Steve,
I didn't compete in the contest... didn't need the stress or the
ignominy of getting destroyed by my buddies ;-) ...good thing b/c i
sailed myself to death the day before at the hatch, and my foot was
hurting pretty bad (but not bad enough to skip sailing at the wall).
i had planned on watching the whole event, but the wind was calling,
so...
I think the Wall gets a double black diamond b/c the sailing
conditions can be tough. It's located pretty close to a dam, and the
river is narrow, so when they're letting out a lot of water, the
current rips through at a pretty good clip. I don't think it's a
particularly "dangerous" place to sail as the river is so narrow,
you'd have an easy time getting to one shore if you had an breakdown,
and there are plenty of places to pull out down river if the current
gets a hold of you. I guess the most dangerous part of sailing there
is that it's sometimes easy to lose track of the other sailors when
the swell's that big... you just want to keep an eye on everybody so
you know if somebody's gone down and then disappeared behind a swell.
I also hear that some people get vertigo when they are sailing close
to shore as the current is sweeping them upwind. Not that big of a
deal... just like a strong ebb at the North Tower or delta. You have
big swell, but you also have dead flat water on both sides of the
river, so even if someone doesn't jibe well in the lumpy stuff, he/she
can always jibe close to shore.
You would have no problem handling the conditions there, Steve.
The Wall, along w/ Roosevelt, are my favorite places to sail in the
Gorge. They are so much less crowded than the Corridor sites, and the
swell gets so clean and wide. The water is also a little warmer than
the Hatch as it's upstream of the cold water spilling out of the Hood
River. Sailed in boardshorts! :-D
kev
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