Pinaroo invasion - Coodanup Foreshore Fangys Run - F2 bump and jump, Delta 19cm KaKoncept 6.6m . The most sails out in my patch ever! Jake, JJ, Anita, Ricey, Geoff and Mineral packed a thermos and scones and cream and ventured to the dark side of the Estuary. That said it was great to meet all these new found sledging targets

First in line is Mineral...more like Vegetable and brussel sprout at that. Within 30 seconds of meeting the guy, he touches my Fibrespar carbon Boom and gives it the kiss of death. Unbelievable! Yep you guessed right, I rigged up and went out sailing for a while just generally cruising around until there are enough herbs for a Fangy Run. First run, fully lit ( for me anyway) down the inside..yeeesss!! one of life's awesome moments.. get to the bottom and turn upwind across to Nairns end and bang....wtf...the completely crap Fibrespar twist boom adjustments fold under the pressure and my boom starts to behave like a piano accordion. No probs - Its just a one off.. Quickly sorted and then charge back up to the top again..load up and bear away and bang it lets go again Not happy Jan. Bloody witch doctor Mineral! Grudgingly, in his defence, he does have a good fix for the problem. I tried a couple more runs with my piano accordion boom, came in and Windxtsay ( who was having an epic fail of her own) had some tape that looked the goods but the load just kept pushing it down the boom.  

The end result was one really good run, the rest just died in frustration, but fantastic to see some many sails out, all appearing to be going really fast with some sweet gybes in the flat water at the top end. Big thanks to Anita for the attempted repair  

Mineral - you are banned for the rest of 2014. Suitable beer bribes may sway me....

2 categories

Tabou Thunder 70cm & JP Weed 31cm, Tabou Manta 54 & Elmo Δ weed 25cm NP RSR Eiii 7.0m

Played at Liptons today becuase if the forecast was correct (it wasn't) then Hardies would have been blown out. So ventured orth into our old stomping ground with the primary view of banging out some Alpha's on Point Grey.

Started out with the Thunder as the wind was supposed to pick up later in the arvy, unfortunately by the time I hooked up the Manta the wind was starting to back of.

Had a lot of fun doing Alpha's well happy with 3 gybes which would have been PB's 24.608, 24.509, 24.409 and another which would have capped out my top 5, unfortunately it wasn't enough to knock of the curry powered Alphaman.

Great turn out, could have done with not braining myself twice on the trailer and once on the tailgate of my car when packing up, other than that a whole lotta fun.

Woo hoo!!!

2 categories

Captain slow again today, but it was loads of fun!

Rigged for alphas initially, plugged the 5.8 into the 53, with the modified Elmo fin, can't remember it's dimensions now but it's as wide as it is deep and 45deg.

Lots of fun in the fairly flat shallows of Pt Grey, getting some nice speed runs and alphas. Started to get a bit overpowered, should have taken Alby's advice and just reefed it in a bit and changed to the 48cm board. But believing the forecast I went with the 5.0 in the 43. Felt fantastic, but only because it was in comfortable mode instead of fast mode. Kept expecting the wind to pick up and maybe give me a 36 or something, but it continued to die, just before dark I gave up.

Nice to see so many sailors out, everybody enjoying themselves, especialy those with PBs

3 categories

Alphaland Another Testing Session today. I'm testing this new Fanatic Falcon 85 & Weed Fins, and I wanted to keep everything consistent so didnt want to change venues so stayed in Alphaland, and didnt go to Liptons which sounds superior to this place. So what did I learn and find from my testing.

Firstly conditions at alphaland were a bit windier than last couple of sessions.  Water state leading to gybing area was more choppy than usual, but gybing area was nearly as flat as always maybe 10 to 12 cm chop rather than 5 to 10cm chop.  Board speed, this board (Falcon 85) is way faster than the Manta, was regularly doing 30 to 31 kts across the wind, but being full carbon and flat rocker and square rails, I was bouncing around a bit, and felt like I was doing 35kts across the wind.  GYBING = Unfortunately either my skill levels or my gybing style which has been developed on the Manta could not cope with the extra speed, everything was happening so much faster, the rig flip and transition felt like I was in survival mode and fluffed many gybes I normally wouldnt, on many occassions I would stall around the gybe, there felt no flow in the gybe, whereas on the Manta I would come out of the gybe fully planing on most occassions, whereas this board I was stalling coming out of most gybes. BUGGER = Again I proved in more on the limit conditions I am not at the elite level, cant cope with extra speed, & extra chop, and everything happening so much quicker.  Edit:  To compensate for extra wind and speed, later in session I would round upwind after the first mark (yellow container), which would slow my speed down significantly, but then at least i could gybe, but of course it kills the over all speed of the alpha

Today if wind comes in, I'm back to Alphaland and test myself back on the Manta.  I will get to Liptons, just want to finish testing things with what I am familiar with, and once that mission is completed, I may abandon Hardies Run/Alphaland like everyone else and make Liptons my new home.  Unfortunately this makes me very sad for many reasons which I wont publicly announce here.

PS. Weed Fin Testing.  Filled my backpack up with weed fins predominantly at different rakes.  Used the pepeweed 26cm 48degree rake.  Great Fin.  When I went to change fins no screwdriver in backpack, sailed back to car, do you think I could find a phillips head screwdriver .  My basic hunch is that the 48 degree rake fin allows u to sail in very shallow weed y water with minimal impact from weed, but I reckon you definitely lose speed (lift) as the trade off.  But fucked if I could test it without a phillips head screwdriver

3 categories

Liptons WA, AU Jp45SP RSREIII 6.3 MXR20 weedy

On water about 1600 I may have missed the best wind. Very gusty arvo but great to sail with 16 other windsurfers.