Monday 23rd August - Windsurf **** River Stour at Bradfield – sunny periods.

Foil – 17.92 knot max, 17.00 knot ave ., 13.17 knot hour, 16.57 knot mile, 49.76 km ., 13.52 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 8.5m.

Was keen to get out today after missing yesterday’s session on the Stour, but had a lovely walk along the River Gipping in the rain and visited my Dad so we still had a good day. Several Felixstowe sailers were heading over to Bradfield today but with high water at Mistley at 1.20 I had time to do my exercises in the garden, the forecast wall to wall sunshine was sadly in short supply being pretty cloudy for most of the session! Mag decided to come along today so made lunch and we left Felixstowe around ten for the 25-mile trip and were greeted when we arrived at our riverside parking by a strip of sunflowers, always lovely to see as they make a great photo:) There was already plenty of water but not a lot of wind so foils were assembled with most rigging sails in excess of 8m with me going for my 8.5. as Mag ate her breakfast in the van with great views. Michael Galbraith and I waded out first leaving Mag to read, do some puzzles and have a long walk to Wrabness and doing a circuit of the nature reserve, she loved it:) Out on the water the wind was very light so we spent the first hour searching for a gust and by some rigorous pumping you could get up flying, trying to avoid a survey boat chris crossing the river! I continue to practice my gybing and actually very nearly made a complete flying one, entry speed I think is the key and get your front foot into the strap quickly, easier said than done at times but the only time I went in was when I got in a muddle going upwind and stupidly breached which is something I rarely do now! We were gradually beating into the middle of the river and heading down to Wrabness where for some reason the wind dropped? Then on one long run right in front of the moored yachts at Wrabness the wind increased and I flow all the way up to the oil refinery at the end of Parkstone Quay easily 4 miles and it was brilliant:) There was some good wind now constantly 15 knots as I whizzed back with David Coles and Andy Mexome steaming the other way! It was so good I decided to do it all again and an average session quickly improved, foiling dose not get any better! Back at Wrabness and the now tide turning the wind went patchy so I decided to call it a day having been out over 3 hours covering 30 miles. Back at the van I had lunch with Mag who told me about her adventures, Andy and Neil came over for their lunch and Birthday Boy Ian Clarke came over for a word. Then the Farmer the very nice John came over and we had a very nice chat about the joys of farming, his son John junior who had been swimming in the river started to collect some multi-headed sunflowers for home and very kindly got one for Mag, and lovely they now look in a vase on our hearth:) As usual I was last to pack up and leave finally getting home around 5.30 after a little delay on the A 14 after a small accident! Not sure about tomorrow, marginal wind maybe NE so it could be Bradfield again or maybe Felixstowe or even save myself for Thursday the windiest day?

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