6 categories

Albany, WA, AU

Started at 8.15 in 8-12knots and really low water. Rigged the 7.9 Vapor and went out on the 81 Manta with my largest CL Delta a 19. The setup felt out of balance and after trying a few different combinations of track position, downhaul, outhaul, no setup seemed to feel good. The fin was obviously too small as it was difficult to stop spinouts on each run.  Had done about 45km at 10.45 am and felt any distance was going to be challenging in light conditions and an unbalanced setup. I cracked it and decided food was opportune until the wind picked up. It soon did and I thought I'd try the 7.1 on the same board to see if things felt anymore stable. It did, so I stayed out till lunchtime but only managed 90km. At about 12.45 the wind filled in to about 15-18 knots so I used the 7.1 on the 66Manta. Immediatly, things felt better with far less spinout. Getting to 150km was slow and about 2.15 I think. The water came in quite quickly today and smooth was non existant. At about 3.15pm I saw Slugger at the front of Lilacs who I thought was going to sail too. I sailed over, had a chat and at that stage was at 198km. Kept things going and saw the 250km. I was ready to go in and leave it for another day but started to feel quite comfortable and thought just keep enjoying the sailing. Took me to 160km to start feeling comfortable today. Felt like crap till then. Odd. Could have been trying to stop the big rig spining out for 4 hours perhaps. Kept going till the sun went down and was stoked to get the 300 after thinking 200 may be all that was possible earlier in the day. A top Albany day.