Sunday 31st July - Windsurf *** - River Orwell at Levington – mainly cloudy with some light rain.

 Foil – 19.50 knot max, 17.61 knot ave., 6.94 knot hour, 15.22 knot mile, 31.13 km., 14.23 knot alpha.

Starboard Freeride 150 and Evolution Freeride foil with a Tushingham Thunderbird 6.5.

Funny forecast with the wind starting wsw and turning wnw and high water at 2.20 I thought that Levington on the River Orwell was probably my best option today, also gave Mag the opportunity to bike over once again for lunch:) With winds gusting to 20 knots I arrived at the marina at 10.20 and it was actually raining lightly and several squibs were racing towards Felixstowe docks. The rain did not amount to much and with some OK gusts coming through from the wsw I set up my foil, more rain and the wind was all over the place. I considered sails from 6 to 7.5 but in the end rigged 6.5 which was OK in the gusts! With plenty of water I launched around 11.30 but the wind was particularly light, only flying in patches in front of the marina. Things improved slightly as I sailed down toward the docks with some big gusts coming through but nothing constant. So, I played hunt the gust, had some fun with the many yachts on the river in the gloom, not much of evidence of sun today although it was very mild! I did manage to fly the length of the river and it took me the best part of 2.50 hours to fall in, with the wind tuning wnw had some nice gybes in the bay but with the tide now turned I started back, went to sail behind a large motor cruiser heading to Ipswich when suddenly the oafs on board started shouting for some reason. I quickly realised why as the idiots were fishing off the back and I soon had a fishing weight and 50m of line hanging from my sail, I was lucky it did not damage me or my rig, what complete numpties!!!! I headed to shore to untangle the line and Mag was there having been reading in the van:) A quick shower before lunch, pack up and home, July has been my best month of the year so far with 12 sessions covering nearly 500km. Maybe a couple of days of wind from Tuesday, fingers crossed:)

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