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| Owner:
mas Member Member#: 7693 Location: Registered: 29-06-2008 Diary Entries: 381 |
15th July 2021 Windsurfing: Bradfield Wind Direction: N Wind Stength: 10/22kts Surf / Sea State: Lumpy Air Temperature: warm Sea Temperature: warm Weather: Sunny / cloud Max Speed: 18.73 (knots - unless stated otherwise) Distance Covered: 21nm (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) This was my 3rd windsurfing session in 2021 and the first 2 at Bradfield was not enough wind, so was looking forwards to a decent foil. Planned to sail Wednesday, but accident / road block spoiled that, so turned back and did a 40 mile bike ride. Another 12 or so sailors turned up today and it was very windy at 12.00 with white water and measured 22kts in the gusts....game on or so I thought. After a chat with the pro's Colsey Nick and Graham all on 9 or 10, I went for 7.8 despite them all laughing too small. They were right! The wind eased by the time I hit the water, and yep I wallowed for nearly an hour only flying in gusts. Having sold the very unreliable, but easy to sail Slingshot, I am having technical difficulties with flying the Starboard race foil replacement. I rigged 115+ fuse to 900 wing but had the larger rear wing 330 and really struggled to maintain flight. The foil would drop at the slightest drop in wind + off wind it was breeching with huge slam downs, which chucked me off thru the front door twice, long time since that happened. Went back to the beach and just about everything was setup wrong! Mast track too far back, rear wing too big, sail too baggy and little did I know the rear wing spacer was the + 1 type for very light wind! I made all the fine tuning except I forgot to changed the spacer to -2 (holding the foil down / level when foiling in high winds). Just too much to remember - although I have all this data written down! Moving the track forward was the game changer. I was now foiling normal but not comfortable as the Slingshot. I used to let go with one hand sailing the SL, but the SB is pretty full on and always felt very edgy - travelling very fast. Today's speed was 18.7 and I never really sheeted in properly or ran it at the right angle to go fast, so the kit is very quick. The SL was at its limit - properly trimmed at 19kts for me. Rigged 9.3 North S type which was only a hand full at 20kts whilst the other guys were hanging on to 9/10. Colsey tried my set up and critiqued everything ffs! Sail too baggy, board over foiling (he could not sheet in). It wasn't until I stripped the foil down that I noticed the +1 spacer in place! I just need more time on the water to test what suits my weight. The huge difference I have noticed between the low aspect Slingshot (especially my old 84cm wing) and the SB race foil is the drop downs! The 84 wing was dog slow maxing at 15kts but it would glide all day thru lulls and landed like a jumbo slowly. The SB race dont. If you dont keep the speed up and change angle to get the fastest line, it drops like a stone, ruining a nice glide without any warning. The huge 84 wing was like standing on a floating platform. The racers have put me off fitting my 1100 big wing front wing (not low aspect but close) saying its too slow, but I might put that on to slow the beast up a bit and get some easier glides until I get used to it. I dont like the SB race foil on my Exo foil board, in fact I dont really like the narrow nose of the RF board, so that's my next change, a wider board to suit the foil, so I can really get out on the edge further and sheet in. Downwind the SB is much easier than the Slingshot, but I had to point fully downwind and my stance was awful. The rear foot straps were always getting in the way. Interesting day watching 3 very good wing foilers. Although not for me it did look cool, but they were so slow, I would get bored, as I did with the Slingshot. Its definitely a wave sport I think. Saw Sally and Peter – who is ow wing foiling and looked quite good! Colsey Nick and Graham were racing back and forth to past Wrabness, whilst Ian, James and Keith stayed near Holbrook. Keith is now a proper foiler and Rob pulled off several gybes. Didn't see much of pro's Shaun and Simon, but might have been re-rigging. Excellent day for watersports. I thought I was bad at forgetting things but one sailor was worst! He forgot to screw his foil to the board! After forcing the mast in the board, he didn’t fit the fin /mast bolts. He sailed off and lost it probably 100 metres off the shore. He had to wait till low tide (I left 8.00 ish) and using bino's he saw a small rear wing...very lucky! Think he waited later to retrieve in the sticky mud. Lesson learned, less haste more speed.... Max HR was 126 today so didn’t really get a workout, but next time maybe. |
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