Pelican Point, WA, AU

a good day with a few good gusts on bic techno 293 6.5 so it was pretty slow but wasn't to bad. 

felt alot faster than it was but not a bad few runs.

JP HF 135L, NP RSR E6 6.4m, NP RSX MWS

Morning Session with Stroppo and Roger, Unfortunately the chunk missing from beside my achiles was giving me grief, making it hard to concentrate on keeping the board level.

Twas a bit gusty with some punch in some of the gusts, experimented with shifting the front windg back a couple of holes this helped a fair bit with the control but not the discomfort from my foot so I flagged the session early after a decent dismount.

Great to see Roger gets some nice airtime and his uphaul technique is coming along nicely

Still a few weeks till I'm healed properly me thunks.

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU

a good blast at the local with a decent crew of mobbers

good to see paul,ross and mike making the trip down and shane the trip up

and also to catch up with rob and simon.

1 categories

Dawesville, WA, AU

Starboard Formula, LP Foil, sim 2XC 6.5

First propper foiling session with the king of carnage Elmo, Stroppo and later Luke. 

Well that was an experience, great fun, very tiring with all the falling in and at times quite terrifying. 

Got down to find Elmo and Stroppo rigged and almost ready to go. Got the new formula board and foil out and put them together. Elmo seemed to be impressed with both the length and width of my equipment. I also rigged the new 6.5 for the first time and what a spectacular little sail, it rotates so easy and has a good profile for a bit of power but is so light in the hands. I followed Stroppo out and in the cross offshore gusty wind it soon became apparent that it wasnt a perfect day for a learner. Some of the gusts were quite strong but I soon managed to get a bit of air time keeping the board very close to the water until natural windsurfing instinct ocasionally took over the brain and sheeting in on gusts soon sends you flying way too high and crashing down. I spent quite a bit of time climbing back on the horse and uphauling. on my first session I didnt dare try get in the straps and only used my harness 50% of the time. After a short break and a bit more advice from the masters I headed out again and this time managed to get in the front strap, that gives you way more controll when in the air. I actually got a couple of flights a good few hundred mill from the water and kept the board level for a while untill the sheet in thing happened again and I ended up breeching the foil on three ocasion which is as scary as jumping off the sky tower in auckland. My third breech was just after my best 2s and my most impressive performing a double forward roll with pike over the front of the board. However no matter how hard I tried I could not make as big a splash as Elmo, I thought Fangy makes a pretty decent dent in the estuary but Elmo is definitely far better at it than him.

Look forward to my next flying lesson, hopefully with a few more of the mob flight school out.

4 categories

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU

Pat 100/87 pepe 28/24 tr16 6.3m

An eerie silence fell over Australind as the king of Coodanup drove up in the dictator mobile, he hesitated before leaving the saftey of his chariot a moment maybe to check he could breath in the alien air hope you enjoyed the local Ross.

Great sail with a good crew out awesome to finally meet Shane.

3 categories

Fun with the crew at Australind, was really nice to have a bit of the diaspora back together.

I should have gone with 'ken's advice and rigged big, but I rigged for the expected gusts instead, which didn't quite happen. I managed to catch one that felt like a 34 or so, but the watch only showed 31.

Went with the new 48, 5.8 and 24@43, had a couple of big lulls where I sank, but planed most of the time.

Tide was high and wind side on, so couldn't get any real long runs without going into the heavier chop.

The tide slowly dropped throughout the arvo and the water became a bit flatter

Towards the end of my session the wind swung onshore, making for longer runs in flatter water.

Disappointment for the day was the logger, it wouldn't stay on, kept turning it self off, so I left it in the wagon. There's two possibilities, either the battery discharged itslef overnight, or for some reason the current drawn is too low to hold the battery on. I'm investigating as I type.

2 categories

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU. FF113/GPS7.3 should have stayed with that but couldnt resist the new toy later on, so also FF89/GPS6.0.

Great sail this arvo with a good bunch of mobbers making the trip down.

Line honours to Paul, nice work you were still blasting away as the sun went down 

Great first post Jake, more PBs to come.... 

1 categories

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU

Joined the team for an away mission to Australind, to meet up with the bunbury chapter.  Was really nice to see so many of the team together with one even up from Albany and everybody having fun.  Nice wind all afternoon with a few good gusts. I got my best squirt in one of the squalls that came through later in the afternoon and got to enjoy a bear away through the small chop with the captain.  Was enjoying myself so much I couldn't get off the water and finally got off as the last one, Sluggger drove off.  I think that will be my best distance this year by a lot and my 5th best ever. It was just getting better and better as it got later and the tide dropped out.  Drove home with a big smile and tired body.

7.3 HSM GPS, first the F2 SX 120 then the Exocet SL 94

Sorry for the late post, I just got home from a long road trip south to check out the Softwood Tenon Convention on the sunny shores of Leschanault There was a good turn out of Mandurah and Bunbury devotees on-site, but conspicuous in their absences were the Soft-Knot enthusiasts from Busso. The program had Sludge as the keynote speaker and he delivered some interesting research on Butt Joints and in particular his efforts to use a softwood tenon. There was also some demonstrations of tenon shrinkage issues in cold weather and combating this with some complex Bridle joint craftmanship. Overall an interesting presentation, but I felt the catering and seating arrangements were below standard. 

But probably the real story of the day was my efforts battling technology and Frank to simply get there. The Kommandantmobile, with its recent software upgrade, now has the super unhelpful ‘Kaiser’ voice control system. Of course, my ancient iPhone still chimes with Siri when she can, and Frank. Well, he is just frankly Frank at times. 

