Sunday 29th September  – Windsurf **** The Dip at Felixstowe –  mainly cloudy.

Foil – 17.36  knot max, 16.00 knot ave, 12.48  knot hour, 15.24 knot mile, 32.56 km., 13.22 knot alpha.

Starboard Freeride 150 and a Evolution Freeride foil with a Tushingham Storm 5.2.

After having a week from windsurfing having caught the Granddaughter Maeva’s cold I was keen to get back on the water even if not 100%! With high water around 10 I was in no hurry to get down to the beach, also which venue, Dip or Manor? After yesterdays lovely sunny day sadly it was mainly cloudy but luckly no rain, that is coming for tomorrow! So I had plenty of time to do my exercises before heading down to The Dip when I learnt that Ian and Nick were also heading there! I arrived at 1.30 and to be honest it did not look very inviting with a wavey swell rolling in, after breaking a foil hefre I am nervous of launching but in the end I got off the beach with no problems:) It took awhile to work up the enthusiasm to set up my lovely new foil but I manned up in the end and the board was soon on the beach, with Ian and Nick both finning with 5.6 and 6m sails  I took a chance with 5.2 which proved spot-on although the wind did pick up more at the end of the session! Both fin sailers were out but the wind looked patchy especially closer in and it was rough. As I said getting off the beach was OK and I thought I had rigged too small as I slowly made my way out through the section of surfy waves avoiding the shallow water towards kite beach where 5 kiters were out! I then found the wind and by running down a wave I was up and flying. It was too rough to push too hard so I sailed up the coast a bit before gybing,, then had a top beat along the coast of over 4 miles gybing down by Landguard beach, just past The Manor. The sea conditions were better at this end a fraction smoother, it would have been better for me to launch from this end. It was so good I decided to stay down this way doing 4 mile and a half plus runs back to The Fludyers and I was joined on the water by 2 fin sailers and a winger and with the wind a touch east of south it was great fun sailing parallel with the coast, even better when we got a brief glimpse of sunshine. Getting knackered now I headed back with Al Wizz sailing his fin board nearly to Thje Dip as well:) I gybed by the red and white bouy and had a very broad run into the beach through some fairly rough water, I then jumped off too early when nearing the beach and had to swin the last bit with waves breaking over my head! As soon as I could stand I realised the sail from my board which I got in safely and was was that my rig was retrieved by Ian and Nick, turned out to be a good session and nothing broken which is always a result! Loads of wind coming next week but am not sure about tomorrow as looking wet!

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