Thursday 8th October - Windsurf *** - River Orwell at Levington – cloudy with heavy rain.

Fin – 27.21 knot max, 25.60 knot ave ., 13.23 knot hour, 18.27 knot mile, 34 km ., 17.69 knot alpha.

F2 Zantos 295 with 38 fin and Tushingham X – 15 7m.

It was a strange forecast today with a few hours of strong WSW winds then switching offshore so after doing my exercises and with the rain stopping, I thought I would head over to Levington as I didn’t fancy an open sea session by myself with the wind probably going offshore, pushing 30 knots too at this point! I arrived at the marina around midday with loads of water to fin but the wind was looking up and down. I set up my F2 Ride 282 at 115 lt. and was not sure what to rig? Friend Jamie the foiler who works at the marina came for a chat and we had a rainy squall with very strong winds from the wsw which made sail choice even harder! Things then calmed down so I rigged my 4 cam 7m and with the wind dropping but headed out anyway. I had a couple of runs down towards the creek entrance towards Trimley Marshes, planing in patches. With the wind going light I stopped by the marina as a huge black cloud approached. I had torrential rain for a short spell, sheltering under my sail hoping the wind would pick up, which it did, completely switching direction, closer to NW, my first run across, now heading in a different direction, check the pic of todays tracks to see was difficult to see as the rain was still heavy. The rain then stopped and I had a really nice hour doing diagonal runs across the corner. I tried some fast runs but it quickly lumped up especially in the middle of the river but as yesterday I was getting some good gybes both sides of the river:) With the wind again going patchy I started to beat back and got back OK with the wind now well cross off! So my 5th session in as many days with more wind forcast for a few days to come, October just keeps giving and I only had to drive 6 miles today to get a sail, plus a top shower at the end:) I then had another chat with Jamie who said I had a pic of Levington Marina in the local paper, the EADT, if anyone has a copy can you please let me know?

https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=stephen.squirrell.1&set=a.10220098943236501

http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms/