Safety Beach, VIC, AU

A quick escape from the family.  Big gear,gusty, varying between non planing and overpowerd.  Hard to get locked in. Seabreeze filled and swung South so the big hill got in the way.  Mornington Peninsular is crap for Windsurfing.

F2 SX82, 2012 KaRace 7.9, Vector Canefire 44

Elwood, 111 Futura, 6.6 Koncept

6 categories

 Two missions today for the Pit Crew . One, claim top spot for the month. Two,Me to knock Hamma back to 2^nd spot on the Grand Masters (Sorry Mate, job done)

The only thing we had to work with was the dreaded Nm and 1 hrs. For me to pass Hamma I had to find 2pts and distance was the only thing that I had left. So it was going to be a loooong day for both of us.

Started at 7.30 on the Sl66 and headed to Sandy Point B as the wind had a lot of West in it and I could get some 3km runs in. I had a 120km by the 10.30 smoko when Daffy joined in on the fun. A few quick laps of the speed strip while waiting for the tide to come in enough to let us over the east bank. Another few hrs spent chasing swell lines across the bar on the Sl53. Great fun untill I hit a sandbar. Didn,t do any damage or so I thought, one broken toe and one broken batten (Which I found when rolling up the sail).

Another few hrs chasing Daffy around,swaping boards and sails as the wind slowly droped out.

 A great fun day with was only slightly spoiled by some D Head fisherman who objected to Daffy and I parking near their car while we loaded all the gear into the trailers. Too many Beers and not enough brains

Sl66,Koncept 7.5,Venom 34

Sl 53,Koncept 6.6,Lesser weedie 26

4 categories

Decided to go for distance today, even though my body was not really in favour of it.

I managed to haul myself down to the inlet by 9.30am. I could see Craigs car and spare board and rig but I couldn't see Craig even with the binoculars. Then I realised he would be down at 'Sandy B' near the entrance. Since his 6.6m and small board were on the beach I knew he was on his big slalom board and 7.5m sail. The wind looked a bit light and iffy so I started rigging: 7.5m , 6.6m and 6.2m Koncepts (2013).

I started at 10am on the 7.5m and Isonic 111 with 28cm 40 degree Lessacher duo weed. It was just right but I didn't feel confident going down to the entrance so I sailed up to the Yannakie end and back. When I got back Craig had returned. I sailed for about an hour and the wind seemed to be filling in a bit so I changed to the 6.6m for a while. Craig thought the tide was in far enough to run accross the sand bars directly downwind of the car park. I said show me the way. (always a wise thing to follow someone to let them find out if it is deep enough).

All good so we spent an hour or so running 2-2.5km reaches. I had swithed to IS87, Lessacher 28cm weedie and 6.2m Koncept for this. It was perfect!

Then I hit something. Very hard! So hard I though the boards tail must be damaged. Looking down the tail was still attached and i was already in the channel so I kept going to the far bank. All was still feeling OK so I did another run. It became obvious I had lost a knot or two so I stopped at the other end to check the fin. The bottom 4cm of the leading edge was crushed! Bugger!

I went back and swapped in the Lessacher Duo 25cm weedie and continued. It was faster off the wind but slightly harder to point up in the lulls.

It all became a bit of a blurr after that. Eventually we stopped for a meal break and noted that the tide was just starting to drop. Craig reconed there were only half a dozen runs over the shallows before it got too dicey so we had a few more runs.

After that we were back to short runs up and down the channel which meant a 28-34 knot run down the speed course and a slog upwind at 19-21 knots. The wind died  a bit so Craig was back on the 7.5 and I was on the 6.6m on the IS 111. After a while I noticed that Craig had disappeared back down to 'Sandy B' but I was in agroove so I stayed where I was.

At 6pm we stopped to compare notes. I had about 190km and craig had about 300. We decide another hour and a half would just about see us out (me at least) so thats what we did. The wind was up and down a bit but I stuck to the IS 111 and 6.6m, mainly becasue it was comfortable and by then I just wanted easy, to hell with speed!

Earlier, I had a red hot go at a NM at high tide across the shallows. Started out well at 29-30 knots but about 400m short I hit a huge lull and dropped to 20 knots!  It still came out at a 26.48 kts but when I checked the data I found I had a slightly better one which started on the speed bank and then headed off across the shallows. It includes a gybe! Hmmm, maybe thats a strategy to remeber!

Had agreat day but will probably be bed ridden for the next couple.