Owner:
Harry
Member
Member#: 188 Location: Registered: 15-04-2003 Diary Entries: 1
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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.
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