Nice day at Lucky bay. Had boom dramas for a while, twist locks slipping, sorted with 'O'rings

Had 27.02 on the dial with the 135 Tabou, but rounded down to 26.87. Not bad for the big girl, had plenty more left in the tank, but fitness not there, so didnt run off downwind at all. Older 7.5 with a 40 weedie.

Pelican Point, - 101L/7m - Very choppy today.

Peli Point WA AU. More later.

Iso 90 / Racing Blade 7.0 / T43 34cm

Pinnaroo Point, WA, AU - Seatrend + 6.0

An enjoyable afternoon at Pinnaroo with a few of the locals. Rigged for stronger wind but it wasn't to be.

2 categories

Mandurah, Novara Beach

Rigged too small for the advertised wind, underpowered all day.

Stranded 2 miles from shore with a broken tendon and snapped backup line. Eventually after a botched boat rescue (thanks to the boaties for trying), I managed to jury rig the mast base which then resulted in a nice hole in the board, but it got me back to shore so happy enough.

Original Chinook tendon lasted only 6 months, this replacement (only 3 weeks old) sheared today - I thought Chinook was supposed to be top quality?

Fun day though, my nephew got planing on the Mistral 137 in only his 5th session.

Mark was still out racking up kms when I left at 6.30.

Isonic 86, GPS 6.6, Vector DWS 27

3 categories

Novara Beach, WA, AU

Great sesh at Hardies.

Thought I had a quicker hour, but then I always do .

Nicely powered mostly on the M112 + 7.6 TR9 + 38 CL combo.

Good team outing 

Edit: had a look at the hour on GPSAR, as I always find my my expectations are never met when it comes to hours 

First leg was the best, average speed was 24.7K.  All downhill after that, the breeze clearly backed off.  Fourth leg was the killer, only averaged 20.6K on that one.  Bit of a shame, cos the setup felt sweet when I was powered up, just not enough off it.  My quest for a quick (25K+) hour at Novara continues...

Cronulla, New South Wales, AU

6 categories

Long day at the Mandurghistan office.

Well done to Anita on 3 PBs!

Bugger about the board, JJ.

More tomorrow.

EDIT:

So got to Novara early to find Elmo already on the water but chugging and Decrepit and Evets rigging.

Decrepit had a sail issue which we fixed and rigged the big gear in anticipation.

Wind didn't appear until after 11 and then only enough to just get planing on a pointer.

Wind steadily built until the 7.8 was becoming a bit of a handfull and came in to change down and have a feed with 37 miles completed about 1pm.

Rigged the 6.3 / 90 / 27 weed combo and back on the water before 2 to go for an hour with Pointy.

He was killing me upwind and I was not really powered. Not the best of miles. On the first run across I could see a flock of birds standing on dry ground where there should have been water and a quick gybe ensued. It was still really shallow on the second run across and had to gybe again. 3rd run across got to use the full estuary (8.75km run) but the wind was backing off and had to go broad to maintain speed. Waved to Hardie in alphaland at about 47min and headed back out.

Got caught with dying wind and 2mins to go heading for South Yunderup and thought I might make it without having to gybe again. I was wrong and hit the bottom as i came out of the gybe. Too shallow to get going and then a big lull had the expletives flying!

24.38 for 58 mins (24.8 for the last 30) so still nothing epic. Wind had got really fluky and chop was nasty . Took an hour and 10mins to get back to base by which time I had 93 miles completed.

Going for naughty miles after 177Km is probably not the most sensible idea but the wind had built so went for a few on the outside of the rock garden. All fastest speeds were just at the second post. Hard work coming back upwind from the channel and after completeing 5 30.5+ runs had completed 226 Km.

The minimum target was 250 or 135Nm so started doing laps out to the stick marker on the way to the platform which is just about a mile.

wind had booted by this time and with the rising tide it was lumpy as but still managed a 23 knot half hour to finish with Stringer for company.

