Wednesday 8th October – Windsurf ** - River Orwell - Levington – sunny periods.

F2 Zantos 295 with 39 fin and Tushingham Lightning 6.5 m.

Fin – 29 knot max., 26.01 knot ave., 7.14 knot hour, 0.00 knot mile, 25.36 km., 16.11 knot alpha.

It’s been a bit of a frustrating week with wind forecast but W to WSW but the tides have not been on our side with out going tides and little water in our rivers! Yesterday the wind arrived late afternoon a bit late to go windsurfing so we went out on our bikes instead. So, with Friday looking promising for a trip to Point Clear I was keen to get out today and after dinner with the wind increasing, I decided to check out Levington Marina arriving at 2 with still enough water to launch with no problems out of the entrance. There were some good gusts coming through I got off the F2 Zantos 295 with the aim of rigging my 7m Lightning. It was then that things started to go wrong, firstly I had a broken battern on my sail, so swopped to the 7m X-15 but then rigged it with my 4.60 mast not sleeved properly which then split the join, so I now haven’t got a 4.60 mast, so if anyone has one they do not want please let me know? I then had no choice but to go home or that a chance with my Lightning 6.5 and hope it was windy enough! I set off out of the marina entrance and found some good gusts straight away but they were short lived and a lot of time was spent wallowing back and forth waiting for the wind. You can see from my top speed, just shy of 30 knots and average that there were some good gusts but sadly it only resulted in short planing runs:( The session involved running out of wind each side of the river so you had to wobble to the side jump off and start again. I did get some OK gybes with two crackers right in the Marina entrance! Then things went wrong, half way around a gybe I had a change of wind direction near the shore, got back winded and fall with my harness hook going through my board, I then had trouble getting it out. I managed to get in my depth and left it out. So not a great session, broken mast, board and sails but at least I got wet and it wasn’t cold!

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