Earl Schmearl

September has come and the wind is back in a big way! We've had more sailing days than not in the past couple weeks. Actually today was officially day 7 in a row of sailable conditions on LI. Hurricane Earl promised us some 50 knot + winds. The only problem is that Earl took a more Easterly path than originally thought and the only people that got to sail were all the way out on the tip of Long Island at Napeague. I eagerly awaited another session at the Training Grounds in all of Earl's glory but ended up getting skunked with gusts up to 12 knots along with everyone else on the North Shore.

But I should be the last to complain. I've sailed more days than not so far in the month of September and it looks like we'll get yet another good day tomorrow. The day following the windless Hurricane was my best day of the season. It was probably the first time I sailed West Meadow without a wetsuit. We arrived at high tide with some great ramps for the perfect loopfest and stayed until the tide went out where I was hitting trick after trick in the perfect flat water behind the sand bars. I had to cut that day short to go shoot a wedding, which turned out to be a great party! Win, win!

Then it was back to summer-like conditions at Heckscher for the next few days. Tuesday was incredible. Fully, fully powered on a 4.7 with gusts over 30 towards the end. There were a bunch of people out and Ryan, Rob and Joe were also on the scene going for loops, flakas, shuvit's and landing vulcans. Chris Goodwin, who is definitely someone to keep your eyes on, was overpowered on his 5.8 (his smallest sail) so he decided to stop and take some pics. here are a few of my favorites.