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Saturday 24^th October - Windsurf ***** - The Ray – Southend – mainly cloudy.

Fin – 33.10 knot max, 30.74 knot ave ., 19.46 knot hour (year PB), 30.11 knot mile (year PB), 14.58 km (year PB)., 19.14 knot alpha (year PB).

F2 277 Ride with Tushingham X-15 6.4 and 30 fin.

The tide at Southend today was too good to miss, sailable from 10 to 4 catching the tail end of a storm with wind from the south, not a fast direction but super fun blasting the west course. So, I loaded my van yesterday with my 80 and 100 lt boards with four sails from 5.2 to 7m and left Felixstowe this morning at eight dropping Mag off at the end of the prom for her to walk home and caught the last of the sunrise. I was enjoying the drive, listening to The Killers Greatest hits, so relaxed in fact I drove straight past the Southend turning, not for the first time!!! I did a U-turn at Brentwood and was soon back on track! I arrived at Chalkwell at 9.30 as two parking wardens were there so I had to buy a ticket straight away at £6.40! A few were there rigging sails around 5.8 but the wind was very light at this point. So, after a nice catch up I decided to take a chance with my 6.4 as the wind was supposed to build and I did not want to be out there with a 7m! As the wind in this direction is not fast, I forgot about going fast and set up my F2 Ride 277 at a 100 lts as I wanted to try for a fast hour and this board gybes really well:) The only downside is you have to carry the bigger board out to the Ray! I am one of the first windsurfers to start the walk out and as usual am struggling, then I notice the sailor just behind me is carrying his kit with one hand so ask the secret, easy really just but your board upside down and hook the fin into the harness line, why o why have I never done that before, so much better:) At the creek I sail out to the main channel but the wind is very light so it is wait for the wind to fill in. It slowly picks up but not enough to make it upwind:( Then things improve and I am soon over the other side going OK but not flat out and I could only make it three quarters of the way down the west course, ending up just short of the moored boat! It did not help that I had put loads of downhill on! I end up doing around 30 miles not flat out as the wind was up and down and could do with being much stronger. I did sail to the end of Southend pier where it was very wavy and the visibility was not great but I made it back OK. The east course was now very busy with loads of kitesurfers, half a dozen foilers going well with small sails, around 3.7 plus several wing foilers, for the life pf me I just can’t see the point, why would you want to travel across the water that slow???? I did admire the foilers as this is a difficult water to access, shallow too and a long walk with a foil board although most were using small boards! It was not going great at this point so I came ashore at the end of the west course to let off some downhaul and have my snack, I always take food, drink and spares when sailing here. Then the 2-star session improves to 5 stars as the storm arrives with gusts now to 30 knots and you could now sail flat out close to the bank which I did not hit once. You could sail the whole of the west course and much of the east, over three miles in total of super flat water. It is just so much fun especially when all the kiters went in and there were just a half a dozen windsurfers left. You could now get upwind easily keeping a lot of the time in flat water and managed to get a year’s best hour of just under 20 knots so not too bad as at times it was hard to gybe as too windy and I keep losing the back of the board! We did have some rain which did not help and you had a job to see where you were going but that stopped. With the light going and the tide coming in fast it was time to call it a day but it was hard to see the creek entrance for the return trip! The wind was now really up, I managed to great across the Ray and then had to walk through the shallow water back. So it was well worth the 150 + mile round trip and although I am not as fast as the slalom/speed sailors I did end up with four year PB’s, best mile, alpha, hour and distance so am pleased and really knackered! I had a good drive home in the rain, this time listening to Kasabian another top album :)

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