Saturday 28th August - Windsurf ** River Stour at Bradfield – sunshine and showers.

Foil – 18.97 knot max, 17.40 knot ave ., 7.24 knot hour, 14.68 knot mile, 18.88 km ., 13.35 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

The forecast looked good for another trip over to the River Stour at Bradfield my third of the week with Mag coming every time:) Wind 15 to 20 maybe starting north but turning more east as the day progressed with sunny periods so with lunch packed we left Felixstowe at midday arriving 40 minutes later to get out favourite parking spot with the only other person there at the time was fin sailor Jason who was busy rigging his 7.3, which to be optimistic when you looked at the river as the onshore wind looked pretty light and gusty! Still, we had a nice chat with Jason as several others arrived, it was going to be fairly busy as this is the only local venue that works with the wind in the north! I then set up my foil board and took it to the waters edge as the wind really picked up to a good 20 knots, things were looking very promising! I wanted to rig an easy use sail, not too big with the idea of trying to sort out my foiling gybes so rigged my nice Tushingham Thunderbird 6.5 and put my full wetsuit on as the sun was in short supply. By the time I was ready to set off the wind had disappeared so I quickly rigged my 7.8 and did not want to be caught out on the water with my 8.5 if the big wind returned! On attaching my sail to the board at the waters edge I noticed my mast had not sleeved together fully so had to de-rigg and sort that out! Wading out in light airs it was a case of floundering about waiting for a gust to pump up on, not great and we were getting rain showers too being very gloomy now:( I did not fancy venturing too far away from Bradfield today with the wind all over the place so stayed in front of the launch beach and am glad I did because the wind switched a little more east and really picked up. I had several lovely long diagonal runs up river in super flat water trying to go fast but not helped by the fact I probably had over a metre too much sail! I even considered returning for my fin board or change down to my already rigged 6.5 but the big wind did not stay long and quickly became very up and down, shame really as I was only a couple of runs off getting a nice average for me on the Stour breaking 18 knots four times! I had a few OK attempts at gybing and am getting braver now going in much faster, just got to get my feet switch sorted out! Then the wind turned back more north and all but disappeared so I did a wobbly run back to join Mag for a cuppa and cake, she had been on a nice walk to Wrabness nature reserve collecting another pot of blackberries:) Although the wind returned in patches it was not enough to tempt me out again so I packed up and got a few pics of the others sailing before heading for home. The wind continues to blow from the north for several more day, fingers crossed it swings more NE so I can get out at Felixstowe as high water is getting a little late in the afternoon to make it worth while me driving 50 miles for a session here!

PS   - good day as got another pic in the local paper:)

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