Tuesday 18th February – Windsurf *** - River Orwell – Levington – sunny periods.

F2 Zantos 310 with 44 fin and Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

Fin – 27.48 knot max., 24.22 knot ave., 13.62 knot hour, 18.23 knot mile, 26.70 km., 15.26 knot Alpha.

It was my last chance to get out windsurfing today for a few weeks so with some nice winter sunshine and a good breeze forecast I headed again to Levington. When I got there the WSW looked fairly marginal so I set up my large 310 Zantos and very nearly rigged my 8.5, I seem to have lost my ability to rig the right sail at the moment! I went for 7.8 in the end which was a handful in the bigger gusts! As yesterday the wind was WSW which seems a pretty poor direction here on the river Orwell meaning you cant sail to the dock or Pin Mill without a few tacks, plus the wind is particularly gusty and the main wind band is where the water is the choppiest:( So I had to content with mile runs diagonally across the corner but the water was uncomfortably lumpy. I had been out over an hour breaking 27 knots, not too bad on big kit when I noticed I had a big rip in one of the panels of my sail so it was time to call it a day. The water level was fairly low when I finished but I only had to walk through a couple of metres of mud so not too bad.

We cant wait to spend some time in our favourite mountains and are hoping to leave this wind behind us and when we get back hopefully it will be a little warmer and perhaps I can find a reasonably priced second-hand foil board???

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