the Atlanta Boardsailing Club
windsurfing, kiteboarding and wingsurfing in the Southeast

Retro done wrong. Very wrong. Okay, let's play nice and say maybe it could have been done better.

Retro done properly. Very properly. You didn't think we were going to take the easy way and just put up a photo of John Belushi, did you?

We're not ones to reflexively declare that "it was better in the old days" or "all the new stuff is crap". As our music selections indicate, we like old stuff, we like new stuff, and we like sometimes painfully cutting edge new stuff. When it comes to windsurfing equipment, we've been unapologetic about how we think that some older boards need to stay locked away and kept from attacking unsuspecting beginners. And, we've extolled the virtues of some classic boards which still can be a boatload (pun intended) of fun.

We are as guilty as anyone else about lusting over new stuff. New stuff is sometimes demonized as the tool of capitalism which just wants us to consume. A good part of the reality in the little cottage industry known as windsurfing is that the people who make gear just want it a bit better than it was last year. Certainly, people like Dave Ezzy take a lot of personal pride in the stuff they turn out. If they can make it better, they will. Maybe, once in a while, the changes are cosmetic but that's okay, too. After all, we occasionally get a different hairstyle ourselves just for the sake of seeing something different in the mirror.

Sometimes, after all the changes and as much fun as the changes were, we pine for the old stuff. But old stuff can be a hassle -old bikes have scratches and dents and old boards have crappy fin boxes and mast tracks in the wrong place for modern sails. Fortunately, there are merchants happy to solve our problems for us by providing new things that look and behave like the old ones. So we don't look like idiots for paying a lot of money for a board or bike that looks and behaves a whole lot like the one we dumpstered ten years ago, we call the new item "retro".When the good guys and gals produce something "retro", they actually improve things a bit using lessons learned in the last umpteen years since the previous iteration.

We've seen a few boards recently that are retro, either by happenstance or design. Our friend, Dmitris Savidis, reviews a more obvious one, the T1 Thommen eXperience 125. He gives it a thumbs up as a versatile board. It has a winger pin-tail and a quad concave bottom.

Who better to gloat than a goat?

I'm here and you're not. As such, it's my duty to tell you how good it is and to re-enforce those feelings of inadequacy and helplessness you feel living in the craphole of wind that is Atlanta: Where Wind Goes to Die™. I've been in your shoes. I've felt that envy as others tell me how great it is. I've read the reports from foreign lands where the breezes blow steady; and the water and wind is warm.

But, not today. Today, I get to be an a-wipe. I get to tell you how even my callouses have blisters because it's been blowing so hard everyday from breakfast until dinner. I get to tell you how the water is so flat and wind so steady that I'm making jibes that I have no business making. I'm not bending my knees, I'm not over-sheeting. Heck, I'm not even sure I'm unhooking and pressing on the leeward rail but somehow I'm still planing on the other side. Yeah, it's that good. I'm a pretty crappy windsurfer but for a week, I'm frigging awesome.

We are overdue for one of our periodic installments of our Monthly Caption of the Week "contest". Things have been busy at home and participation in the last installment was, ahem, underwhelming. But, nonetheless, we'll toss out this pic from the Foto Gallery and hope for the best.

In this pic, we're not sure if Marcel is getting his board to fetch something from the water or has filled it with helium (or, worse, hydrogen). We're sure that your interpretation will be better than ours.

The usual rules apply
- The captions need not be directly related to what actually was happening in the picture. No, the purpose is to think of re-interpretations, much like a child or spouse inventing an excuse.
- Of course, no disrespect is meant to those in the picture. Think of yourselves as actors in a performance; you are only playing the part. However, there are no royalties, residuals or awards for your participation.

Here's this month's picture. Put your entry for the Monthly Caption of the Week in the comments below.

I'm having a great time by myself while all my friends are in Hatteras. Yep, great time.

It's been relatively quiet around the scene here in the last few weeks. It's not that no one is windsurfing. They are just windsurfing elsewhere with a large local contingent up at Hatteras. From their reports [1],[2],[3], it's been a windy spring and they've been able to break out gear - small stuff - not often used in Atlanta.