Thursday 21st April - Windsurf *** The Dip, Felixstowe – sunny.

Foil – 17.40 knot max, 15.73 knot ave., 9.15 knot hour, 15.12 knot mile, 25.04 km., 11.13 knot alpha.

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

Pretty much the same as yesterday but not as good for me as I was conned into rigging too small, with my trailer parked at the top of the slipway and lightweight Ian already rigging his 5.6m, the wind was funnelling up the slip-way to 20 knots with it supposed to build I made the mistake of rigging 6m when I needed 6.5 at the very least with a 7m being even better, sadly I don’t have a 7m anymore:( Ian headed out first and to be honest he was up and flying he looked slightly under to me, it was at this point I should have changed up but went and gave the small sail a try. I struggled to get flying and quickly lost a groyne not helped by it was wind with tide. I came ashore to change up but the wind seemed to have got up so I went out again and in fact had some nice long foiling runs actually faster than yesterday. The wind then eased but with some very vigorous pumping I could get up flying but staying upwind was a struggle. I came ashore and nearly rigged my 7.8 but the tide was getting high and with four more breezy days to come I decided not to bother, still great to be foiling in the waves with wall to wall sunshine again :) Hopefully tomorrow I pick the right size sail, they say third time lucky:) Ian had a much better session, out 2hrs 30mins covering around 30 miles!

PS - there was a large dark shape on the shingle bar in the month of the River Deben that actually looked like a beached whale as one had recently been washed up on Bawdsey beach but on closer inspection it was just the way the shingle had formed, thank goodness, its always horrible to see a dead whale washed up :(

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