Saturday 12th February - Windsurf **** River Orwell at Levington – mainly cloudy and chilly.

Foil – 19.94 knot max (year PB), 18.32 knot ave (year PB)., 11.74 knot hour (year PB), 16.67 knot mile (year PB), 35.25 km., 12.69 knot alpha.

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

Despite being a tad on the chilly side and with an early high water I was keen to get back on the water today as was Robert who has been away canal walking in the midlands:) We meet up at 9.15 and we were lucky that the long chains the marina workers had been fixing has been removed making parking much easier:) With high water at 8.23 the level had already dropped but we could still launch OK from the usual small beach, now all we had to do was make up our minds whether to go or not? With a good onshore breeze, ideal for here and not feeling too cold we decided to quickly set up to catch the tide! Boards sorted it was time to pick a sail, although it felt really breezy by the van, down on the beach it felt a little lighter so took a chance with my 6m while Robert was much more sensible going for 4.5! Wading out towards the marina channel and after 4 short tacks was soon whizzing along quickly realising, I had rigged too big as it was easily gusting well over 25 knots at times! The nice thing about foiling is you can sail well sheeted out to weather the bigger gusts and the nice thing about this direction is you can do really nice long two mile runs from the corner down towards Pin Mill where the water is at its flattest! Being chilly I did not push things too hard but still came away with a year’s best max, ave, hour and mile which is always nice and only went in once when pushing too hard on a reach! It was not the day to push the gybing too hard but managed a few OK ones. I was not too cold and was on the water nearly two hours, the biggest mistake I made was stopping in front of the marina to take a few pics and my poor hands quickly went numb with cold, I would not last five minutes sailing in the open sea or without my palm less mittens, I love them, sadly they have seen better days, a bit like me so will have to get another pair! With the tide dropping and the wind showing no sign of easing and with Robert already in I decided to call it a day and had an interesting dead run back to the marina entrance! Quickly packing up I was soon in the lovely hot shower; this is sure the best place for winter sailing. The wind is blowing all week with the tide getting better and hopefully milder too! So a top sail and still home before one in time to mend a puncture in my bike and cut some kindling, not sure when I sail again, its if I can get my wetsuit dry:)

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