Albany, WA, AU isonic 76l , 6.4 evo 5 and 5.8 np , choco 28 . Harding rd over powered on the 6.4 sail, down sized to the 5.8. had a great day on the water with Mike Steve and Joe and CST 

4 categories

Albany, great conditions NM run a bit square with ENE, but lotta fun.  Mission was to get another top 5 NM, and abolish another top 5 33kt NM to the anals of history. Had three 34 kt NM,s which is all I tried for. Rigged too small to go really fast, I was too conservative, but it meant it was easy sailing for 2 and a half hours in solid conditions and 20 to 28 kts? I've just driven 1600km's in 18 hrs, sarturday, and 420kms today for a wsurf Mistral Speed 95, TRX 5.5m, and pepeweed 22/48.

PS. Expect massive hrs from CST

3 categories

Lilacs JP54SP MXR24 the JP45 MXR20 RSREIII 6.2

with Hardie and Decrep who made the drive and Shane plus the great guys of CST. Good conditions early on for the hor so I did not sail then :-( on the beach there was not nuch wind. When I went for the hour it had picked up and become choppier.Too square for great NMs.

As afternoon wore on it became flatter and more consistent. I tried everyting I could to improve my numbers and snuck in some low 2, 5x and NM scores into my top 25.  Now tired and achy.

I am looking forward to seeing the CST posts, Albany is a good GPS location and Tom and Glen are remarkable sailors.

Storm surge data for future planning! Optimum conditions certainly less than 0.8, 0.75 was really good! Wow we were lucky the tide was lower than predicted.

Boggy Lake, SA, AU

SSSW 10-14 knots-FF111-Loft Blade 7m-C3 Sting2 38cm

Heaps of people about in fact most I've ever seen for a Monday. Forecast was for a stonking Southerly to build to 20+ knots. Well it didn't quite work out that way! Rigged 7m in anticipation whereas in retrospect the 8.4 would have been the perfect size. Not to be and in accordance with poor selection sailed like shit and sailed frustrated:-( Had enough by 6pm when wind had actually filled in a tad lol....

I am amazed at the huge turnout when you also take into account the location is in the middle at absolutely no-where!!

4 categories

Fantastic Lilacs session, not quite ideal, tide a tad high and course a tad square, but it's my 2nd best NM and about 6th or 7th hr.

Awakened to lots of smoooooooooooth, but not much wind, almost tempted to rig the 6.6, but wind was forecast to pick up fairly quickly and I wanted to satisfy my smooth craving. So plugged the 5.8 into the 53 with the 20cm 55deg weedy, by this time I was getting 18kt gusts and the smoooth was diminishing.

Wind was very square so decided to try an hour along the bank, got my alpha on the first run out, found some nice smooth stuff on the southern side, so stopped pointing up and went square in both directions, a couple more runs upwind and I was on the bank, checked the time and went for the hour.

By then the wind had turned a tad and wasn't quite as square, so I was getting 30s going north and 20s going south, it was a lot of fun. But towards the end the wind started to lift, and the 5.8 was set wrong, harness ropes too far forward, not enough downhaul etc. So I was very glad to finish the hr and go in for a cuppa then downrig, then lunch, and back out with the 5.4 on the 48 with the PB 19.5 45deg weedy. Tide was up then and there was more chop than I'm comfotable with. Pulled up on the southern sandbank to bofinise with evets, after agreeing it wasn't a lot of fun, Steve took off for a few more runs. I was about to follow him, grabbed the boom and discovered the mast was no long joined to the board!!!!!!!! all that chop on the snadbank was just too much for the ancient boggie joint, (yes I've got two new tendon mast bases but they were in the 53 and 43, I just wanted 3 boards set up ready to go).

Shane watched my vain efforts to sit on the board and hold the rig up so I could drift to shore. And took pity on this silly old fart, and sailed back to Lilacs to bring me the mast base out of the 43.

BIG thanks mate saved me a big walk and slow drift!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was thinking seriously about giving up then, but went in for another cupa, then decided I'd better just try the 43 and see how it handled the conditions.

It already had the 18cm starboard assy 50deg in it. I was a bit sceptical about this in the chop but decided to give it a whirl.

Sailed up to Hardy rd as Steve was just going in, he said the conditions were improving, tide was dropping, and low and behold who's this giving me the thumbs up?

None other than Hardie who's driven half way round the world to get here just as conditions start to fire!

So started on the other objective of the day NMs, still a bit square and not supper smooth, but I managed to find some good wind that coincided with some reasonably flat stuff to get the best 2s run since my 38 in the forbidden lagoon, how long ago was that? June 2014 I think.

But I guess one of the highlights is the amazing stuff the CST guys come up with!