Featured Articles

Forecast

Editor’s Note: 6.3/4

By John Chao

As we grow, we expand our worlds with experiences and encounters. Whether good or bad, positive or negative, elations or disappointments—how we process these experiences are the marks of our legacy.

Air Mail

Unequaled Quality, Low Level, Losers!

The photo on page 88/89 (“Accidental Tourist”) is an appalling essay on the level of garbage you are circulating through your medium of the magazine. It is offensive to women who windsurf, to women who don’t windsurf, and to any male with class.

Contributors

Behind a WindMaker Test

The brilliant photographs you see in this issue did not come easy. Our senior staff photographer, Darrell Jones, spent hours everyday sitting on top of a scaffold to capture these Kodak moments.

Makin’ Waves

The Windsurfer who could have been… President!

Citing financial difficulties to mount such a campaign, Kerry announced to a disappointed Bay State press conference that he will not be a potential candidate for the upcoming 2000 race. Privately, Kerry told American Windsurfer Magazine that it was a difficult decision not to run.

1999 Equipment Test: Slalom & Light Wind Gear

By Ken Winner

It’s about equipment in the size range that the majority of windsurfers ride, tested in conditions that commonly occur in the moderately windy parts of the world.

Equipment Tests

1999 Equipment Test: Slalom & Light Wind Boards

By Ken Winner

A lot of shortboarders want a board big enough to float them back to the beach if the wind dies. However, if the wind is less than 15 to 20, the wind force isn’t so great that a big board gets in the way. It really doesn’t hurt to have a floaty board.

Equipment Tests

How To Use Use This

By Ken Winner

While we know that using this report in the bath tub won’t cause you to be electrocuted, we still feel the need to provide a few tips for wading through the mass of information that such a report inevitably becomes.

Equipment Tests

1999 Equip Test: Slalom & Light Wind Sails

By Ken Winner

THE BEST OF ALL WORLDS: Having a catamaran at your service was a luxury. Sailing the flat waters off Fishermen’s Huts can get tedious unless you have a windsurfer-carrier and can boldly go where no windsurfer has gone before.

Equipment Tests

Short & Wide

By Ken Winner

The latest trend in board design– toward more width and less length– is one of those innovations that appears headed immediately for long-term orbit. To some degree, it promises to combine the simplicity of a shortboard with the stability of a longboard

Workshop

Welcome to Paradise!

By Mark Archer

After spending several years as an instructor, I have witnessed many people arrive on their dream windsurfing vacation. I see the strange transformation that often takes place when they first set their eyes on the sun, sand, warm water, and most importantly, the wind. We call this strange affliction the “I gotta’ sail now syndrome.”

Instructionals

Sail-Chi

By Mike Gebhardt

It is said in life that the greatest gift you can offer another, or yourself for that mater, is the quality of your attention. Windsurfing, like life, is a great metaphor for the art of living consciously.

Portfolio

WATERCOLORS: Douglas Faulkner Underwater Photography

By Douglas Faulkner

My underwater photography is an outgrowth of my love of the ocean and the plants and animals that live in it. For as long as I can remember, I have loved colors, and the sea is rich with them in every imaginable form and combination. Colors I would never wear I collect nonetheless, thereby expressing my hidden needs.

Featured Articles

Gulled

By Gavin Grow

I awakened early that morning well before sunrise to an impromptu orchestra of chimes as a gale wind blew through the sailboat riggings of the many vessels moored behind our home.