From: Luigi Semenzato (luigi@paris.CS.Berkeley.EDU)
 Subject: A Book on One's Head 
 Newsgroups: rec.windsurfing
 Date: 1992-05-06 13:07:07 PST 


Vacations generate pictures, slides and videos.  Sometimes even prose.
While this material can be extremely boring for the general public,
the vacationers themselves feel quite good about it.  So a month after
our trip to Maui, we had a get-together at my place for dinner, slide
show, and the reading of ``The Vacationing Italian.''

To make the day more interesting, Lex and Alessandra invited us for a
Bay cruise on their small sailboat, about 25 feet.  They keep it at
the Berkeley Marina.  We would meet there at eleven thirty.

At eleven Piero called from the Caramagno's Barber Shop.  ``I don't
think I'll be able to get my haircut'' he said.  ``I have waited half
hour but there are still two persons ahead of me.''  ``Piero, it won't
be a problem if you are half an hour late.  You know, getting things
ready takes a while.''  ``But this is Lex' day out.  I don't want to
make him late.''  This was quite a crisis for Piero.  Since he moved
to Pasadena, he has managed to visit Berkeley often enough to get all
his haircuts done here.  I don't know what he'll do now.  He may have
to find another barber.

We met on time.  But then Lex had to buy a new gasoline squeeze pump,
and Martha had to get some more drinking water, and John had to load
the windsurfing stuff on the boat.  I helped him.  He pulled out of
his car a Windwing sail bag.  ``Hey John'' I said, ``I didn't know you
had a Windwing.''  ``Oh, I just bought it.  It's a four-six'' ``Ah. I
need to get one of those myself.  How much did you pay for it?''
``Well, he was asking for a bit more than I was willing to pay, but I
managed to get a discount.''  What an evasive answer, I thought.
Maybe he paid too much and is ashamed to tell me.

We were ready to sail at twelve-thirty.  Captain Lex gave quick and
precise orders to the six-member crew.  The sixth member was Immanuel.
French fellow, very friendly.  I often speak to him in Italian, by
mistake.  He does not speak Italian, and I don't speak French.  He
often speaks to me in French, also by mistake.  What affinity!

We sailed around the Bay for a while.  After lunch, John said: ``Time
to windsurf.''  Captain Lex put the boat on a wide reach to reduce the
relative wind.  We rigged a five-six on the deck, taking all available
space and making a mess.  John invited me to go first.  We were near
Treasure Island.

I jumped in the water and cleared the 5.6 sail.  It promptly pulled me
up on John's new board, a Bic Alto, fairly short, about ninety liters
in volume.  At first I could not plane.  I slogged behind the boat
losing ground.  Then the wind picked up.  What a fun board!  Touching
the water very delicately with the tail, I reached the boat in no
time, surpassed it, turned around, flew by it, and back again, giving
them lots of photographic opportunities.

Then it was John's turn.  He came in the water, I gave him the
harness, and picked a line from the sailboat.  In a 20 mph wind, it's
hard to prevent a sailboat from moving.  The line was dragging me in
the water, and I pulled myself little by little towards the boat,
pretending to be in a James Bond movie.  I got to the hull.  The deck
was quite high.  I pulled my head up and said ``Hi.''  With one hand I
searched for something to hold on but found nothing.  Immanuel noticed
my struggle and grabbed me in some fashion to lift me, but it wasn't
helping.  Eventually I got on, but, I must say, the designers of that
boat certainly did not windsurf.

I took several good shots of John, then we switched again a couple of
times.  We had fun.  Derigging was a huge mess again.  At some point
Martha mentioned something about a book falling on her head.  I didn't
think that could do too much damage.

Back at the Marina, John, for whatever reason, pulled his Windwing 4.6
out of the bag and unrolled it on the grass.  ``That's John's new
sail'' I told Martha.  ``No it's not'' said John.  ``It's yours.''  A
birthday surprise!  I usually don't like surprises, but this was
exactly what I wanted.

The rest of the day went as planned.  After everybody left, Martha
said that her neck was hurting a bit.  ``Do you think it was the
book?'' I asked.  ``What book?''  ``Didn't you say a book fell on your
head?''  ``No!  I said Immanuel fell on my head!''  I had understood
``a manual.''

Now we'll have to have another get-together for the new slides.  What
should we plan for that?  My mind is at work.