The Australian 18 skiff fleet made their annual trip to San Francisco this past week. Here’s a shot of them racing just after the start of the Bridge to Bridge race, a downwind competition with windsurfers and kitesurfers.
I came home to find the new issue of Windsport Magazine waiting in my mailbox and inside are a few of my photos. First up is a 2 page spread of the San Francisco formula fleet (Steve Bodner, Mike Percey, and others) getting ready for the start of a race. Accompanying the photo was a nice writeup by Mike Percey talking about what happens in between formula races. Next is a shot of Whit Poor doing some freestyle at Crissy Field in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Crissy Field is such a great place to sail and the magazine’s Ride Guide gives you the ins and outs of the spot.
I just got my Windsurfing Magazine and found one of my photos on page 86. It’s a technique article featuring Steve Bodner (USA 4). The shot is 1/3 of the page and shows Steve pumping his formula windsurfing board and sail.
Yesterday was windy, but I heard on the radio today that the weather people had taken the extra step of issuing a high wind warning for the San Francisco Bay area. Driving past Candlestick this afternoon the wind was definitely on. The water was solid whitecaps everywhere, but nobody was out sailing. Hoping to maybe catch a few sailors or kitesurfers taking advantage of the wind, I headed over to Ocean Beach. Coincidentally this route helped me avoid the huge traffic backup caused by a head-on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge. Six cars were involved and created traffic problems for over 3 hours. As I drove down Great Highway, sand was drifting across the road. I pulled into the parking lot just south of the Cliff House and saw three sailors out windsurfing. The wind is supposed to stick around through tomorrow. Get out there and enjoy it!
This whole week, the San Francisco Bay Area is expecting unseasonably warm weather. Even San Francisco, which is normally foggy and 57 degrees is expected to see temps into the 80’s. By some amazing luck, the wind also happened to be up today and a bunch of sailors were out at Candlestick. There are usually only a couple people on the water, but today there were more like 10. Normally when I go out to shoot windsurfing photos around here I am bundled up with a sweater, windbreaker, and winter hat on and still barely able to stay warm. Today I managed with no jacket at all.
Today started off with fog pretty much everywhere in San Francisco. By mid morning it had started to clear up and by afternoon, it was a beautiful day. The wind also cooperated.
Windsurfing: A few photos of the Sunday windsurfing action.
Sailing: A couple guys were out doing some training in their Lasers. They were definitely getting a good workout with some hard upwind grinding, fast downwind runs, and chilly wipe outs.
I stopped down at the St. Francis Yacht Club and talked to a couple of friends who were just getting off the water after sailing in the Elvstrom Zellerbach regatta. The wind had come up quite a bit and all the sailors looked like they had gotten in plenty of sailing over the weekend. One managed to break the bottom section of his laser mast. Since the wind had come up, the windsurfers had headed out onto the water at Crissy Field. Sand was blowing everywhere and the sky was very hazy, less than ideal photography conditions, but I wasn’t the only one out taking photos. Actually, I’m not sure this guy even noticed all the windsurfing action. He was totally focused on making sure he got a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.
I headed over to Candlestick hoping to get some pics of sailors taking advantage of the wind (25mph) that was ripping across the water. But only one sailor was out. What’s up with that? It seems like it’s always windy there and it’s right next to the freeway so it should be a great spot to sail on the way home from work. Anyway, I kept on driving and got down to Crissy Field in time to catch a few sailors out on the water.
The weather was amazing in San Francisco this weekend with sun and temps over 70 degrees every day. To take advantage of that and also due to the overall lack of any freestyle or wave windsurfing contests in the bay area this season, Whit Poor rallied a group of 11 sailors for an impromptu non-contest at Waddell. They ran a complete single elimination and losers round that ended up like this… 1st Whit, 2nd Bryce, 3rd Ian, 4th Arnot. Hopefully the idea catches on and we can get some events going again.
