Tuesday 6th September - Windsurf **** - The Manor at Felixstowe – mainly cloudy.

 Foil – 18.86 knot max, 17.59 knot ave., 14.29 knot hour (PB), 17.37 knot mile, (spot PB) 60.93 km., 14.46 knot alpha.

Starboard Freeride 150 and an Evolution Freeride foil with a Tushingham Thunderbird 6.5.

Its looking like an OK forecast for at least a couple of days of foiling here in Felixstowe so arranged with Ian to meet up at The Manor at one with low water being at two. This gave me time to do my exercises in the back garden with some sunshine, the wind looked to be all over the place with spells of 20 knots gusts with it then dropping back! So, after lunch I drove to the Manor carpark to meet Ian and check the conditions as Michael arrived with Robert coming a little later. It looked fairly marginal with the light sailors rigging 6.5 so I returned to Squiz Lane to set up my foil board. I had found my wind gauge while sorting out my trailer, I also sorted out a flat tire by removing a thorn, a few spins and a quick pump up sorted that out, the wonders of ‘slime’ in the innertube:) I am getting off the subject, I check the windspeed which was gusting to 17 mph so took a chance with my 6.5. Being fairly mild I put on an old autumn wetsuit turning it into a shortie which proved ideal! It looked light as I launched but pumped up and was flying well, in fact got my best Felixstowe mile on the first run! I am leading the hour category on the GPSspeedsailing site and was keen to go for a fast hour straight off but sadly the wind did not play ball and I had a bit of slogging followed by some vigorous pumping to get up flying! At this point it was hard to stay upwind being underpowered but I was doing long 3 mile runs and got back OK. Then for the second hour the wind filled in, gusting to 20 knots again which allowed me to get my best ever foil hour and this is just the start, all I have to do is improve my sea gybing, some are good while others are falling short but great fun trying. I did breach a few times pushing it hard, with wind against the tide it had made it pretty lumpy! I had one nice broad run down to the Fludgers and a good beat back into a big sea but was getting knackered so decided to call it a day, pack up and head for home!

So the 3 star session improved a star as the wind picked up and I got a couple of foil PB’s which is always nice:)

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