Wednesday 2nd - Windsurf ** - The Dip at Felixstowe – sunny and hot:)

Foil – 14.93 knot max, 13.66 knot ave., 4.49 knot hour, 11.42 knot mile, 19.64 km.,8.78 knot alpha.

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

After three days foiling at Bradfield, I had yesterday off as pretty knackered and the winds were very marginal and I am not a big fan of light wind foiling, if I am struggling to fly and finding it hard to stay upwind then I should be out biking or walking! I tried my 9.4 to see if that helped my light wind, it didn’t, in fact I would have been better off with something smaller, I think. I am definitely not going down the mega big kit that racers use but perhaps a dedicated big foil sail might help but I can’t afford one of them so will forget about worrying about flying in under 10 knots of wind, in fact my best foiling sessions are in winds of 15/20 knots!

Still back to today, the fantastic weather continues here in Felixstowe with wall to wall sunshine and hot too. This was the last day with any chance of wind so I keep an eye on the Landguard weather station while I did my exercises in the back garden while improving the tan! The wind was again marginal but I decided to hitch up the trailer after lunch to check out my local spot, The Dip, dropping Mag off at The Fludgers so she could walk home. Reaching the beach, I was surprised now windy it was, it looked perfect with an ENE wind gusting to 17 mph! After setting up my foil board I made the biggest mistake of the session, I went for my 7.8 instead of the 8.5! I put my shortie on for the first time but even on a sunny day like today, if you had a long session, you would get cold! It started well as I set off and was soon flying well over a mile out in lovely smooth water with a deep blue sky with a few wispy clouds, just lovely. It then turned into a slogging session waiting for a gust and then with some vigorous pumping you could fly but could only stay in front of the launch beach, if you don’t have enough wind to sail upwind and down it is not much fun:( Still I had several runs back and forth flying at times, not bad considering how light it was!

Foiling newcomer Chris Stephens who started on 6m but soon changed to 7.5 had a great long flying run out but then he too struggled to get going.  Another fairly light sailor Paul Smith came down and had some nice runs with his 8m but had to pump to get going, his gybing is coming along nicely, just needed a little more wind! Still it was nice to be out in the sunshine, hopefully will rig the right size sail next time!

PS - I got some nice pics too, also have had a pic in two day running in the local paper and one on ITV's About Anglia weather this evening so am well chuffed :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=stephen.squirrell.1&set=a.10221824736140245

http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms

https://www.77sports.co.uk/