Traveling around for over 2yrs now with ABK and living on the road definatly has its upsides.  Those upsides are usually what people think about when imagining my life windsurfing across the country and around the world.  But there are definitely some disadvantages to living a life out of a suitcase in the back of a van.  One of which is no real home base, no definable mailing address.  I knew last yr I was truly on the road when I received mail in a foreign country delivered care of Jibe City.  Now with a busted up board I can’t help but stop and think that out of all the places I travel to and stay, I end up in SF with my broken board.  By shear dumb luck [irish luck is sometimes like that] I find myself in the perfect spot to have bad luck happen [“luck of the irish” refers to this type of luck]  

So after leaving the airport with a claim filed with their claims office, and my luggage that included one smashed board.  I also had the pleasure of completing another set of paperwork to officially make my claim for a replacement board, and the task of finding a replacement board to take to Bonaire.  Here in San Francisco I have 2 RRD team riders who also have a 100L RRD TwinTip, you may be thinking that is not so special.  But due to that boards popularity and demand it is a very hard board to get your hands on, and both shops and distributors do not have a single one left.  So enter Jason Voss another local windsurfing instructor, one time ABK instructor who has graciously allowed me to borrow his board to fly to Bonaire with in January.  Amazing that he was willing to let me borrow his personal 100, especially considering the last thing I borrowed from him was a boom and not only did I drill 6 holes in it that very day, but I still have not given it back.   

San Francisco also affords me 2 of the best board repair guys in the United States Mike Zajicek who makes some of the best custom boards around Mikes Lab’s [unfortunately unavailable] The other truly gifted board repair guy started repairing boards as a retirement hobby and soon became so popular that he was working more then he was retiring. Despite deciding not to repair boards anymore this year, he looked at my pictures, and we set up a date for in person inspection.

So now enter the paperwork: What you need to save/collect in order to file a claim.

1. 1. Original purchase receipts for all affected items
2. 2. Ticket receipts
3. 3. All receipts charged for baggage
4. 4. You may also need to take pictures of damage
5. 5. Obtain estimates for repair or replacement/ if its a damaged bag they only cover it if they handed it over to Freddy Krueger and it is shredded, for which they have an in house repair agency that will slap a patch on it for you.
6. 6. If you were flying internationally you may need to provide ALL of your banking info.
7. 7. One secret form that I am not allowed to tell you about, must be filled out and sent back with all of the stuff above.
8. 8. DONT FORGET TO MAKE COPIES OF THAT: they also do not guarantee they will not loose/damage that either.

Now begins the wait, after filing all of your paperwork and sending it to the appropriate paper pusher, you will be notified within 2-4weeks of how well you did making your claim.  [assuming neither the post office or their office lost it]

So every windsurfers worst nightmare when traveling with windsurfing gear is arriving at your destination only to find out your board made it in a less then ideal condition.  This is now only the 3rd time that I have ever tried to fly with windsurfing gear.  I say try because the first time I packed my gear to fly there was a luggage embargo where I was flying to and I was unable to take my board and sails. The second time I flew with my gear my bag arrived duct taped together with a note from TSA [damn security people ripped my zipper off my bag] and a cracked nose.  It was OK though the ding on the nose was not that bad, and I could put some solar rez on it and wait to have it repaired as I enjoyed some sweet sessions on the East Coast!

This post however is not about either of those times... but the 3rd time.  Pictured to the right you can see the hole in my board bag as I picked it up from in front of the claim office.  Normally I probably would have missed this hole in my bag but when looking out the airplane window as my gear was being loaded I saw my bag so I decided to watch... where upon I noticed my bag was open.  Having TSA rip my zipper off the last time I flew I thought I made sure they could not do that again.  But when I picked up my bag at my destination the zipper was closed...odd I thought so I decided to check it out.   Take a close look and try and imagine what you think the board would look like... what kind of damage do you think????

OK so I bet you did not see that coming, and this is just with me unzipping the bag.  At this point I realize that this is not just your every day normal "ding".  I'm quite willing to accept a scratch or a crack or a dent or ding!  If it was a ding or something I would have just fixed it and been done with it but this was no ordinary luggage handler juggling accident.   Luckily for me my bags were right in front of the claims office for my airline and the guy "SURPRISINGLY" already knew my name.......

Six things I did not know but everyone should know about making a claim:
1.  Most airlines require you to make a claim at the airport where you picked up your bags.
2. Most airlines want you to make a claim within 24hrs of getting your bags.
3. My airline required that you make a claim within 4 hrs.
4. The airline will reimburse uninsured items for up to 3,300 USD.
5. With insurance you can be reimbursed up to 5,000 USD, for 1 USD per 100USD extra.......up to 5,000USD.
6. Insurance does not cover fragile items...... which very well may be a surfboard despite their willingness to sell you the insurance.

For more pictures and further details about making a claim on damaged windsurfing gear, make sure and bookmark Windsport as I will post further details about each step of my claim.