Tuesday 24th November - Windsurf **** - The Manor at Felixstowe – some sunny periods and mild.

Foil – 16.89 knot max, 16.89 knot ave ., 10.76 knot hour , 13.69 knot mile , 38.78 km .,9.75  knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7m.

It’s getting to the time of year when I am not keen on open sea sailing but with a balmy 12 degrees and no water in our local rivers and with several heading to The Manor the deal was done. Sadly, the council have installed a parking meter at our favourite foiling car park and as I have a trailer it would cost me £6 for a sail but loads of us were lucky enough to get into a small parking area at the end of Felixstowe prom, the only drawback being you had to climb over the flood gate! Mag came down so she could walk back with Neil H, Ian C and Mark S already there with Paul S arriving. A good turn out for a cloudy Tuesday in November with Andy, Michael and Robert launching further up the beach! It was border line between foil or fin but in the end, everyone foiled apart from Neil with a SW probably gusting to 20 knots. I again rigged my go to foiling sail these days, the Lightning 7m with the others going for 5.5 to 6.6 depending on their size. I was not sure if the 7m might be too big but again was pleased with the performance of this sail as I headed off the beach. I was soon up and flying and with the sail being perfect I just carried on over three miles up the coast with the sea getting bigger and the wind increasing the further I went! I turned by the red and white bouy in front of The Dip and started the beat back which is always great fun especially into a big sea, you have to move constantly move to try and keep the board out of the water. I made it back to The Manor with no dramas and was having so much fun doing mile runs out to sea playing with the swell, not fast just mellow fun:) You could run off really broad and beat back easily, when the sun put in an appearance it was perfect, not the slightest bit cold:) Then my day went wrong, I was trying a few gybes and was ailing away from my launch beach when I though I hit something, coming to an abrupt stop, quickly realising that my front wing hag sheared off, there has been a spate of Slingshot failures so I have been nervous for awhile now. Then I could not believe my luck when while laying in the water my 76 wing popped to the surface, so it floats :) I grabbed it so that saved me a large amount of money as Neil and Andy came over to check in out, so thank you to them as I have ordered a VHF radio but it does not arrive for a couple of weeks. Luckily, I was only 760m from the beach so once I had stuffed the large foil down my float coat I easily sailed back to the beach, I was very lucky as I could have been miles away! So that might be the end of my foiling for a while as I sort out another fuselage!

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