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Basher Member Member#: 165 Location: Registered: 09-03-2003 Diary Entries: 18 |
8th October 2003 Windsurfing: Brighton Wind Direction: I wish I knew Wind Stength: I wish the wind knew Surf / Sea State: pancake or pizza, then half pi Air Temperature: pretty warm Sea Temperature: tried not to notice Weather: eccentric Max Speed: Distance Covered: This is about food. My mum is famous for the cakes she likes to bake. But we're never quite sure what we going to get for Sunday tea-time. Sometimes it's a light sponge, other times a more substantial Madeira Cake – which she does particularly well. My favourite is perhaps the tiered sponge my mum does – there are different layers and each is a surprise, even more so when they mix well together in the mouth. My least favourite is 'Fruit Cake' or Xmas Cake – my mum's version is very traditional, heavy like a brick and full of lumps and voids. Eat it and you have to lie down afterwards. Rather like now in fact. I'm only moving to reach the telly control, the keyboard here, and to do hamstring stretches. I'm totally wiped out after sailing all afternoon in unexpected wind. I have to admit that I read the forecast wrong today, and trusted secondary reports (like 'windguru' – rubbish) rather than check the run of isobar charts like I usually do. But, hey, it's tiring to check every day isn't it? And to try and give a summary here... But the barometer proved to be my saviour yet again – and when it started tumbling before lunchtime I knew we had something coming. It's a bit like when I can smell baking in the kitchen, if you like. We're gonna get cake, but which sort? You're new here? OK. You may have no wind outside right now but, as a rough guide, if the barometric pressure falls at a rate of 1mb per hour then a force 6 is probable. If it falls by 2mb per hour then a force 7-8 is likely. You can buy watches with barometer functions now. Not very accurate but useful on the beach. Anyway, back to cake. The wind is like one of my mum's layered sponges. There's a certain wind speed and direction at ground level, a different wind speed and direction one tier up, and often the upper wind is totally different again. And so it was today. Is that bloke who asked about clouds earlier still here? Well, we had every sort of cloud today and warm winds blew through Brighton, as a cold front approached, and then the sun broke through for a while and tried to mixed the layers of cake all together (and largely failed, as it does at this time of year). Anyone still with me? Probably not. So it's lunchtime, the barometer is falling fast and yet we've only got about force 3 on the beach. I rig a 6m sail anyway, and windsurfing friends are looking at me a bit oddly. (Not for the first time, I might add) But they don't head off home. The wind is side shore (more or less westerly) and not quite offshore (NW) as forecast, but within half an hour I'm planing flat out. I'm on a floaty 100 litre board because this is Xmas Cake wind. Lumpy and full of holes too. After a while the wind starts to build and I could be on a 5m at times but then there's another lull and I'm convinced it may soon go offshore as the (now building) cloud passes over. This increasingly- dark cloud is already heading 25degrees OFF the land , whereas the surface wind is stubbornly cross-shore. This surface wind is lumpy and full of holes because it's reached us from several other beaches where they've all already had a nibble. The gusts are getting stronger but rather than change down I decide to switch metaphors. So the sea was asleep when the cake arrived at the table so it started off flat, like a pancake. IE, no waves. But after an hour of two it's more like a deep-pan pizza, which is ok if you can jump an olive and can pick an anchovy that's heading your way. (Did anyone notice that switch there?) One by one more sailors appear on the water but most choose to launch upwind from me, either at the King Alfred Sports Centre car park, or from the beach off Hove Lagoon where there are no drug addicts and they have hot showers. But these sailors are real handy for me because I can see what the wind is doing, because they'll get it first. (Those noisy bastards who now own Brighton Pier have taken all their flags down again, and it's amazing how you miss wind indicators when you've got used to them). It doesn't actually rain and so we don't get the offshore windswitch that I'm expecting. It's quite extraordinary – like the other week, I'm ready to rush ashore to call the lifeboat out because there are at least 8 kite-surfers out upwind of me and they don't know sh*t about weather and they certainly haven't noticed that the clouds are streaming off the land whilst we sail in onshore winds... But in fact nothing happens. The front is weak and there is no rain. It's not brilliant sailing in these gusty conditions and when the wind eases a bit I go ashore and put the kettle on. Maybe that's it for the day, and I've had a better than expected sail. With the clouds now clearing that's the front gone through and the wind will probably now drop and go offshore anyway. But it doesn't. In fact it continues to swing in 5 minute cycles; 5 minutes onshore, 5 minutes dead cross-shore and then 5 minutes off shore. I tell my beach hut neighbour that her shutter – which she has just leant against a lampost – will blow down in five minutes. And when it does, she looks a bit scared. Like I'm weird. Like I'm David Blaine maybe. Anyway, what I hadn't seen on the weather charts was that a second front was due. Luckily I hadn't taken off my wetsuit. At about 4.30 the wind swung a lot more onshore to about WSW and picked up. I'm just finishing me tea. Crikey, 5m weather! That umm... really takes the biscuit... It was still a bit gusty so I go for 5.7m on a floaty wave board. You can really hang onto those Tushy Rock wave sails if you crank on the downhaul. The waves were now like five bar gates or smooth skateboarding half pipes as the tide pushed back in, and this was the best part of the day. Everything comes to he who waits by the stove. (You get to lick the bowl) The only downside was it started getting dark at about 6pm, and you couldn't see the waves. Begrudgingly I packed up. As I de-rigged there was a hint of a sunset, with the sky above a cloudy horizon turning ice cream pink. Maybe that was just the icing on the cake...? Good winds, Basher PS. The forecast for the south coast on Thursday is now looking better by the way. Chocolate Brownies anyone? |
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