The Official Field Guide to Gorge Windsurfer Terminology
What does 'nuking' mean? A complete glossary of Columbia River Gorge windsurfing and kiteboarding slang, compiled over years of unsolicited fieldwork in Hood River.
By Dot Klickitat · Gorge Patrol ·
HOOD RIVER — The Columbia River Gorge is one of the premier wind-sports venues on Earth, a fact its practitioners will confirm at any length, to anyone, for a documented minimum of 40 minutes. Visitors caught in such a briefing report understanding almost none of it. This desk therefore publishes its field glossary, compiled across many seasons at the Event Site parking lot, where the fieldwork found us.
The wind itself
Nuking
Very windy. The highest routine grade. A speaker reporting nuking conditions will already be looking past you toward the river, and should be released.
Cranking
Reliably, seriously windy. One grade below nuking. The distinction matters enormously and cannot be explained.
Victory at sea
Strong wind against strong current, producing large chaotic swell and whitecaps to the horizon. Term is delivered with joy. The sea in question is a river.
Going off
General-purpose superlative. “It’s going off” may describe the wind, the swell, the scene, or the speaker’s own availability that afternoon, which has just changed.
The geography
The wall / Swell City / Doug’s Beach
Named launches whose conditions differ in ways that will be described to you. The names are real; locals navigate by them the way this county navigates by Fred Meyers.
East wind / west wind
Summer’s westerlies deliver the classic conditions; winter easterlies deliver cold, violence, and the small population who consider that an invitation. The mechanism — marine air pushed through a sea-level slot in the Cascades — is the same machine that powers Junuary.
The self
Dawn patrol
On the water at first light, before work. Spoken with the humility of a person who wants you to know.
Getting skunked
Driving out and finding no wind. The Gorge’s one form of mercy is that it is rare; the forecast graphs are studied here the way other residents study a volcano-monitoring page.
Frequently asked questions
What wind speed do Gorge windsurfers actually want?
Most sailors light up in the high teens to twenty-plus miles per hour; “nuking” starts somewhere in the thirties and ends wherever the speaker’s dignity does.
When is windsurfing season in Hood River?
Roughly April through September, peaking in the summer westerlies. Off-season, practitioners describe previous seasons.
Do I need to understand any of this to visit Hood River?
No. Nod at intervals. The briefing is not for you; it is for the wind, which was going off, and somebody had to say so.