From: Luigi Semenzato (luigi@paris.CS.Berkeley.EDU)
 Subject: Stuck in the Muck 
 Newsgroups: rec.windsurfing
 Date: 1991-12-24 18:59:42 PST 


My fans (both of them) are begging me to post a new good windsurfing
story.  I don't have anything worth writing about, but all this Lisp
programming is wearing down the ( and ) keys and I need to get the
dust off the others.  So here it goes.  This happened Friday after
Thanksgiving.

The wind was gusty and from the North.  Wind is rare at the Berkeley
Marina in November, so I was very eager not to miss any minute of it.
I carried the rig on the dock, put it in the water, and jumped on,
without noticing the unusually low tide.  A gust came immediately,
messing up my balance; then the air was perfectly still, giving me
nothing to hang on.  Typical.  Regrettably, I fell.  To my surprise
and disgust, the water was only waist deep, and my legs sunk in the
East Bay Mud (EBMUD, for those who don't know).  I pulled myself on
the board (a Bic Astro Rock with a 5.5 single-camber Windwing), shook
my legs in the water, and uphauled.

As I moved away from the shore, the wind got better.  But it was still
very gusty, and every time I fell, I was in the mud.  In places the
water was so shallow that I had my b*tt in the mud during waterstarts.
I noticed that people seemed to be having more fun further south, by
the Ashby beach, and decided to go sail there.  I mudstarted on a very
good gust; and I moving going very fast before I realized how good it
was.  I didn't have my feet in the straps yet.  I lost my balance
forward; and after two graceful dance steps on the board, and half a
pirouette in mid-air, I hit the water hard.

I quickly ran a sensory check for broken body parts, but could detect
none.  That wasn't the same for the rig.  The boom had broken near the
mast.  Fortunately, another windsurfer was nearby.  I waved at him,
and he came.  What a coincidence, it was my old friend Joe Higgins.
``Could you be so kind to go to the Club and ask them to rescue me?''
I asked.  ``I will try'' he said.  Apparently he was having some
trouble going back upwind.  He was wearing long johns and a t-shirt.
I hoped he would not freeze. ``In the meanwhile, I will paddle towards
the freeway'' I told him.  I started paddling, but after a couple of
minutes I realized that only half of the boom was broken, and I could
still sail in that direction with the other half.  So I did.

I stopped near the rocks.  They were covered by green slime.  The
smell was worse than in Venice.  I decided I would wait in the water
until severe hypothermia before I tried to get out that way.  I wasn't
cold, in my new O'Neil Windskin 4/3 semi-dry and booties.  The guys
who arrived twenty minutes later in the skiff looked much colder.  Joe
had made it.  The added motivation of rescuing me had contributed to
save both of our lives.

It turned out I wasn't completely unhurt.  Two days (and some skiing)
later, tilting my neck forward started producing pain in the right
side of the chest.  It became painful enough that it was impossible to
sleep without medication.  I had pulled a little-known muscle that
runs from the neck down to the rib cage.  I had to wear a neck brace
for a week -- endless opportunities to start talking about
windsurfing!

As I said, nothing worth writing about.

Luigi