GPS Team Challenge - The Pit Crew (VIC, Australia)

Being awhile since I,ve been lifted windsurfing but the wind gods had a little giggle today . The 6.6 on the slalom board might have helped in their cause too . Sat on the board for 10mins and drifted onto the East bank as the world went white around me. Then I noticed the split in the sail Bugger, and it was nearly time to sell it too. But I did get to watch Daffy scoot through the squall and make it look sooo easy.

On to the speed board and the 5.7 for a few passes. Found a few squalls but nothing connected today and I was just stuck in the 38.

Good to see Kempster get some nice runs and Josh survived his first play on the SW bank. Made it look easy...... it wasn't

Ca40,Tribal superweed speed 14, speed 5.7

Sl87, Atomic Weed 21, Koncept 6.6

Sailquik (29582km):

886 days ago

4 categories

Sandy Point, Vic.

Fun day.

The forecasts was pretty spot on, but what it does not tell you is how variable it is. It was a typical volitile day with squalls marching trough and the wind swinging suddenly with them. Most of the time it was WSW but at one stage after a squall it went west for 10 mins and then at the end it went really South making speed runs way too tight.

I rigged 5.2m and 5.7m, but went out on the IS80 and 5.7 for the first run. It was nicely powered and a good angle and I got a 37.5 2 sec which was nice. But when I stopped and looked around, I saw a big black cloud coming and could feel the wind increasing. I high tailed it back to the launch point and grabbed the CA40 and 5.2m as the wind really kicked in. I knew I was in for a windy run when I got started straight away where it is quite gusty and sheltered behind the dunes!! Through the run in I was getting tossed all over the place with bullet gusts and sudden brief lulls. When I got to the speed bank it was just as hard at the start with a couple of dunes to go trough which meant a struggle to stay ballanced in the shadow and then get hit by a wall of 35 knots wind in the gaps. I survived that and got to the good angle and good wind to find my self really overpowered and bouncing through big rolling chop at close to 40 knots. I thought I was going to wipe out big time, was convinced the 16cm fin would let go so I was not game to sheet in at all. Just went into full survival mode, fully not expecting to survive! But some miracle, involving a heap of dumb luck, I made it to the end. I just stood there as the wind kicked to fully 40+ knots, puffing and panting and hanging on to the sail on the water to stop being blown away. I couldn't even start walking back for a few minutes and then I was a struggle for the first few minutes! I walked all the way back wondering why none of the others followed me down in the squall!

By the time I got back, it was back down around 25knots again so I grabbed the M47 and 5.7m. I stayed on that for the rest of the session and had some nice runs, but just didnt quite crack another 40. At the end it went fully too SW, so after a few nice flat cruisy runs I called it.

Good to see Kato, Kempter and meet out new member Josh. Josh did very well in those conditions on his 105 Rocket and 4.5m freeride sail and did a PB He will go a lot faster when we set him up with some go faster gear.

Kato was churning around as usual, but not quite finding his groove. It didnt help that he split the foot of his favourite sail in the big squall at the start.

Kempster was flying as usual and looking very smooth!

IS80, CA40, M47. 5.2m (4,7m would have been good!) and 5.7m KA Speed sails, Atomic 20cm Nuclear in the slalom (excellent!), Tribal assy 16.5cm in the CA40 and Tribal WeedSpeed 19cm in the M47. Mini Motion GPS.