Friday 11th October – Windsurf *** - Point Clear – cloudy with showers.

F2 277 Ride with Tushingham X-15 5.8m and 30 fin.

Fanatic Falcon 80 with 28 fin and Tushingham X-15 5.8m.

Fin – 31.024 knot max., 29.14 knot ave., 8.04 knot hour, 16.18 knot mile, 41.10 km., 16.61 knot alpha.

A day that promised so much and once again Point Clear failed to deliver, with a midday high Mag and I left Felixstowe at 7.40 arriving first on The Green an hour later. With wind gusting to nearly 30 mph on the beach and plenty of water it looked promising so I started with unloading my F2 Ride 282, then the Fanatic 80 but thinking it might be too windy for the big board and not windy enough for the small one I set the F2 Ride 277 up to go with my Tushingham X-15 5.8 which needs a huge amount of wind! Then Roger Vickers arrived, I think his first windsurf since I put my rig through his campervan windscreen several weeks ago and he was brave enough to park next to me again! He said his son Paul, now a very keen road cyclist was coming, his first windsurf for 7 years apparently!!! Roger rigged 5.7 while Paul went for 5m as I set off. It was a lumpy launch for PC and not windy enough for my small which I decided to try first:( I was not going to clear the rock groyne as you head towards the lagoon so headed to the beach and walked around the back of it and set off again. It was still a beat over to the far side with the wind direction not being very helpful, it must have been S of SW! I soon discovered the small kit was way too small with the wind being horrendously up and down, a trend which sadly lasted all of the session:( When the wind was up it was fine but when it dropped it’s a real tiring struggle on the 80 lt. board! I did manage one 30 knot run but at times you needed 7m and 6.4 would have been a much better choice but with the wind in this direction I don’t think it would have been much faster as it was particularly lumpy! Roger and Paul were going better but were on bigger boards so I returned to swop to my 100lt. F2 Ride which was a lot easier to sail even if the 5.8 could have been bigger because as soon as you went broad it was way too small. Local Keith Farmer joined us but didn’t last long on his huge 120 and 7m, in fact no one seemed to stay long and I was soon out with one other sailor who seemed to be enjoying being thrown off the front! I did manage to up my speed to 31 knots but the wind was really patchy now and I started to wobble back to call it a day when I saw Peter Cutts slogging out to join me with the wind now all but disappeared and I was wondering now I was going to get back! A big cloud came down and visibility went and it started to rain. We had a nice chat over by the shingle bar and with the tide going out the lagoon was looking good! Then the wind came back and I had a few runs to keep Pete company but it was getting pretty shallow so it was time to call it a day and manage to get back before the mud appeared by the Green! We had a nice catch up chat in the van with Pete, everyone else had long gone before packing up and heading home! In the end I was probably only one good run off a 30 knot average after getting two 30 kt 10 seconds!

https://www.facebook.com/stephen.squirrell.1/media_set?set=a.10216767207305185&type=3

 http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms/