Great evening session with my first ever student!

While the Launch Pad Windsurf Academy is new, I've been enjoying teaching windsurfing for many years. Here is a photo with my niece Vanessa from 1996! She went on to teach at Jibe City for half a decade before coming back to Canada.

I was excited by a nice after dinner wind forecast and Vanessa's excitement to get on the water just hours after arriving in Key Harbour. We headed out to the Launch Pad and had a great session.

(I'd already had a great session with my son Phillip who was out successfully wind foiling and said he had a good instructor - me! That session with some great photos is on my personal blog: windsurfing-en-provence.blogspot.com/2022/07/quick-pre-dinner-wingfoil.html)

Here is Vanessa getting ready for her first session of 2022.

I managed to get 12 km in 48 minutes. I started on the old Vivace 272 with the Idol 5.6m. When Vanessa was done I took the Fanatic Skate 108 with the Idol 5.6 which was a much better combo.

In my GPS trail below (looking from the west) you can see a line way to the right - in that nice flat water I was able to sail away from my first Vulcan in many years! I have to put a shout out to fabulous windsurf instructor Andy Brandt and ABK windsurfing for getting me interested in freestyle over a decade ago. (Interesting to note that in the attempts where I turned upwind I didn't succeed the same

I'll admit to being surprised by how good Vanessa was despite not having windsurfed in almost a year. I was also really pleased by my gear selection for her and how well it worked. Maybe I can get Vanessa to be a guest instructor at the Launch Pad?

I've got a good feeling that the Launch Pad Windsurfing Academy will inspire others to make windsurfing a passion.