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Harry Member Member#: 186 Location: Registered: 14-04-2003 Diary Entries: 418 |
25th September 2005 Windsurfing: Shoreham Wind Direction: SW Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Glorious sunshine Max Speed: Distance Covered: At frickin last. First sail in over a month, the most frustrating ever, with 2 weeks of windy Weds/Thurs/Fridays i.e. the days I can never sail. GRRRRRR. Plan was to drive to Hayling yesterday to buy a new (well 2nd hand) 85L Tabou Rocket Air to replace my ageing Bee 260. So got in van (oh yeah recent purchase Al's Galicia van, old but cheap £650 and lovely Mazda E2000 LWB woohoo!), turned ignition, nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. F*ckity F*ckity F*CK. Breakdown man called out and problem diagnosed as a shagged starter motor. Slight relief there, could have been a lot worse, but not to be fixed until Monday.... Sh*t. Started panicking that after looking forward to today for so long, I wouldn't be able to get to the beach. But then knights in shining armour pat and basher step in with an offer of a lift so big relief all sorted. Cheers guys :) Anyway...arrived Shoreham 10.30am, just after squally rain had cleared. Still looked proper windy so thought I would be well powered on my 5.9 and pat's 2004 JP FSW 84 which he lent to me to try out. I wasn't :(. Utter sh*te first hour, several walks of shame, should have been on a bigger board, I don't have one, grrrr. Basher lent me his 6.25 and with minimal downhaul first run out straight away at last I'm planing, actually proper stacked. Came in to apply more downhaul but ARRRGGHH wind dropped again (plus maybe too much downhaul....). Was getting really pissed off now and thinking about giving up. But whilst chatting to Garethh the wind seemed to be filling in properly now. Back out on the 6.25 and aaahhhh at last the wind has sorted itself out and I'm proper powered up. After the frustrating month of no sailing rustiness meant below par performance at times (well that's my excuse anyway). Also annoyingly the wind filled in at the same time it started getting high tide lumpy, which killed off the waves, jacked up the shorebreak and meant sailing was more about suffering the lumpiness than being comfortable and going fully for the transitions. Pat was taking photos from the beach and I'd be interested to see if one of my body drag attempts were captured - showing a perfect drag, making people assume a perfect re-mount was completed! (er, it wasn't) Under glorious sunny skies the wind kept on picking up (sea breeze!!! sorry...) leaving me proper stacked. Could have been out on a 5.7 or smaller, if I had one, but probably wasn't quite enough for the 5.2, and no point changing to the 5.9, hence I didn't. After about an hour and a half of solid maxed out lump-bumping my limbs started cramping up so I called it a day. And went to buy a 2nd hand MK carbon 135-195 boom off a local Shoreham Beach resident for the extorionate sum of......£45. Nice. All that walk-of-shaming and then maxed out sailing meant today was a proper good work out. Now I'm shagged. Sunburnt. And happy :) Oh bollox I've temporarily lost my sunglasses. Well anyway next week looks frankly epic. Can't sail tomorrow but definitely Tuesday. (ah...just found them again.) And from Wednesday onwards due to building works next to my department there is talk that work will be severely disrupted, meaning that since I need to convert my masters dissertation into a journal article for publication I should be able to claim a few days "study leave". What a pain that will be not being able to go windsurfing because I am working from home...oh...hang on... ps my Bee is buggered. The starboard front deck pad has partially peeled away, revealing a 2 inch crack through which water has entered. Can't be arsed to fix it properly, no point, that board is so close to the dustbin anyway. Once it has dried out some ding stick will have to do the job. :( pps wrt Bee's replacement, I had at the top of my list any recent JP FSW 84. So was good to be able to try out the 2004 model today, and tbh I was slightly disappointed. I was underpowered, so not a fair test, but still it felt a bit too freestyley for my liking (not that I don't want freestyle capability, just not too much in this size board), and not all that early planing. Having just read up on the recent JP FSWs, the 04 model has indeed been described as the most freestyle orientated and the least early planing. It goes off the top of the shopping list. Now at the top is definitely a Fanatic Freewave 86 - sailed it in Tarifa and fell in love straight away. A good thing I tried that JP today, and will make sure I try all other boards before buying now, if possible. Will also try to have another go on that 04 FSW 84 but in better conditions, if pat will let me. |
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