Monday 24th - Windsurf **** - The Dip at Felixstowe – sunshine and showers.
Foil – 15.73 knot max, 14.39 knot ave., 10.32 knot hour, 13.46 knot mile, 33.58 km.,10.09 knot alpha.
Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7m.
I woke with the aim to head over to Levington Marina to meet up with Rob and Michael but on checking the wind it looked marginal at best so gave that a miss hoping to go out somewhere in Felixstowe later after giving some time for the tide to drop a little! We actually had a really nice morning here in Felixstowe with loads of sunshine so managed to do my exercises in the garden:) After yesterdays session from The Manor I was keen to try The Dip for a change and we had our first rain at lunch tine as it clouded over:( We then had some amazing skies as several rain clouds moved over which did affect the wind at the end of the session. I arrived at the beach around 1.15 in the rain, that quickly cleared so I set up my foil then had to make up my mind what sail to use, the wind was very slightly off so it was difficult to judge but it did look fairly breezy a little way out. I nearly rigged my 6.5 as yesterday but, in the end, went for my 7m which worked really well, at times I definitely did not need any more especially as the sea was pretty big! It is not as good a beach to launch from as The Manor and also because the Deben entrance now comes close to shore right in front of the launch area there is some interesting waves and currants to sail through! I decided to sail away from the confused stuff and started beating down the coast in winds gusting in excess of 20 knots and I made the Manor Martello in ten tacks, deciding not to go too far offshore! I had plenty of sail on the beat and was a little nervous for the run back but I need not have worried as I had a very mellow broad reach/run close to the shore playing with the swell, hardly using the sail and not hooked in a lot of the time, just fantastic. It was so good I continued over the Bawdsey bay where the sea condition improved:) I had a few runs over there, then with the wind going a little patchy I decided to head back and called it a day as there is even more wind forecast for tomorrow:) I passed Ian out on his fin board with 5.6 and two more foilers had launched David and Paul with Andy having sailed past from The Manor! So no fast speeds today because of the big sea just fun in the waves, it was even better when the sun came out!
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