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Basher Member Member#: 165 Location: Registered: 09-03-2003 Diary Entries: 18 |
10th June 2004 Windsurfing: Brighton Wind Direction: SW mostly Wind Stength: 20-25mph Surf / Sea State: Flat to lumpy to waves Air Temperature: warm enough Sea Temperature: not too bad Weather: hazy then sunny with highcloud Max Speed: Distance Covered: Hang on a minute. I just want to finish this bacon sandwich. And without slopping ketchup over the keyboard. (You think that's messy? Well you should have seen the Basher Beach Hut, earlier tonight.) There's nothing worse than coming ashore and smelling the welcoming charcoal and singed meat fumes from the Barbecue – and then finding out the b*st*rds that lit it have eaten all the food. OK I'm not pissed, but 2 bottles of beer on an empty stomach are a bit much for me. Who cares? Such a great day today. We'll get on to the windsurfing in a minute. But first, we had one of 'those' conversations. Some armchair-sailing t**ser, who hangs around my beach hut, was a student back in the 1970s (unlike the rest of them – students now, and very hungry...Like Gannets, they are.) and he said that the problem with the wind recently was that we're all trapped in a 'Marxist sphere of conciousness'. All I'd said was that it was surprising there were so few people out sailing tonight. And he said Karl Marx would understand this. (His name is Dylan, by the way. No. really.) And Dylan reckons that nobody was out sailing because most windsurfers are trapped in a Marxist 'sphere of conciousness'. (OK. Maybe it was Lenin, or Chairman Mao?) Anyway, the idea is that you get so set in your ways that you can't think beyond your current values or aspirations – or even your current routine. With windsurfing, after a period of no wind, you actually don't believe it will ever be windy again. So you are not prepared for when the wind finally arrives. Which was certainly true today. I sent out loads of texts before I launched, mid-afternoon today. 'It's gonna be windy.' I said, 'Get your arse down here...' '6m weather etc' But no. Not much response. (This might have something to do with the fact that the wind over the last couple of days has died at 5pm). You could actually track the wind today as it headed our way down the English Channel. I was only worried that, for the south east, it would arrive after dark. And, indeed, it's still blowing here now, at 1am. When the clouds started to thin in Brighton this afternoon, the upwind Worthing weathersite was logging 20mph gusts – so work was put on hold for the day. I launched with a 7.8 on the 'Hyperdermic' first, just to make sure I got a sail. Half an hour later I got worried about my dentists' bills. Changing down to a 6 metre I took out the JP Freestyle 101 which was great until about 5.30pm, when we got the pre-high tide lull. Back to the beach hut for a cup of tea and further texts ("No , it's not over yet..." OK. Please yourselves. I'm having a BBQ at the beach Hut though...") Then the wind came back– but I went for a 7m, assuming the wind would ease as the sun went down (In fact it increased, should have stuck with the 6m). What happened next is fairly typical for anyone who hasn't been able to work their kit properly for for a while. I was out the back off Brighton, between the piers, and pumping hard down a wave, when my boom disintegrated. One side sheered at the mast jaws. Then the back end twisted and broke – and suddenly I had nothing left attached to my sail, except the front end of the boom on the port side, which was still clamped to the mast. The wind was SW which is onshore here – so I managed to float ashore, flying the rig with one hand on the mast and the other along the foot. It took a good 20 minutes to reach the beach. No-one called the lifeboat. Although I would have, had I been watching, from the beach. (Where were the Brighton lifeguards? Gone home, and managed by a seafront office who also 'knock off' when the beach is still packed. The same seafront office that would like to ban windsurfing in Brighton. Since i've been making a fuss about this, I think they don't like me!) OK. I got ashore under my own steam. And there are no sharks in Brighton. Not in the water, at least. I have another big boom for my lightwind sails, and this allowed me to re-rig and to sail on, for the next hour or two. In the end, I was over-powered again. But isn't this how windsurfing used to be? Before we got so set in our windless ways? Before we got stuck in our thought sphere of arm-chair sailing If only the students at the beach hut had saved me some food, I think it would have been a perfect day. Full Marx, in fact. |
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