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April so far in the Forces-of-Nature Diaries
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Member Details Session Description
Toys Used
Owner: Harry
Member






Member#: 186
Location:
Registered: 14-04-2003
Diary Entries: 418

13th August 2005
Windsurfing: Shoreham
Wind Direction: SW
Wind Stength:
Surf / Sea State:
Air Temperature:
Sea Temperature:
Weather: Sunny then overcast
Max Speed:
Distance Covered:

Plan for today was get to the beach early to have a drizzly depressing sail in marginal conditions before and possibly during the rain. Well...at least that's what I thought would happen.

Diddly-squat wind in the morning. Was picking up very slowly by 11ish so thought in order to beat the rain and catch low-mid tide I would have to take a chance and go for it, even though the 20mph gong had not been hit. Still very marginal when I arrived at Shoreham, probably not enough. Nevertheless, I rigged up and went out straight away. The wind was slowly but constantly building and I was barely OK at the start, just planing but underpowered, and struggling to stay upwind. After the first couple of runs though the wind then filled in proper and I was nicely powered up.

Game on. No problems getting going now, perfectly powered up, no blobbing. And I felt I was sailing above average, with a couple of planing exit gybes on the outside and three-quarter decent tacks on the inside. It was pleasantly quiet at the start but the masses must have soon heard the 20mph gong being chimed because it wasn't long before the usual Shoreham rush hour traffic had developed. (I counted 45 boards on the beach/water at one point). Still, never mind, it was windy. Just kept on building, so that I went through all the stages of powered-ness, from under to comfortable to well to maxed.....and then to over.

Yep, by about 2pm contrary to my expectations it still hadn't started raining but the wind just refused to stop building. Many people had changed down a good hour earlier, but I'd been just right and loving it. Now though I was officially OverPowered, like I hadn't been for some time. All good! But it couldn't last so I came in around 2.30pm to change down.

It's amazing how light and flicky the 5.2 feels in comparison to the power hungry 5.9. So much nicer. Now I was proper comfortable, just right, easy sailing, even had one nice backside bum-wiggle at a wave that jacked up on me near the beach. By now though the rain clouds were looming and the tide was coming right up, so I decided to call it quits before sailing became too uncomfortable in rain and bumpy high-tide-shore-break conditions. Indeed right on cue just as I was leaving the rain started to come down good and proper - so I'd timed it perfectly, very satisfying :)

Yet another good weekend! This summer the wind just seems to keep on slotting into place right when I want it, and not when I'm busy (e.g. like I was last weekend, when fortunately it wasn't windy). Even better today because I really wasn't expecting the conditions to be as good as they were. Good to see the usual suspects e.g. Billyboy, Basher, Garethh. Very pleased that I took a chance and got to the beach early, since it paid off as I caught the wind just as it was filling in. Meant I had a solid 3+ hours on the water, sailing well, got further with sorting out glitches in my gybes, tacks getting better, ditto body drags. Duck gybes were poor today though, dunno why, still all this is on a very small non-turny board, so should be easy-peasy when I do eventually get myself a slightly bigger freestyle-wave.
Toys Used:
Fanatic Bee 260 85L
Tushingham Vulcan 5.2
NP Jet 5.9
24cm fin  
NP summer suit  

 

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