Here is an excerpt of the dialogue that occurred as I passed Greenlands Road ( which is the turn off for Boombas)

Kaiser:“Halt dich jetzt um” ( stop, turn around )

I ignored him and kept driving south.

One minute later;

Kaiser:“Dummkopf” 

Siri: Here is what I found on the net for ‘Dummkopf’

Kaiser: “Geben Sie einen neuen Ziel-Schweineschaufelbagger ein” ( enter new Destination pig shit shoveller)

Me: 'Cathedral Avenue, Australind.’

Kaiser:”Nein”

Me: ‘ Australind’

Kaiser: “Nein”

Siri: Here is what I found on the net for ‘Soft Wood’

Me: ‘WTF’

Kaiser “Schweinehund” (pigdog)

Siri: Answer incoming call from Frank?

Kaiser: “Tolles anderes dummes Englisch”  (Great another stupid English)

Me; “ G’day Frank, what's up?

Frank: ‘Hi Fangy, I just wanted to catch you up about Evets, I got some bad news’

Me: ‘Crap what’s happened?’

Frank: Apparently when Evets heard that a tiny landlocked country in Europe, about the size of Perth, gave football the option of ‘Not Coming Home’, Evets started to get a bit toasty.

Me: 'oh yeah I heard about the Soccer World Cup not going to England.'

Kaiser; “Das nächste Mal sollten sie einfach einfallen” ( Next time they should just invade)

Siri; “ Here is what I found on the net about football. The UK is the only English speaking countries to call soccer ‘football’. 

Frank; “ I am on speakerphone?”

Me; ‘Yes but it will take too long to explain. What happened to Evets’

Frank: “ Well once he heard that football called the South of France ‘Home’, he spontaneously combusted.

Me: “ Did any of his gear get damaged?”

Frank: “ ….bad signal…can’t hear…tunnel…”

Kaiser sounds the horn and shouts " PAEDO". I had just been passed by a Tesla 

So, after burning enough fuel to keep Saudi Arabia in Lamborghinis I arrived at the the Glory Holes Softwood Convention Centre. My initial impression was one of underwhelmed, really, really underwhelmed. The King of Hardenup was on site, Sludge was in his Mr Whippy Van, still getting the soft serve setting correct on his dispenser and Cap’n Calm was on his 27th cup of tea to try and calm his nerves. But nowhere to be see was any, bunting, red carpet, gold rope, unicorns or even a Bendy man or two. They did have some festival music playing, but it really just sounded like a banjo. Kaiser who had spent the rest of the trip practising how to be his idol, Hal from 2001, didn’t like what he could see either.

My first attempt at parking was behind  King Hardenup’s Donkey and cart. Kaiser simply selected R and tried to drown us by backing down into the water. 

Me: ‘Kaiser! Stop backing into the water’

Kaiser: ‘Entschuldigung, ich kann das Fangy nicht machen’ (Sorry I can't do that Fangy)

Me: ‘Kaiser there are Sausages and Beer in the boot. They will be ruined.’

Siri: “ Here is a song about Sausages and beer I found on the net”

Kaiser; ‘D ist jetzt beschäftigt” (D is now engaged)

I was a bit rattled and did a lap or two of the carpark. I attempted another parking spot a little further away. This time the Kommandantmobile engaged Park and the asthmatic  Kompressor spun down to a stop. The faint sound of banjo’s percolated through the toughened glass, but otherwise, it was eerily calm.  Kaiser was not happy and the doors stayed locked. 

Me; ‘ Open the doors Kaiser’

Kaiser; ‘ Ich kann das Fangy nicht machen’ (I can’t do that Fangy)

Me; ‘ Open the doors please’

Kaiser ‘Ich kann das nicht tun. Danke’ (I can’t do that. Thank you)

Siri; ‘ Here is what I found on the net about Jim Morrison’

Luckily, I remembered there was a silver latch thingy in the door itself you could pull if you wanted to open the door. I pulled it, got out, and said,

’ Kaiser you really suck sometimes’ 

He responded by locking all the doors and arming. It was a good thing the sausages and beer were in the trailer.

I took a deep breath and tried to saunter with an air of confidence over to the Sludge’s catering van. But apart from a small step to allow the entry for any hobbits, there did not seem to be much on offer. Apparently, being Sunday, and Jesus being a Chippie means that no tools are used for the day. Strangely missing the smell a rich running gen-set and Moccona it was time to check out the Convention proper. Shane rolled up from Albantartica to see if he could get a tan, and even ‘Ken Oaf appeared before sunset was even close. 

The Stretchy King was scooting back and forth, coming in regularly to make sure he used every possible piece of kit and fin combo in one day. Ratz joined in to show what could be done with small chop versus momentum muscle. I selected my jousting stick and trusty Barge, but then flew a handkerchief instead of a sail. The result was an underdone session, except when the cold front finally arrived and things got spicy for a few minutes.  

The Softwood Tenon convention was a flop, but the sailing with Mobbers was damn good fun. The water level didn’t really start to drop until Ratz and I got out, but prior to, the small chop runs were enough to harden things up and put smile on dials all around. 

When I left the sun was hitting the horizon, ‘Ken Oaf was still going strong and Sludge was blowing up pool toys in the van. It all seemed like a normal day again… But I will leave fun and games with Kaiser, Frank and Siri on the trip home for another time.

Top Ten Fangy Day with the Bunno Boys.

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU

Glory Holes, Australind, WA, AU Clocked up a few k's to get here but well worth the travel. Well out of my comfort zone. But great to sail somewhere different. Keen to try out my new sails. Very happy with the way they performed. Good to meet Simon and Rob from Bunbury chapter.  Good to see Fangy out of his backyard !

JP 101, HSM GPS 6.6, JP31