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| Member Details | Session Description |
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| Owner:
Harry Member Member#: 186 Location: Registered: 14-04-2003 Diary Entries: 418 |
3rd February 2004 Windsurfing: Hayling Island Wind Direction: SW Wind Stength: 25-30 knots+ Surf / Sea State: Flat/small waves Air Temperature: 15 degrees Sea Temperature: Cold but OK Weather: High clouds Max Speed: Distance Covered: Wind and mucho mild temperatures forecast. So thought I would brave the cold water, make the most of the relaxed 2nd semester timetable and midweek days off, ignore my fragile hangover from the night before and try out a couple of 2nd hand wave boards from Shore watersports. After picking up the boards from Shore drove down to the sea front, got there around 1.45pm. Was proper windy. Started to rig up the 5.2 but then realised my long mast extension wouldn't fit all the way into my new mast and no adjustable head on my 5.2 ARRGGHHHH!!!!! So instead had to rig up the 2nd hand 4.5 from Shore, with the extension set at 12cm (as far in as it would go), and lots of space at the top with the adjustable head. Was actually the right thing to do since everyone coming off the water was saying wind was picking up, overpowered on 4.7s etc. Also meant I could try out the 4.5 which I wanted to buy. Hoped it would be OK on a 430 not a 400 and my 162-222 boom (quoted boom length was 159cm), but turned out fine rigged OK (apart from 12cm too much extension sticking out the bottom). First up for testing was the Fanatic Rip. Was proper howling now, overpowered for much of the time, largely due to not enough downhaul on the sail (I had put too much space at the top with the adj head, so couldn't downhaul the sail enough, thought it would be ok but wasn't was too powerful). Sailing performance was OK. Conditions weren't difficult and was happily blasting back and forth, but not making any gybes (excuse: overpowered-ness and rustiness from not sailing for 2 months+). Board felt good, not particularly exciting but was thinking I would buy it instead of the Quattro cos it would work better in more marginal 5.2 conditions. Due to overpowered-ness quickly made it upwind to the sand bar and waves, so some jumping but nothing good. Came in after about an hour, adjusted the head so I could put more downhaul on the 4.5, and swapped round onto the Quattro. As I was doing this very wierdly the original owner of the Quattro who had given the board to Shore to sell was there and came up to me! He said he would sell it to me direct for less than Shore (£380 instead of £425) if I wanted. At this stage thought I would prefer the Rip though so wasn't getting too interested. But I was wrong! Quattro mmmmm lovely lovely board. Probably helped that I was well powered up and so was having no trouble getting it planing and sailing it than the slightly bigger/easier to sail Rip, but anyway it felt so much more lively and up for action than the Rip. Suddenly I was jumping well, including a couple of proper good ones, gybing better with dry gybes appearing (very pleasantly surprised with my gybing performance on such small boards after so long since my last session), and generally having FUN! Straight away was reminded of the happy days on JP wave boards in Jeri; the Quattro felt very similar. Sail was rigged much better now so no problems there was much more comfortable and stable. I liked the sail a lot definitely decided I would buy it. Only problem was the Da Kine thermoform footstraps, which I couldn't adjust without a screwdriver so were a bit too small for my booted feet. But having those mutts-nuts footstraps on the board instead of your bog-standard ones is definitely another incentive to buy it instead of the Rip. So all in all great session in nuking winds on nice little wave boards. Great to have such a good session after so long away, in v good conditions and surprisingly no problems with the cold water. Will head back to Hayling tomorrow to buy the Quattro off the guy. Just hope it works with the 5.2. |
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