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axxis Member Member#: 171 Location: Registered: 12-03-2003 Diary Entries: 18 |
20th July 2003 Windsurfing: 101 Beach, Durban Wind Direction: SW/S Wind Stength: 20knots Surf / Sea State: Glassy Air Temperature: 23 Sea Temperature: 23 Weather: Not a cloud Max Speed: Distance Covered: Fantastic session in the end. Arrived at 101 after a short surf at Battery. Swell was huge further North but almost non-existant at 101. Must be the bluff & harbour breakwaters blocking the Southerly swell. It was blowing in the parking lot but gusty down by the water. Very keen to sail because the conditions were so beautiful. Sea was like a mill-pond, water crystal clear and not a cloud in the sky. Seemed to be wind further out but definitely a slog close to shore. Worrying for getting back in an offshore breeze. Hal took the paddle-ski out to check the wind further out while Gareth and I rigged his kit for the guinea pig. As soon as I saw him hit a plane I rushed to rig mine. Stupid... I could see something was misaligned at the mast base but ignored it. Basically, the extension is rather long for the 7.0 sail and doesn't stick far enough into the mast to be stable but as usual I was in too much of a rush to care. Got to the beach and launced. Was exactly as I expected - very gusty. Not a chance of getting into the harness as the gusts would drop as soon as they came but I slogged out hoping for an improvement. About then I noticed the stuffed up mast connection and tried to gybe to head back and sort it out. Crack ! Fell in and immediately signalled to Gareth and Hal for help. That was a good move - offshore breeze and broken kit = trouble. Once they'd seen and gone to get the paddle-ski for the rescue I started swimming the rig in and checking the damage. base of mast had cracked a little and slipped off the extension, punctured luff sleeve. It was still attached to the board by the downhaul. I loosened downhaul and managed to separate board and rig. Took the ring and clip off the extension and put it down my wetsuit so as not to loose it. Then slipped the mast back onto the extension right up to the footpiece. Re-tied downhaul and actually managed to sail / slog the thing back to shore. Very tiring but luckily the wind was strong enough to get me there in most inelegant style. Hal was not pleased to have fetched the paddle-ski only to find me alright but I'm still glad he did so because it could have been worse and would have been a long swim if I couldn't sail back. Since the mast wasn't badly damaged, I decided to re-rig with the extension shortened by half to put much more of it in the mast. Worked fine. Obviously the sail wasn't perfectly tuned (not enough downhaul) but since I expected to break something anyway, thought it might as well be the sail which was long overdue for retirement. Got going again and things seemed fine. Still gusty and tricky but could get on a plane after about 100m. Had to stop to adjust harness lines a few times. Obviously CE had moved substantially back due to bad rigging. Battled to get back upwind and came in through / around swimmers and bodyboarders a few times. Was in control and I don't think they were too alarmed... like to think it was envy rather than alarm that caused the stares ! Difficult to get upwind because the shark-nets were blocking my starboard tacks - as soon as I'd get going and start to cut upwind I'd have to turn to avoid hitting them. A few good runs, though, and I was back at Gareth's starting point. Hal had arrived having rigged his 5.7 and we were all off. Got on a nice plane and soon came to the nets again. Initiated a chop-less chop-hop and cleared them beautifully. Only to nose dive on the other side and fall off. I was so concerned at getting the fin clear that I guess I landed too steeply. Still, I was now free - open ocean. Waterstarted and took off on a beautiful plane. That was the beginning of a superb session. Turned out that the nets were much less of an issue than I'd realised. In most places one could sail clean over them if one picked one's spot and once we were upwind enough we could avoid (go around) them completely. I hopped them a few more times with similar results when I drifted downwind but most of the time had beautiful clean runs passed. The reaches were superb. Slightly gusty and dodgy to start with but after 100m or so it was straps, harness and fully powered (if a little over) reaching right to the North harbour breakwater. A brilliant run over flat, clear water. Just brushing passed the last rocks of Vetch's reef took us over delicious blue-green patches of water. In all there were abbout 8 sailors out. The other 5 had launched from Vetch's. We were all making similar runs but they were so long there was plenty of space. Runs were about 2km and absolutely fantastic. The golden mile stretched out ahead and nothing but humming power in the rig. Gybes seldom came out on the plane close to shore because of the less reliable wind but I made some lovely carves on the outside. No jumps or wave sails of course but still an awesome experience. To top it off I totalled the 7.0 as I came in after my last run ! Hopped over the shore break and suddenly realised I was too shallow. Carved into deeper water and had the kit slightly rolled in the break. That was too much for the ancient 7.0 and trashed the second panel. Not too concerned as at least I am finally forced to throw it away. Had an amazing innings. Plan to replace it with Ezzy 6.6 infinity. Watch this space. darn, monday again, so soon ! |
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