lol you obviously dont live near any mountains. 365 days a year weve got a minimum of 40 km/h winds. sometimes up to 150 km/h. damn rockies!

lol ur right i dnt live near any mountains

ive worked in gas plants that have measured winds of 220+ km/h on the top of their flare stacks. one plant claimed to have set some sort of a world record for wind speeds but im not 100% sure how true that is or what record it was.

the wind will easily thrw golf ball size rocks and smash out the windows of vans and all the loaders and stuff.

no joke, a lot of the forests and trees here permanently lean one way because of the strong west winds that we get 24/7 off the rocky mountains. it can be pretty annoying sometimes.

okay fair enuf, as a windsurfer i see alot of strong winds, well what i call strong winds, but that is rediculas, what force is 220 km/h?

what do you mean "what force is 220 km/h?". I dont understand.

what are your average wind speeds for windsurfing?

our average speeds are much lower, as i train and race on main land lakes. we have about force 3 which is 8-12 mph, 7-10 knots

but the scale i have only goes up to force 9, 47-52 mph, 41-47 knots, and at force 12 i know is enough to knock down some houses and blow cars over

EDIT:- here is the force scale

we get mostly gales and violent gales like 50% of the year, and storms and violent storms once in a while too.

weve never had a house blown down or car flipped over, but ive seen brick walls blown off buildings and the wind once ripped the roof right off our cabin and took it about 100 feet.

hummm its just once it was said that if wind speeds get above force 12 then people will die from not being able to breath in and besides how could you even stand up in those winds?

standing it sometimes very very hard, like the trees. you gotta lean at a 45 degree angle.

and yes, ive experienced wind so strong its hard to breathe, not suffocating though. imagine sticking your head out the car window doing 60-80 mph down the highway, thats what it feels like.

well you mean more 150mph as thats closer to 220km/h

i have never windsurfed in any thing above force 7 as the design of the sails are too powerful, and to use my race sail i would need to be some thing like 20 stone in weight, or more

no I said 220 km/h at the top of a flare stack, thats like 200+ feet high. and that particular gas plant was 10 km away from the mountains. that night we were welding a 80 something inch pipe. the winds were 140 km/h that night at the ground. the tarp was flapping back and forth so hard that if it hit you it would throw you down. we got shutdown that night and all got to go back home

winds like that are not rare around here. weve always got a little bit of a breeze. only about 30 random days a year are perfectly calm here. otherwise theres always a little bit of wind.

ah right yeah 200+ foot up makes a difference lol

do you know what the pressure graphs are like where you work as its probable the mountians forcing you to just be of the low pressure area meaning you get the wind but those random days you are probably in the high pressure areas?

no its just where we are. were literally right beside the rocky mountains, 30 minutes away. I climb the mountains on my dirtbike, its a 10 minute drive on the highway, then a 30 minute bike climb and youre in/on the rocky mountains.

this is an example. at the bottom right you see those trails? those are dirtbike trails. I climbed this mountain about 2 weeks ago. we do it all the time. its cool, everyone who lives this close to the mountains has to deal with the wind coming down them, the wind lasts for about 3-500 km I estimate. were 50 km from the mountains so...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_YdTcXJGycxQ/SMl9nlcB99I/AAAAAAAAAA4/N2NuCQBLLqw/s1600-h/Helicopter+Ride+027.JPG

I actually have a picture that is almost exactly as the one above on my camcorder, except im on the ground, literally directly beneath that picture^^^ exact same angle. thats actually pretty weird

lol that looks pretty sketch

i suppose the Rockies act like a air ramp, pressurising it and making it gain speed, like the upper side of an aeroplane wing.

but climbing it on a mx bike does look fun...

fun but dangerous.

I had to leave my 15,000$ dirtbike in a kilometer long valley with hill climbs like walls the other night. not cool. its got a hole in the engine case and no engine oil.. even if it did run the hill climb back out is literally impossible.. im f*cked! lol

lol sounds like a bad situation, suppose you could get a new engine case out there with the tools its still a big job

every sport i do is dangerous, DH needs no explanation lol but for windsurfing i have nearly droned about 5 times, got trapped between the sail and the water with no air with my leg stuck between the last and the board, by the time i go free i was litreally gasping for air, i was under nearly 3 minutes lol

yeah drowning or being stuck under like that would definitely be scary.

yeh those sorts of time you shit your self, but i have always found a way out so far, best way to stay lol