Wednesday 30th October – Windsurf ***** - River Orwell - Levington – sunny periods.

Starboard Formula and Slingshot Hover Glide F/Wind with Tushingham Lightning 7.

Foil – 21.05 (PB) knot max., 18.71 (PB) knot ave., 9.09 knot hour, 12.47 knot mile, 20.90 km., 9.60 knot Alpha.

After yesterdays trip to the Stour I was going to have today off but Michael Galbraith posted on WhatsApp that he was going to Levington so as the sun was shinning with a nice easterly breeze, I decided to give it a whirl! So, after exercises and breakfast I headed over to the Marina arriving at 11.15. I haven’t sailed here with the wind in the east before but it is opposite to West which makes the best wind down the river towards Felixstowe Docks. It makes it hard to gauge the wind strength as the trees in Levington make the wind patchy in front of the marina but the few yachts braving the sunny but chilly day were leaning over nicely so after setting up the foil I once again went with my favourite foil sail, the Tushingham Lightning 7m. I was rigging that when Michael arrived to give his stubby new foil RRD foil board a try and went with 6m I think. The tide was very high with an hour to go before high water so launch was easy apart from hitting the rope of some small bouys just off the small launching beach, in fact I caught the rope three times!!! James Pollard can you please when you have a few minutes to spare please move the bouys out of the way:) Once out in clear water I had a couple of flights across the river but the wind was light and patchy here so headed down towards Felixstowe and got some of the best runs I have had foiling:) You could do mile runs in flat water and it was great fun trying to keep it flying all the way. I concentrated again on keeping both feet in the straps while hooked in and in the end got my fastest ever max and average although I did have one or two nice wipe-outs while trying to go fast but no pain no gain! I had to avoid a ship heading to Ipswich and it was good fun whizzing up behind the yachts and flying past:) You had to concentrate on keeping the board a foot out of the water especially with some big gusts coming through, also once flying you could keep it going through the lulls too. As I forgot to put my wind top on and despite the sunshine my hands were getting cold so I decided to head back before the tide turned. So, one of my best foiling sessions, much more fun than using a fin in theses gusty conditions:)

PS – A note about yesterday, my cheap little waterproof camera died yesterday when it took in water!

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