Slowboat (47716km):
4349 days ago epic wind and carnage today.
Looks like Pt Walter was the go, but when I got up and left for sailing the wind hadnt quite come in on the coast so being pessimistic I thought it would be a 5 minute fizzer like the last 3 years of forecasts like that.
So Woodman's Pt was the go with a plan to use the 200m of rock at the end as a slingshot in the NEer on stbd tack and then as it clocked around hit the NWer for a bit. No wind when I got there but it started to pick up just before 10am. Rigged the 5.5m and finally got to use my 47cm Mistral '13 speed. But when I sailed out to the end of the point I discovered the storm surge had buried the rock bar leaving about 50m of sand exposed where the wind was still honking before the dunes killed it off completely. It was a mission getting started. 10 seconds of 5kts with 0.2sec of 40 knots to waterstart and sink if the sail wasnt ripped out of my hands. Very tiring. Just like trying to waterstart at the SP carpark in a westerly. I persisted for a while and the wind picked up more, until it was averaging close to 40kts in the 50m stretch of beach that was tucked upwind so you couldnt sail to it. I walked up there and got my best run waterstarting in chin deep water with waves breaking over my head, getting up onto the plane and finally getting into position at the start of the wind shadow where I was lucky to catch a bullet. Since the run was square it was a crazy slingshot ending 100m off the shore in nasty chop mixed with swell wrapping around the point, into a 10kt lull. Scary shit. Crash your gear and next stop is Garden Island, I'm guessing a lesurely 15 hour drift away in white pointer land. Gave up after seeing record speed wind (like the best days at SP) and drove to Melville.
It was nuking when I got there. Saw a kiter come close to death when he couldnt depower in the onshore 35-50kt wind and threatened to entertain us with a record height boost. At one stage there were maybe 5 or 6 blokes holding him on the ground while another couple of guys tried to get his kite down in the garden across the road.
Rigged the 5.1m, back on the 47. And got smashed.
The wind backed off a bit so I went back out and managed a few runs, but ended with a nasty catapault at 38.5kts in the chop... I think there will be water leaking out of my nose for days. Fortunately I was using a RDM wave mast and a wave boom which survived! Woohoo!
Results all from Woodies this morning apart from 13ks at Melville.
The suicidal speed course: check out the little wind chop about to break on the left.
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