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Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU

a very wintery sail.

wind swinging between s/sw and up and down like a yo yo.

only a short session due to having to work tonight.

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Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU CA52/Tushy6.4/30cm weedy.  Sailing with Rat & Otts. Only had time to squeeze in an hours sail in the morning, but it was great to finally get a half decent sail. Wind was variable and swinging, but Im not complaining. Darn it Rat, you nailed me on all points - well done! It was interesting racing you on your i107 across the chop, I couldnt pull away on my smaller board. These new wide boards really do perform.  I'll get out the Falcon next time.

Tabou Rocket Wide 128L, NP RSR E6 6.4m, NJP Weed 36cm

Huge thanks for Mike for the text this morning the sail distracted me for a few hours, definately wasn't feeling flash prior to that so would've just wallowed in my own little ball of missery left to my own devices.

Typical winters sail, GAF lots of big holes, lots of big gusts.

So unfit, so unco, but still had some fun out there, seriously very exciting out in the chanel, a bit of flat water over on Point Grey but generally like Jesus's Old T shirt.

Nice session, happy muppet to have a couple of hours of respite, unfortunately my old friends back again.

Fangy's with Scott N'mates ( apparently Pat Malone has standards now). The holes in the cheese lined up for a little while today in between snotgobbler taxi duties. So I was keen like a jar of mustard to have a splash. The tide wasn’t too bad, but the surge banked it up at Wamba, so there was no flat water to be seen, only a Kung Fu festival of chop.

Perfect for trying out my restored Windtech. Not.  The board is flat and thin. In fact it’s planning surface makes a mirror look bumpy. It took off like the proverbial scalded cat. I had about the same amount of control as aforesaid cat. Time to call it off before something went seriously awry.

I had run the Koncept 6.6 up the pole and that was spot on hardly ever. Mostly I was just overpowered, but when Huey and his mates turned up after lunch at the pub, full of burps, there were times when only a fish’s sphincter was holding tighter.

I wasn’t sure whether to pressgang the Party Barge or the old Screamer. I thought there was a chance Huey might collapse in the corner so I went with flotation. In went the Party Barge. I got that wrong too, it should have been the Screamer.

Charging around on the Party Barge is a bit like racing 50ft Gin Palaces. There is a lot of spray, wake and crushing of innocent chop. And it’s ridiculously good fun. It’s hard to describe the sensation of having 10ft of barge out of the water and still have enough surface in the water to plane. Of course going fast in chop divorces you from reality faster than Donald Trump, so I thought I was going to see numbers close to the speed of sound. That didn’t happen but  there was plenty of bang for my buck today.

I worked up to Wazzaswonderland behind Boundary Island.  Yep, it was full of bumpy bits as well, but the section close to shore at Creery’s had these long organised ‘swell’  lines which were brilliant  to charge along. I had a crack at a nauti and sailed downhill hyperventilating until my back leg calf muscle cramped in protest. It dumped me like I was Browyn Bishop at pre selection. After a few minutes of cursing, stretching and generally thinking a helicopter would be a good thing right now, I had an epiphany, and decided to sail in before I got myself into real trouble. A rare win for commonsense in my world. 

I could not see over to Liptons, but I am hoping the lads had a blast on some flatter water. For me, wrong board, wrong sail, and had a total hoot. Top Ten Fangy Day.

Albany, WA, AU isonic 76l , np 5.8 slalom ,choco 28 fin . well wrong sail choice got ripprd off in a strong gust . So i decided call it a day ribs little bit sore 

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Fun's not quite the word today, certainly exhilarating has some traction, bouncy, on off, up & down, also come to mind, BUT it was a Sail!!!!!!!!!!!

Wind came in much later than predicted so when it finaly did arrive properly my 5.8 was a tad too big in the gusts, which usually happened in the middle of the channel in knee high chop, (either that or it dropped out to <10kts which on the 48cm board took a bit of energy to keep upright). I was happy with the fin choice though, the 24cm 45 deg gave me confidence in the high tide chop, it was only a couple of times I wished for something slightly smaller as I started tail walking.

The Pt Grey Bank was quite nice, still a bit more chop than I'm comfortable with, especially with a tad too much sail.

The younger, heavier guys looked to be having more fun, (Strop, Luny, Elmo and 'ken), but for us older, lighter guys it was a bit of a struggle, I'm sure Basil will agree with me!

My main problem though was getting cold over lunch, I'd put my spray jacket on in an attempt to counter the wind chill factor, but I was still shivering strongly when I hit the water. Consistent sailing should have warmed me up, but I found the conditions quite tiring, and needed to stop for rests. Every time I stopped I got cold again! Think I pushed a bit too hard to stay warm, because I had a silly "off", powered into a narrow gust for a sling shot, but sailed right through it into nothing. Instantly dumped on my bum in the water, then almost instantly the gust caught up with me, picked me up and threw me over the front! Decided a wise man would pack up and call it quits at this stage, and not feeling particularly stupid at the time, that's what I did.

Here's my tracks, the NM is the one from liptons to Pt Grey following Elmo. I got bounced out of the harness lines half way across and was too busy negotiating the bumps to hook back in until I got into smoother water close to Pt Grey. The run to Ward Pt started OK but I ran out of wind half way in.

Glory Hole SSW 15-25knts (every 20secs)

Iso86, R4 7.0m, 34talon

Finally the stars lined up for sail. Wind was all over the place and the water state was dreadful. Found a less bumpy patch over the otherside. Got three good runs and the the wind started to fade. Best run was straight off the beach. Funa all the same.

Peel Inlet, WA, AU

embarrassed

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Lilacs Mistral 91 slalom, Koncept 4.9 Tribal weedy 29@55

that was hard work. First time on the Mistral and it felt great in the chop, big compared to the JP54 (73  litre) I have used so much.

tribal weedy ( ex 31@45 degrees) now 29 at 55degrees was excellent,

First time on the Koncept. I bought it about 4 years ago and have not needed it until today. At times today I could have used a 6.2 then for a few seconds the 4.9 was plenty.

Gusty southerly which at times was loads for the sail and often not enough. The only flat water to be had was in areas where the weed was at the surface and it felt like a catapult was imminent as the fin was being slowed. I went for a few down wind runs and the Mistral was excellent.Got cold derigging and drove home in wetsuit. We are really spoilt here for the great summer conditions we get!

Great to see Gary out, he looked really comfortable. I was not! Shane and Morts on the beach were good company riggning and derigging. Both helped out: thanks guys I appreciate it.

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Peel Inlet, WA, AU

Hello, my name is Oaf, and I'm a windsurfer. It's been 2 month since I last sailed...

Today was fun, but I got tired fast, by the end of it, my legs were wobbling and the jibes were pretty shakey.  Nice to have some good wind on a day I can get out. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. I didn't get out till late, hit the water at 3. Managed a shade over the hour before running out of go juice.

Manta 86, GPS 6.0