Owner:
squiz
Member

Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2091
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17th February 2021
Windsurfing: Levington Wind Direction: SW Wind Stength: 10/25 Surf / Sea State: flatish Air Temperature: 9 Sea Temperature: 5 Weather: cloudy Max Speed: 20.54 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 24.25 mile (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise)
Wednesday 17th February - Windsurf **** - River Orwell at Nacton Shore –
cloudy.
Foil – 20.54 knot max, 18.78 knot ave (spot PB)., 12.95 knot hour (PB),
18.07 knot mile (PB), 39.00 km.,13.00 knot alpha.
Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning
7m.
With a few issues with my back, joints and hands not helped by the cold
weather I did not fancy an open sea session at The Manor with the water
temperature only 5 degrees and with my favourite go to winter venue
Levington Marina still closed for windsurfing I headed over to Nacton
Shores again. The marina is reviewing things next week after Boris makes
another statement when he is supposed to be lifting a few restrictions
hopefully as the country has done a wonderful job with the vaccinations.
With high water at Ipswich at 3.35 pm. I had the morning at home doing my
exercises and missed the best weather with the sun even managing to come
out! Then around mid-day after putting my big Xantos on the van roof just
in case it was windy enough for a fin and drove the 8 miles to the car park
which was full being half term did not help as this is a popular spot
despite the overcast skies with a little fine rain! Several people left and
I managed to get my parking spot by the gate, the closest to the water and
walked down to the river to check the conditions. The tide was fairly high
with a good onshore breeze, it’s always hard to judge there as it is gusty
here because of the trees on the far bank but I set up my foil board and
took a chance with my favourite foil sail, the 7m Lightning good for winds
from 15 to 25 knots:) I had to walk out about 100m to find deep enough
water and after a couple of tacks I was soon heading down river towards
Levington Marina. I was up and flying as soon as I passed the tree line on
the far bank and was pretty much in the air for the best part of two hours.
I had the whole of the River Orwell to myself, just love the solitude here
with only a couple of yachts out and the smelly Border Force boat again.
The SW wind is perfect here to do long two mile runs in fairly flat water
never being far from the launch bank making it a lovely safe winter venue:)
I felt pretty comfortable for most of the session only going in once on my
last run back and boy the water was heart stopping cold and I defiantly
made the right decision coming here as you can sail much longer without
getting cold! In the end I had 5 runs past the marina and was pleased with
several PB’s including my best ever n/mile with 9 over 14 knots, also my
best foil hour of 12.95 plus some OK alphas even though I was not pushing
it because of the cold and it is always nice to get over 20 knots on the
Slingshot foil! So, can’t fault the session and would have given it 5 stars
if the sun had come out! I packed up trying to avoid the dog crap before
stopping up the lane to take some pics of the lovely snowdrops on the
entrance to Broke Hall estate, just beautiful:) Some really mild weather
breezy weather coming for the weekend, shame the tides for the river are
not great!
Photo Gallery Here
MK booms here
77 Sports (Exocet) Here
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