Melville Beach, WA, AU

First sail for two months due to hip muscle problems. Coming good now. Phsyio said no more than 20 minutes, increasing by 10 mins a session if no problems.

Great to be back on the water and to see Patrick.

RRD Xfire 98 with 5.8 Koncept and 33 fin.

Melville Beach, WA, Various boards and sails 

Knackered. No fitness. Sorry team, I couldn't string an hour together, had a few attempts but all failed.

Great to see so many out.

Coodanup, WA, AU

X- Fire 90 6.0 Overdrive and 30 FO weedy

Coodanup, WA, AU Mistral 73L, 28FO weedy, 4.9K

A pretty embarrasing set of numbers but at least I did get on the water. Eventually.

After doing my best to rustle up some interest in winter sailing from my team mates I had some things which just had to be done before I could go sailing. These took much longer than anticipated with the result that I wasn't ready to leave until 2PM. It was windy and sunny and very tempting to just pop down to Melville, but as I had told a number of people I was going to Coodanup I thought I'd better turn up.

I turned up just as the wind died and everyone came in for afternoon tea. Unfortunately I had not had the forethought to bring the warm scones and tea, but if I had, that would have delayed my departure even further. We had a nice chat and discussed what might be worth rigging. After being denied a digestive biscuit (because I hadn't earned it) I went off and rigged for the gusts and waited for some wind to return. Everyone else was also waiting for wind to return but eventually gave up and went home, except for Geoff who valiantly braved the cold (being in a wet wetsuit) and hung around with me in the hope that another squall would come along. I had had a pleasant drive down in the sunshine, and a very enjoyable chat with everyone, and I really felt I could have happily gone home without a sail and not felt too cheated. However, since Geoff was waiting around so I could have a sail I thought I'd better hang around too.

Eventually a little wind came along. Enough to tempt me out on the water but not enough to get planing, although Geoff was doing it easily with his 6m sail. I toyed with the idea of changing to a bigger board but thought that for sure I did the wind would die completely just when I was about to get back on the water. In the end persistence payed out and a good squall came along that justified use of the 4.9. There was too much rolling chop for bear aways, but some nice 25 knot runs made it all worthwhile. Unfortunately we ran out of daylight, but my body was more than glad for an excuse to stop! Amazing how quickly the fitness goes! We got packed up just before dark and another heavy rainstorm.

Thanks Geoff for being such a gentleman.

Highlights - the lovely sunshine on the drive down

chatting with Ross, Mike, Geoff and Alan

hearing the moaning frogs in the wetlands. I just love that sound!

oh, the sailing was good too!

5 categories

Leschenault, WA

Super gusty afternoon with Lao, a bunch of CSTs and Pete - everything from 5 knots to a few short 25 knot gusts

Rigged small for the gusts so couldn't get upwind into the flat stuff but had some nice runs anyway.

NM varied from 22 to 35 knots

Still, a road trip is always fun and a good start to winter.

Mistral 91, GPS 6m, CL carbon weedy 28

Melville Beach, WA, AU 105 Rocket, 26 Leading edge, 6m. Gusty and choppy but good to get dust out of my gear and body.

Melville Beach, WA, AU

Overall not too happy with the results but I think it was deff due to the chooop! Even the channel was chop-chop-no-rolling-lines so it it was impossible to bear away and get some proper speed without sailing into more CHOP...! 

Overall it was just too chop-chop-choopy today....

Unless your name is Chris lockwood and you dont care abt the chop ... he did 40knots and a bit.

PD 100l, KA Koncept 6.6, 34cm Vector Volt

EDIT #1 - On reflection - I recon there must have been something wrong with the GPS .. look at the almost horisontial line on the map above.. i recon I must have lost sat connection...?

EDIT #2 - Having analysed the data in GPS results i can see that I had no sat reception for approx 15 min during the sesh.. guess that will impact the results... ohh well. There is always another day :)

4 categories

Leschenault, WA, AU

Thought that Australind North was worth a road trip.

Good to see the CST already out on the water as we arrived and some wind came in.

Rigged Lurch, 5.6 (neither of which got used) and 6.3.

Thanks to JJ for the loan of the F2 (without which I would have struggled) a nice board. I do like Patrik designed boards.

Never really got in to a good spot where there was a decent gust but had fun.

Sorry about the Naughty back up, JJ

LB 6.3, F2 Small, Choco 27 weed (with leading edge mods)

2 categories

A fun afternoon at Coodanup and it was nice to catch up again with Anita, Alan and Ross and meet Mike and a few more of the Mandurah crew. Not much wind when I first arrived but it picked up later in the afternoon and a few nice squalls came through. Tried for an hour and alpha today but found it hard going in the up-and-down wind and chop. Best alpha and 2s peak appeared on the dial towards the end of the day when I went back out with Anita. Thanks Anita! Looking forward to the next session and (of course) tea and scones.

90s Seatrend Slalom - 6.0 Ezzy Infinity - FO 30 Weed

Melville, Kode 122, Drake 34, S1 5.3.  Well powered all the time