Site Designed, Produced and Maintained by
Pixelwave Design.
|
|
| ||||||
| Member Details | Session Description |
Toys Used |
| Owner:
mas Member Member#: 7693 Location: Registered: 29-06-2008 Diary Entries: 381 |
3rd September 2017 Windsurfing: Felixstowe Dip Wind Direction: S Wind Stength: 15kts Surf / Sea State: wavy lumpy Air Temperature: warm Sea Temperature: warm Weather: sunny Max Speed: 23.66 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 11.8 (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Fabulous day at the dip despite shaky start and gear failures including Craig busting his boom way off the coast near Bawdsey. Arrived 11 ish to a nice Southerly breeze, warm and sunny, with all the regulars the Hurrells, Simes, Andy, Swainey boy and Jason for once leaving the river. Wind was around the 15kts mark so big kit was required by all except Jason who only had 7.0m and was under most of the day. Rigged 8.5 Gaastra Twin Cam Phantom, that's an an excellent sail and would recommend it all day. Not difficult to rig, handles nice and is quick (2kts more than my no cam 8.6 Gaastra Savage). Hook up to the 145L Patrik freeride board. As always with windsurfing by the time we all rigged, the wind ease. Sea was OK for high tide and the launch bay wasn't dumping. Guinea pig Craig limped off the beach, crawled thru the river but was just off the plane. Decided to sit and chat till it filled in. 20mins or so the wind came back, just enough, to hook in for me although Andy Mex and Neil on his mini formula were planning hard. Just too light for me at 12kts. The wind filled in and we were all flying. I had to go thru the river mouth to get to the wind band, way out to sea. Craig was in front in the water, calling me over as he had snapped his boom. Luckily the inbound side was intact so he tied up the clue whilst I followed him to get back to the Felixstowe side, on an outgoing tide and low wind. We also had to go thru the river mouth which was foaming with logo high waves breaking on the side of the board. It just couldn't get any worse, but amazingly Craig limped down the waves without sheeting in then started a long slow beat making it just 100 metres from the dip. Lucky lucky surfer. He was back on the water after borrowing a boom, so back to my sailing. Starting looking for some flat speed patches on the Bawdsey side, which meant going thru the river, which was now fun as powered up. Huge rollers were kicking up which on my old JP146 would have struggled with control but the Patrik, a slow board really is very stable in the conditions due to the really square back. Started getting 21/22's OK but not good. Think Swainey went off to the pier and Simon snapped a mast in the meantime, derigging then doing the big swim aided by Craig. There are now 5 GPS watches recording data and bragging rights started with the runs now close to 23kts. Great reaching up and down not maxed but well sheeted in. Andy Mex was flying up and down, Ian planning hard, but by now Jason had so many no planning episodes on the 7m he called it a day. Hit 23.1kts going toward kite zone and in the fresh wind, it had to be now to get max speed. A tediously slow beat reach back towards the fludge to get high wasted a lot of the gusts but finally got on the downwind drag towards kite zone and felt I was flying. Alas, the wind direction wasn't perfect and started to run out of safe deep water so gybe a little early, but hitting my best of the day 23.66. Landing after that run at the dip I heard a loud bang, which was my North Shoxs suspension UJ ripping out of its socket. This is the second one to have completely shattered. No way is the North Shoxs connection robust enough for wavy conditions. It’s ridiculous that North wont increase the size of the tubing, and the holding screw. The tiny securing screw is way too small. Wind was still fresh so decided to try Bawdsey again. Bombing thru the river mouth at crazy speed saw Andy Mex standing waving to me....then the penny dropped I was in shallow water!!! Aaargghh went flying over the deck in my sail. Mercifully it didn't tear! Andy smashed his board nose however. It took me ages to get going again, in the rip tide and waves. Decided to quit whilst ahead. A great 5 star days sailing. The scores were all very close with fractions separating everyone. Craig at 23.81 with Swainey 24.3 and Andy Mex making 23.1 ish. I am using a GT31 + a TomTom runner 3 fitness watch to compere times. The tomtom showed 22.6kts whilst the GT31 23.66kts, not far out but slower on this occasion. Craig did well over nearly 3000 cals with double my mileage. My cals were 1877 for the couple of hours which again is impressive compared to the same period in the gym. Also interestingly both Craig and I hit max HR @ 159 me, him 149. Next round Bradfield next week in the Westerly’s. Some of the locals went to Harwich for their windsurf fest and slalom racing. |
Toys Used:
Statsbar:
| ||||||||||||||
  |
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
Web Design in Wales, UK by 
Pixelwave Design.
© Alan R Cole 2000...