Wednesday 12th - Windsurf **** - River Orwell at Levington – sunny periods and much milder.

Foil – 17.13 knot max, 16.48 knot ave., 8.55 knot hour, 13.01 knot mile, 46.33 km.,10.85 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

A marginal breeze was forecast today from the WSW and sometimes it can be breezier up our local rivers so I decided to join Robert at Levington Marina this morning to make the most of a good tide, hoping to get some gybe practice in. Arrived at the Orwell around ten with the wind gusting to 18 mph and toyed with rigging sails from 7 to 8.5m but in the end I went for my 7.8m. I made it out onto the water just before Rob arrived and was soon up and flying but it was very patchy with lots of slogging waiting for a gust, in fact the wind went very light for a bit before picking up. It was a funny day for wind next to nothing one minute, 20 knots the next keeping lightweight Rob on his toes as he had rigged his 7.5! There was a large bouy moving vessel going from the corner back towards Ipswich doing some sort of survey and another smaller boat down towards Felixstowe doing the same, also there was a large number of yachts heading out to sea all of which had to be avoided! With the wind increasing I started beating towards Felixstowe, short runs across the river where I could practice gybing, no flying gybes yet but I only fell in once so I must be improving. About half way to the docks the wind went patchy again and I was struggling to make against the tide so decided to return and had some of the best runs of the day across the corner. I then had some nice runs up towards Pin Mill, then after falling in for the fist time decided to call it a day having been on the water the best part of four hours! So, some nice flying runs, nothing fast just fun trying to gybe in the sun with all the boats in beautiful surrounding, just me and Rob. Funny day for wind with anything between SW to SE, gusting 5 to 20 knots but that’s what makes it interesting. So another top shower, pack up and home for 4 o clock, so a long day. After a couple of good sessions this week perhaps a few days off now for some walking or biking with Mag:)

 

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