I used to be one of those poor euros, started my windsurfing career in Sweden. From end of October to end of March there were ice on the water so windsurfing was out of the question. One gets pretty desperate after 5 months w/o sailing. As soon as the ice broke we were out there again. With a 5mil wettie, booties, gloves and neoprene hood it is OK as long as you dont fall in.
The funniest episode of early spring sailing was when I was a total kook. Found a patch of open water and sailed for a while. Then it was my younger brothers turn. He could not sail at all. He went out, fell in and tried to uphaul the sail and failed. Eventually he had drifted down to the end of the open patch and was stuck on the ice. The ice was not firm so he could not walk on it but it was firm enough so he could not sail or paddle through it. He ended up hacking his way through the ice with the center board and paddling his way in back to shore.
We did not have proper neoprene gloves so we used our mother's yellow dishwashing gloves. This was in the late 80s and we all remember the color combinations of the wetties in those days. There he was, yellow dishwashing gloves, red wettie, lying on his tummy hacking himself through the ice with a centre board on a big old Sailboard vario with green - yellow sail. A I was wetting myself with laughter.
The joy of getting younger siblings in trouble is priceless
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