Saturday 15th March  – Windsurf *** River Stour at Wrabness  –  sunny periods.

Foil – 19.56  knot max, 18.36 knot ave, 10.78  knot hour, 16.08 knot mile, 37.84 km., 14.18 knot alpha.

Starboard Freeride 150 and a Evolution Freeride foil with a Tushingham Storm 6.5.

I have been watching todays forecast for a few days now as I can’t remember such a bad run and have only been on the water 9 times since last October my last good month, a combination of no wind, too much wind, too cold and a run of illness have worked against my! The forecast looked really good with a solid 20 knots from the NE with sunshine, the only spanner in the works being the temperature of only 6 degrees and at 71 that’s a little nippy for me! I nearly talked myself out of driving the 26 miles to Wrabness but after a few messages from Robert I manned up and loaded up the van with my foiling gear, packed a picnic and left Felixstowe at 9.45 managing to get the last parking spot down Wall Lane at 3 foilers and a winger were already there! It was nice to catch with a few sailers I haven’t seen as we rigged up on the sheltered green before carrying my gear to the waters edge. As the beach is sheltered from the NE breeze but everyone seemed to be rigging fairly big from 8m, then 7 and 6, even the winger went for 6.5 so I set-up the biggest sail I had with me my 6.5! It’s aways exhausting putting your wetsuit on and my harness is a little small now as I have put on a few winter pounds as to headed to the beach to launch with most already on the water and flying! I started with a nice run down the middle of the river but I did feel a little rusty and then spent the rest of the session trying to get into Holbrook Bay with my upwind sailing not the best, the wind was a little up and down with some really windy gusts when 5.5 would have been OK! In the end I was on the water for two hours and didn’t get cold at all and it took me ages to fall in but still managed to stay warm despite it only being 6 degrees! I did become more comfortable as the session progressed getting a few nice gybes too! The wind eased down and everyone went in but as I neared the launch beach the wind returned so I went for a nice mile run down the river, I then had to beat back before calling it a day, nice to have a decent session for a change. I headed back to the van to warm up with the diesel heater and here about Mags day, she had a nice walk around the nature reserve before returning to the van to read! It was then a nice lunch and drive home in the sunshine to watch England batter poor old Wales and Ipswich Town abyismal form continues, they are well out of their depth in the Premership! Now can Scotland beat France ?

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