem in urban Manhattan, though by the number of boards I see coming home on Sunday evenings I gather some people find the room), a car (which I don't own), and roof racks (annoying if not impossible to deal with on ever-varying rental vehicles).

Once all this is assembled, and it must truly be reassembled for each session, then you have to drive out of the city to windsurfing friendly spots. From what I can gather, the options are Long Island, the Jersey Shore starting with Sandy Hook and the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound. None of these is much less 45 minutes by car. I have heard of people windsurfing in the Tappan Zee up by Nyack, so maybe there is hope within 30 minutes. Seems to me there ought to be opportunities for lake sailing in northern New Jersey but I haven't gotten that far in my research.

The plan I've decided on so far deeply involves my parents. They have a place in Manahawkin at the Jersey Shore, which is right across the causeway bridge from Long Beach Island. LBI is a good windsurfing spot but not a great one. There is ocean on one side and a large shallow bay on the other. There are good winds in the spring and fall, and the relatively light summer winds can be good for beginners like me. There is a good shop, Island Surf 'n' Sail in Brant Beach, and a good instructor and local windsurfing champion, Jack Bushko. The chief obstacles are seaweed and lots of it, high levels of recreational boat traffic in the summer, and that there are few bayside places to rig and launch. So I got my folks to agree to store gear at their place. I got me a beginning board. I got some pads for my folks' mini-van roof racks. And here's the tale from there.

The key theme of all this is: obsession. Sheer will is needed to get going giving all the other things in my life. Just do it, and don't take no for an answer.