Retro in the Surf
by Dan Cole    9/12/07

Hi Spennie,

   So I was wave sailing at Huntington last weekend, had a great session until the wind got light, didn't feel like coming in so I rigged my 7.5 retro and even though it felt kinda strange on a wave board, I had a nice time blasting around the open water on the outside until I got my fill.

Hauling ass back to the beach I dropped in on a wave, made a few hard turns (as hard as I could with 7.5 meters of monofilm in my hands) and coasted into the channel between the outside breakers and the shore break. Since I was ready to call it, I made an ill advised drop in on a wave that looked a little too close to the shore. But the ride in was fine and I hopped off my board in calf deep water that was rushing back out to sea. Unfortunately though, my muscle memory expected the boom length of my 6.0 wave sail, not my 7.5 retro, which was just long enough to catch in the outgoing surf, giving my soon-to-be demolished retro and powerex mast a last glimpse of light before being devoured in a big oncoming shore breaker. Derigging was easy that day. Just carry a boom, extension and a board up to the car. Awfully thoughtful of them to leave trash cans on the beach in the OC.

Wish I had a picture. I had to untangle the sail from itself to roll it enough to get it into the trash can if that gives you some idea.

Anyway, I was thinking of ending my camless freeride days and getting all dedicated race sails from 7 on up. Do you still have a good race sail for sale? 7.5 would be perfect. Let me know if you've got something in that ballpark.

- d