Melville Beach, WA, AU

Melville Beach, WA, AU

Enjoyable sail with good wind.

105 Rocket, 6.0 Gator, 29 weedy then 24 delta for the shallows over the bank which worked well.

I made some thigh pads to go inside my wetsuit to protect from thigh corking again. They worked well psychologically, hope to not have to try them out physically but they are there if needed.

Had a nice chat with Windmill and Geoff

Melville Beach, WA, AU

Pretty solid day at Melville, only had an hour or so spare so stayed local. Wind felt a lot more consistent and not as shifty as yesterday. Some very sweet powered up runs off the wind. The sonic is so comfy and incredible for how fast it responds to the gusts; really enjoying this board. Was generally overpowered but once off the wind the 6.6 was perfect. Tide was pretty low but heaps of flat water goodness to share around. Was very busy again today and getting good runs accross the flats was hard due to the traffic. I imagine there will be some very nice numbers coming out of the great southern lands today!

85 sonic / 6.6 koncept / 27 tribal ws

Coodanup, WA, AU

Should've used a bigger sail but still had fun working on my gybes, got strap-to-strap working again. For a quite a while I had the outer bank to myself. One of Fangy's trained crabs nipped me.

Magic Ride Pro 104, NP Search 5.0 wave, Delta XT 18.

Melville Beach, WA, AU

M91;OD6.2;27 Tribal WS

Certainly enough wind to get going today,

Lots of fun.

Melville Beach, WA, AU

3 categories

Great arvo at Liptons with some of the crew. Went out thinking maybe speed might be on the cards, but too gusty and thought I'd just chuck in an hour while the wind built. Well, 2 hours later and that was fun!! Just blasting all over the place today. Went in for water after the 2 hour mark, and then headed back out for speed, but the wind wasn't super strong, and with the 47 on, I just didn't have the lift to get up and flying, so called it a day. Stroppo and Doddi killing it today, not even sure how?! Bloody good session to get the engagement party cobwebs out from last night  

CA SP 47, KAR 6.3, MXR 22

Peel Inlet, WA, AU

Fun day at Liptons. Wind didn't quite kick in as was hoped so consequently slightly underdone with the 5.8m. Positive was I finally got to sail the 5.8m, which is still brand new but about 6 yrs old! Love this spot but probably need to get some more specialised raked fins to really get the best out of the sessions. Good to catch up with the strong locals turnout, MMs and CST along with seeing a few familiar Pinnas.

SB i87, NP eIV 5.8m, Tribal wsp27

3 categories

Peel Inlet, WA, AU

Nice day to be on the water with a good bunch of people, lots of fun had with some getting it right with the rig to be sailing today and reaping the speed rewards, I rigged small so no real speeds to be had but a hell of a lot of fun just zipping around. 

Manta 61, KAR 5.5, Vector 25

Peel Inlet, WA, AU 5.4K M47 21 Tribal ultra weed. 18 - 23 knots

Similar conditions to last time so I thought I'd go with the same gear. Headed over to Point Grey and got 34.5 on about the third run, with a 33+ 10 sec. Got two more 33+ knot ten seconds and thought maybe another 5X 10 PB was on the cards. I kept trying the same run but couldn't exceed 34.5 so I thought I'd head over to Liptons and check that out. There was  less wind at Liptons and I couldn't get over 32.5, so back upwind to Point Grey again. Second run 34.96 on the dial with a 33.9 10 sec, so the 5X PB was certainly on. I kept trying and trying but couldn't get past 35. The wind had shifted further south and the smooth was in a wind shadow.

I seem destined to be stuck just under 35 knots. Today's 2 sec speed was a 3rd best for me. I hope it does not take as long to pass 35 as it did to pass 30 and 33.

I had heaps more fun than when I was here last week. Last week it was plain hard work. Today was all fun and it was heaps easier sailing. I was never overpowered or struggling, and not really even fully powered up. The Tribal ultra weed cut through the thickest weed and I felt I could sail anywhere safely. The absolute smoothness of sailing through surface weed was fantastic.

I am very happy with my speeds today. It was nice to get better speeds than some of the guys at last. That doesn't happen very often.

It was good to catch up with Jake and Boz and Pacey. I hope Pacey will post some numbers.

1 categories

Cervantes, WA, AU

Day 2 of the Cervantes Windsurf Challenge.

Solid 20K Sou'easter early that soon swung round to a bona fide SSW.

Went conservative in my sail selection with the aches and pains of Saturday and an expectation that it would boot in again...6.5 Turbo.  Grabbed the Mistral 112 + 33 Tribal WS, because I wanted a bit more pace and the sea state was slightly more manageable than yesterday.

Race one:  a bit underdone at the gybe marks and I struggled to get doing after the first gybe, so half the fleet sailed by.  On the plus side I made all my gybes and the M112 was a lot more on the pace than the Xwave.

Race Two:  breeze picked up a bit and I was fully powered on the combo.  Had some great high speed drags at close quarters with Tom Radis, Kenny and a few other sailors.  Dropped a couple of gybes as it got harder to bear away at high speed.

Race Three:  After a lunch break the final 'official' race of the comp.  Breeze was fully in and over 25K.  Completely stuffed the start after a catapult 40 seconds before the gun.  Jumped on fanged downwind to try and catch a couple.  Couldn't make a gybe to save my life.  I was completely spent by the time I got to the end of the long runs, so the gybes were challenging.

Pretty glad to call it a day after three races, I was shattered.

These speeds don't look much, but going at 28-29 knots throught the mental chop in 25-30K is freakin full-on.  Scattered throughout the course are shallow reefs and shoals that turn what is already pretty disorderly seas into outright chaos.

It was a cracker weekend of racing and I highly recommend it to any team mates considering whether to go next year. The format is excellent and the short races feel like mini-LOCs, but you get to do it seven times in two days, woohoo!  I actually sailed six out of seven, I needed a longer break after lunch on Saturday to recover.  It is fantastic to see the skill level of the top sailors in such conditions.  On Sauturday when it was absolutely mental and gusting to 30K the elite sailors were still going full speed on race boards and 6.3s.

Personally I was a bit short on sailing fitness for such ballistic conditions, and a bit ill-equipped.  The Xwave is comfortable but slow. The 112 a bit wde for such seas and hard to turn.  All the top guys were riding boards 90-100L and circa 60 wide.

Shout out to Isaac for being the driving force for this event.  I hope it prospers and becomes a regular part of the racing season.  I'll certainly be back in 2019 

Peel Inlet

Peel Inlet, WA, AU