Monday 6th July- Windsurf **** - River Stour at Bradfield – mainly cloudy.

Starboard Formula and Slingshot Hover Glide F/Wind with Tushingham Vulcan 6.

Foil – 17.74 knot max, 16.48 knot ave ., 10.34 knot hour, 13.31 knot mile, 44.70 km., 12.02 knot alpha (PB).

After 6 sessions in the last 7 days I hope we have some light wind days for my poor old body to recover! With some pretty full on fin sessions of late Mag and I headed over to the lovely River Stour at Bradfield hopefully to get out on the foil. I sadly left my brand new Exocet Foil board at home as it looked a bit breezy to try a new board and I am also trying to source a board bag which is harder than you think for a board 230 x 91 !!! With high water around one we arrived just before eleven with fin sailors Neil Hurrell and Peter Edmunds ready to set off with 7.5’s rigged! With the wind NW there was a bit of a wind shadow near the shore it was difficult to judge the wind strength although it did look windy in the middle of the river! Andy Mexome had arrived and was keen to foil so that decision was made foil it is:) Andy rigged 5.8 while I went for my 6m, the smallest sail I have ever used for foiling! Despite the cloudy weather I again went for my shortie, then Andy both set off together at 11.30 with plenty of water in the river and the fin sailors going well on the far side! Andy decided to head down river towards Shotley but as the forecast was for the wind to drop during the session, I went the other way, beating up to Mistley. I soon found the wind line and boy was it windy!!! But I am fairly comfortable now going upwind, hooked in with both feet in the straps! I flow most of the way and it did feel a little strange using such a small sail but it worked really well in the strong wind and I only hit the bottom once! The wind went particularly patchy so I turned in front of Mistley sailing club and started back. Sadly, the wind had dropped up this end of the river I thought I had made a mistake taking the foil out as I could see in the distance that the fin sailors were still going well! But I need not have worried as the wind soon returned after a couple of slogging runs. Going downwind not daring to sheet in running up and down the swell is such good fun and you can soon cover big distances! I did try to try some fast-broad runs but it is scary and things go wrong very quickly and ended up in the air a couple of times with the board upside down!!! But unless you push yourself you don’t learn anything, the only thing letting me down was my tired legs after days of windsurfing! I had some great runs both up wind and down ending up in Holbrook bay just past Wrabness.I am trying a few gybes now but it was a bit breezy to learn that! In the end I was on the water 3 hours having such a great time, nowhere near as fast as on the fin but it feels so much fast flying out of the water or just playing with the waves in the deep channel! With the tide dropping and the wind easing it was time to call it a day for a yummy sandwich in the van with Mag who had been on a nice walk to Wrabness Nature Reserve:) It was a good turn out for a dull Monday with at least half a dozen of fin and foilers out enjoying the good breeze. We all had some good banter while de-rigging and checking out racing foiler David Coles brand new board which is the size of a garage door and defiantly not for me, still he was out with an 8m sail in winds approaching 30 knots!!! Then it was time for a cuppa with a yummy rock cake and were as usual the last to leave!

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