Glad to have finally got the distance PB monkey off my back but don't think I will be attempting any more if the wind does not kick in before 10am.

LB 7.8/SX77/CF42 then LB6.3/is90/ch27w

Novara Beach, WA, AU 5.7K, 85 Sonic, 28FO weedy, then 73 Mistral 24 elmo weedy

YES! At last ! a 16 knot alpha! Whoo hoo! I have been trying for one of those for even longer than I was trying for 30 knots! Forget the 1 hr & distance, this is a real breakthrough!

Really pleased that it was the second hour that was the PB. Improving those gybes really helped ( and the Coodanup flats).

I was last off the water tonight. Thanks to Lao for staying to make sure I got back and helping me pack up. You are a real gentleman.

Edit: a good hour was my mission yesterday. The hour has been letting me down because my gybing is so poor. So for the last couple of months I have been working on gybes, getting a lot of top 5 alphas but not cracking the PB. With the year running out I could leave my attempt no longer and Mandurah yesterday looked like the place. Unfortunately the water was a bit rougher than I would have liked and I fell off too many gybes out in the deep (though I did make some which I was very happy about!). I had my GPS set to avge speed and at the end of the hr it was only 12. something. Disappointing. I still had plenty left in the tank and my gybing was improving with the practice so I decided to try for another hour. Then I discovered the Coodanup flats (my outhaul had become unhitched and I couldn't stay upwind).  I was a long way downwind and  I wasn't sure if I could get back to Novara. I contemplated going down to Coodanup and hitching a lift, or flagging a passing boat, but I like to be independent so I pulled on as much outhaul as I could and started heading back. I was on my own most of the time but Fangman joined me for a few runs. It was good to have some windsurfer company. With each run I could see my avge speed going up, (even with a lot of upwind runs) but it still only made it to 13.5, well short of a PB... but I was pretty sure there was a nice alpha in there - it was so flat and weedy! I thought I could improve my hr by heading down wind into Coodanup but I was unsure where the rocks and shallows were and unsure whether I would have the energy to get back. I decided getting back was the ultimate aim and headed as hard upwind as I could. The wind had picked up by now and holding the 5.7 upwind on a long run was difficult. After 45 minutes into the second hour, having made it back to Boundary Island I just had to stop for a rest. More tacking upwind, I found the Boundary Island sandbar with my fin, but having been forewarned by the experiences of many and their very handy google maps I had unhooked in anticipation. The sandbar may have saved me from a worse fate. Just ahead was a broken off wooden pole only 10 cm above the waterline! I decided walking over the rest of the shallows was the best policy and as I did so Snides sailed over. I'm not sure if he thought I had hurt myself or broken something or if he was just sailing over anyway. Thanks for looking out for me Snides. There was just the channel to cross and then I was in the shallows again, on the right side of the Estuary. It is always a good feeling to know you can walk back to the car if you have to. A bit of tacking up through alpha land, I was almost spent and stopped for a rest and to look at the GPS. I was disappointed at my attempt at a good hr, but I knew with all that sailing I must have done some distance. 36nm. Only 5 nm short of a PB. I contemplated going back to Coodanup but didn't think I'd have the energy to get back again afterwards. It was all I could do to get back to Novara. I was glad to be back at the start but being so close to a PB distance I wanted to go out again, but I was sore and had no energy left. So I refuelled and after a lot of encouragement from my fellow sailors I went out again. I thought I'd missed out on the Hr PB, and unsure of the alpha, thought I could at least make sure I went home with one PB. The rest of the distance was done without much style and I got back to Novara just as the sun was setting, last off the water.

Imagine my joy when I got home and found I had 3 PB's! And the 16 knot alpha I had been trying for for years...

Those natural athletes among you will never know how that feels.

Melville Beach, WA, AU

Patrik 100, Turbo 6m, Choco Weed speed 30

Great fun, heaps of people out!