Wednesday 16th February - Windsurf **** River Orwell at Levington – sunny and very mild :).

Foil – 17.77 knot max, 16.21 knot ave., 9.23 knot hour, 13.82 knot mile, 33.77 km., 11.14 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Vulcan 6m.

Fin – 25.74 knot max, 23.35 knot ave ., 0.00 knot hour, 18.20 knot mile (year PB) , 12.79 km ., 14.58 knot alpha.

F2 282 Ride with Tushingham Vulcan 6m and 36 fin.

I had two reasons to get to Levington early this morning, firstly I wanted to get out before Storm Dudley arrived here in Suffolk and secondly, I had an appointment with the physiotherapist at Felixtowe Hospital to try and sort my troublesome heel out! I arrived at the Marina at 8.30 and it was a tight fit reaching the parking spot but managed OK. It was a lovely morning, sunny and very mild reaching 14/15 degrees. There were loads of lovely flat water with the wind blowing perhaps WSW, not ideal but OK. I quickly set up my foil board and my initial thought was go for 5.2 but it did not look that windy so once again rigged my 6m as Robert arrived, in fact there were six sailors out here today using sails from 4.5 all the way through to 8m! With my winter wetsuit metal zip breaking on my last session I actually put my shortie on under my Autumn wetsuit which was a bit of a squeeze but managed it OK, not gloves required today, an ideal day for sailing:) The 6m was perfect to start with some decent runs diagonally across the river but then things went patchy for a bit. As you could not make it to the docks with the wind in this direction so I started to beat up river but the wind was patchy so I returned and with the wind maybe turning west you could make it to the docks with the wind really picking up now meaning you had to take it steady with 6m. The dock dredger was emptying its mud taken from in front of the container ships along the edge of both sides of the river. You had to be careful not to get too close although I did once, it took my wind and I dropped in as it turned by me. I was never in the and it headed off ok. I can’t believe they spend hours dredging a deep-water channel in front of the docks only to empty it just upstream, surely it only takes a few out going tides to put it all back again! Having been out two hours and with the wind gusting to 30 knots I headed back to check the time. As it was only eleven, I decided to have a few runs on the fin board before the tide turned! The first run over I was a little nervous about getting back so only did a short run to the far bank but my confidence grew and I had three mile runs over to the entrance to Trimley Creek, actually getting my best mile of the year! It was nice to be out on the fin board again although it was interesting sailing back through the steep chop running down the middle of the river! The big Harwich Lifeboat came to more up at the marina, perhaps because the next Storm Eunice arriving on Friday with winds expected to hit 80 mph, maybe time for me to have a few days off! Time to pack, quickly shower and even had time to drop my trailer off at home before heading to the hospital where a very nice young lady was very helpful about my heel. Mag and I then had a lovely afternoon with some old friends just down the road with a cuppa and cake with their daughter home for the first time in two years, great to catch up:)

PS – wishing fellow windsurfer Chris Stephens a speedy recovery after going off the front of his foil board and cracking a rib :(

Its sounding pretty wild outside as I am writing this report in the evening with the winds now gusting over 46 knots!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=stephen.squirrell.1&set=a.10223112790940810