Sunset Sailboards San Francisco

We had a nice cleanup party at the Candlestick Park launch today.  If you've never sailed there, the launch is a narrow, rocky pathway often littered with broken glass, mussel shells, and ill-placed boulders.  I've seen many sailors step onto their boards only to hit their fin on a submerged rock and get launched.  The crew worked hard and cleared up the launch path and surrounding rigging area.  Below is a before and after picture of the launch.  It's hard a little hard to see all the progress because the before picture is taken at mid-tide, and the after picture is taken at a very low tide, but the pathway is more than double the width now, and all the fin-shearing boulders have been moved.  Sweet!

A few of us even got a pretty fun sesh at around 4:30.  Light winds and nobody out.  Just three of us, but I got to try out my new 2009 Fanatic Skate 108 Team Edition board.  I've had it for a little while, but it's just been too damn windy to use it until today, so it was a great test to take it out in such light wind, with a 5.3 no less.  The board planes very early, and it really accelerates when you crack it off the wind a few degrees.  I had forgotten how much easier a big freestyle board makes getting into the strap switch-stance and how much trick-saving stability they offer.  This board gets my "Freestyle for Dummies" seal of approval.