A really nice day on the Ray - sunny, windy, summer wetsuit and decent speeds!

I'd arranged to meet up with Ian Richards and Ant Todd who was turning up for his first taste of real speed sailing. Top effort on getting a 36.85 with a 90L board. I think Ant is now hooked and planning to get a smaller board! Stephen Squirrel was also sailing with us after his time in France. Just three other GPS windsurfers - two I didn't recognise and one who we see occasionally on NP Speedseeker sails.

The wind was a good strength (building throughout the session) and had a bit more west in it than an actual SW. This made the western course too choppy so we spent the whole day on the eastern course. It was pretty square and we were able to sail back upwind next to the beach so high speeds were mainly when bearing off 20 to 30 degrees.

I started off hovering around the 38's / 39's (peaks) and 36's (10s) but as the wind got stronger my speeds improved. 40's turned to 41's, then 42's and 43's. I was pretty stoked to get my first 44 on the dial (44.70 knots) which was the fastest of the day until Ian got 46.15 about 30 seconds later!

It was a long session - 5 hours out on the water with over 4 hours actually sailing. I learnt a fair bit during the session and most important of all had a great time!

Where were the other UK speedies?