This time, my 3rd LF trip, La Franqui did not deliver entirely, but it did deliver some PR's.

The conditions today were not simple.

Yesterday was totally unsailable, unless your name is Hans: 50-55 kts, which made it a boring day for the others, cars arriving and leaving all the time, everyone waiting for the wind to decrease, which it never did... being sandblasted constantly, with waves breaking onshore between 50-150cm high with low tide.

But today was actually sailable, but far from perfect, like I had the privilege of experiencing last year around this time. The water was hardly flat, the water level was swelling and sinking all the time, waves still breaking a little onshore here and there, water gushing on the shoreline sometimes 10m or more, which made it difficult to see where the separation between sand and water actually is. According to JM Degrelle the wave frequency is 3x every 10 minutes, as an ex-musician I cannot totally confirm this, but there was certainly some repeating pattern. Inbetween all this disturbance it was possible to find some quite flat stretches, but it certainly was not the pool table quality that everyone always hopes for.

All the while, everybody got at some moment surprised by some wave forming underneath the board, some crashes happened without heavy consequences. I played safe all the time, and always looked very well ahead and to the left to notice in time any swell or wave forming.

Avoiding the start sand bar deeper in the see, perfecting my near-shore instant-plane starting technique, I was stalling at 66-68 max with 64-66 avg.

The one 72+ run came as a surprise, I'm not sure how or why it happened. I remember stepping up, building up the run, and then everything somehow became silvery, with the sun on the water, the gust touching the water... the acceleration felt like going from slow motion to fast motion, a bit like with a car going faster than 160... it's another dimension.

So this one run caused what LF delivered for me this time : 

4 speed PR's: 

  Max. 2 sec.         71.77 -> 73.74

  100 m run           70.79 -> 73.29

  Max. 10 sec. run 69.29 -> 72.41

  250 m run           68.88 -> 71.12

Max display speed: 73,94 or 39,93 kts... almost there !!

Unfortunately the 10 sec avg stayed just below my standing PR (68,17), so this is my second fast session ever.

We as Belgian delegation had the water for ourselves during lunch break for the other nationalities. However, the water conditions became worse as the day advanced, the wind more and more gusty.

In the afternoon, Vincent did not stop trying to bring home that last needed 82+ run, Tom was sitting relaxedly in his beach chair after again having broken several PR's, Dirk tried one more run but concluded, like I did, that things would not get better, and so we slowly started the trip home.

Goodbye sunny La Franqui...

ps. - used the 22 instead of the 20 to get easier lift and somewhat easier upwind angle. It works for me, probably because I'm a rather passive sailor in terms of stance, board and sail manipulation.

- However, the 72+ run probably was because I actively pulled the front foot and rolled the board to leeward, + mildly slingshotting. 

- I used the instant-plane-feet-in-straps starting technique because I did not much like the starting point, which was quite far away into sea, some 75m off-shore and some 20m to the left of the waterpump. From there, some hefty chop and wind lulls had to be crossed before arriving at the beach to start the actual run. So I mostly started a few meters from the water's edge, in gusts of 30-35 kts (40 was too violent), thereby accelerating from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds - a thrill in it's own right :), you should try it too ! Both feet in the straps, classic waterstart position, wait for the gust, let yourself be pulled out of the water while pointing the nose in the direction, madly accelerate while hooking in.

Détail saillant: on the way back home, car broke down at 50 km from the beach. Then did a 800km panic drive only on gas (LPG), without ever shutting down the engine, including some short naps on the way, because the engine was nog going to start again if I would shut it down ! This is about the only disadvantage with cars on LPG: they need to start on petrol, if even during just a fraction of a second...so if your petrol circuit is not functioning anymore (I probably had a broken fuel pump), you're not going anywhere, unless you keep it running on gas.

Détail saillant 2: while being towed from below Paris to Belgium, saw Vincent V's motorhome also broke down along the motorway to Lille...?. Hope he had some help too.