Cruising a longboard

The island and the lake have been there for 15 years or more…..”there” in that list of places I have to explore one day. But through all the shortboarding, the slalom and bump and jump, that “one day” never happened. The island and the lake were always too far downwind, or too far upwind, or too shallow for a slalom fin, or the wind was too light.

It wasn’t until my lake sailing met the longboard renaissance that I finally got to sail to the island and the lake. A gusty, patchy nor’westerly was bringing an early promise of spring. Onto the water, up on the rail, twelve foot of board slicing through the chop.I love the way a longboard poised on the rail seems to meet the water, sliding it gently apart rather than slapping it down like a shortboard does when it planes.

We tacked up the narrow channel between the mainland and the little island; gliding over transparent water in a place too protected for shortboards. Crept around the windward side, the stubby fin scraping the shallows. Tried not to spook a pair of black swans, but failed, and watched the white patches on their wings beating in an arc as they flew away.

Seen close up, the little island shows grassy patches, trees, landings….a perfect place to return with the family on longboards, or just with one other person, some bread and cheese, and a bottle of wine.

And so, past the island and up the narrow channel from the big lake to the little one. Shallows and narrows once again; no place for any other sailing craft but a long windsurfer. And here, the nor’westerly funnels through….into the back straps, depower…. The freedom is absolute. Nowhere is too light, too protected, too shallow, too rough.

Running back out the channel, it’s a flat out plane as the breeze gusts in. Arc around the channel marker, reach home. From arriving at the shore to return, it’s been little more than an hour; but we’ve seen and felt places that have just been lines on a map until now.

I’ve sailed almost everything that is propelled by sails, and for freedom almost nothing comes close to a simple longboard. Years ago, as a teenager in the days of wooden wishbones, I spent a weekend cruising around a local cruising ground (Broken Bay) with camping gear strapped to the back. Nights were spent sleeping under the rig – the windsurfer is the only thing that carries its own tent.

The rise of the sea kayak has shown what we can do. Many kayakers are tiring of paddling and are carrying little rigs, but in the right conditions a windsurfer has incomparably better speed and range – and a longboard paddles well too. Like the sea kayak, a windsurfer can land and float in places no other cruising craft can go.

Arnaud de Rosnay showed us years ago what can be done. His ocean crossing boards were “real” windsurfers, only about 13’ long, but he had a tiny tent and his mast had inflatable floats so it could be used to make a tiny trimaran at night. When I’ve ocean raced on yachts I’ve often sat back in gales, visualising how a board could handle the conditions, snugged down. It’s always seemed practical, and Arnoud proved it when he sailed 500 miles in 13 days across the Pacific and across the Bering Strait before his tragic loss while trying to sail between China and Japan.

Maybe the cruising board could be part of the longboard renaissance? Years ago, I used to doodle a specialised cruising board, with lockers like a kayak. With the right shape and size, and some tweaks to the deck, you could build a board that would sail fast and could also transform into a decent sit-on kayak or SUP paddleboard when the wind died or you wanted to explore narrow waters. It would be hard to find anything better for minimalist cruising.

I’m planning to modify an old board of mine sometime in the near future. Does anyone else want to move into the almost uncharted territory of the cruising longboard?