I was excited to be asked to return to Camp Couchiching to teach windsurfing. Once we settled on a date we were hoping for good weather and fair winds. We did luck out again.
We arrived on Monday night and checked out the camp's gear which was still set up nicely from last year. We got the nice golf ball simulator and some broken universal joints repaired and prepared ourselves for the next 36 hours of teaching. We joined the other staff for dinner and then settled into our cabin.
At 9 AM the campers started showing up and it turned out there were 33 students to teach! Wow, that was more than twice as many as we had last year. Luckily, I had volunteer nephew, Len, with me again, so we were quick to figure out a way to do it.
As it was raining, we took all 33 students to the dining hall and went through all of the theory there. It was actually pretty fortunate that it was raining - everyone was happy to be inside and listen to a lecture. We went through introductions and some of the basics of windsurfing, like the wind clock, uphauling and steering.
I held a contest to see which was faster: rigging a new Duotone iRIG or rigging a traditional Fanatic Ripper kids rig. Half the kids were assigned to the iRIG. They won hands down, having it completely inflated and ready to surf in under a minute. It took over 5 minutes for the other half of the kids to put the traditional windsurfing rig together. Nice proof of the iRIG concept.
It stopped raining around 11am and we headed over to the simulator. Each of the kids got a chance to uphaul and practice sailing stance on land. Len helped everyone work their way through a simulator practice while I facilitated a very interesting Q&A session.
In the afternoon 16 of the students proceeded to go out on the water. It was a nice warm southwest wind blowing maybe 3 to 6 knots. The kids were going back-and-forth with the odd rescue boat tow needed to get back to the dock. 7 of the 8 kids who tried the iRIG Large loved it in the light winds.
The 7 old camp boards were very slippery. Len and I had tried to put reDeck on the boards the night before but it wore off in one session. So we went to Canadian Tire that evening and got non-skid tape. (The nurse noted fewer stubbed toes, but more scraped knees as a result.) Some soft top boards like the Fanatic Viper would be nice for the camp in the future.
The next morning we had another 17 kids. They were out on the water in another 4 to 8 knot northwest breeze. There were are fair number of tows required to get back to the dock but several students were showing promise and were able to stay upwind and regularly get back on their own.
Last year, I had emailed the graduating students their certificates but I'm not sure how many actually printed them out. Wonderful Jen, at the camp office, reprinted the 2023 certificates and 9 of the 12 students from last year who got certificates were back working at the camp. Most were on site to get their certs hand delivered by Len and me. That was a thrill. One of them mentioned she had been out windsurfing on her parents board that they dug out from under their cottage. Sweet.
In the afternoon those kids who wanted even more windsurfing practice showed up. Len and I had a dozen students looking to hone their skills and eventually get certificates. They all went out as wind built to 6 to 15 knots. The consensus was that the iRIG Large isn't as good when the wind gets over 10 knots. Luckily the camp had a lot of smaller sails too.
We saw a lot of the kids really getting addicted to the speed and thrill of windsurfing. My biggest challenge running the rescue boat was actually keeping up with the talented kids. They kept trying to go out past the point into the bigger wind and waves where windsurfing becomes such a thrill!
A week later I showed up at camp to deliver the Sail Canada certificates I had printed. It looked like the gear had been used quite a bit since our lessons. Such fun seeing kids getting so excited for windsurfing.
Comments