I was desperate for a good speed sail having not been out for ages, and having some new gear to try...  so arriving at Southend at gone midnight to get up at 4am didn't seem too big an issue. Shame the dog kept me awake all night!
And a shame the gales never really turned up! (although the drive down into a gale with driving rain and a wet road was interesting)

I had a top day though! Thanks to Antony Todd for arriving early to give me some much needed company, and later on Jason Grafton.

So nothing earth shattering. Struggled to get over 40 all day. Best peak 42.
Interestingly though I almost PB'd my Alpha with 26.6 knots.

Well worth going. I'm made up with the new Hot sails GPS sail. A giant leap on from last years, a pleasure to sail with, hopefully it can do the numbers when we get some proper wind. :)
 

Early doors at the Ray with Ant and Steve.

It wasn't blowing as forecast, although I had a good PB Session.

Really pleased with that.

 Nice day at Southend but a frustrating one.. Turned out to be not so windy in the morning after rigging up and Steve Thorp and I walking out at 4:30 am. so we made the best of the conditions and sailed till around 9:30am. i then decided to hang around and sail in the afternoon. The wind came through pretty strong at high tide so had to sit watching from the van. luckily around 4:30 pm i was able to get back out on the water and the wind was still pretty decent. i manged to get a few decent runs in, just couldnt seem to get good 10 sec runs which was shame. well done to Jason on your PB max and AV