Wednesday 11th January - Windsurf ** River Orwell at Levington – sunny periods with rain late afternoon.
Plus – windsurfing stats from 2022 :)
Foil – 18.53 knot max, 17.08 knot ave., 8.30 knot hour, 15.07 knot mile, 22.96 km., 15.39 knot alpha.
Starboard Freeride 150 and a Evolution Freeride foil with a Tushingham Storm 5.2.
After yesterday being windy but wet, I was keen to make the most of todays continued wind but with some sunshine today so after doing my exercises I headed over to Levington marina at 11. With plenty of wind and some sunshine too it looked OK so set up my foil board and with no 6m now I went with my 5.2 and headed out, to be honest it wasn’t great, the wind was very gusty due to the direction WSW and with a twisted rear wing on my foil it just doesn’t sail right, haven’t had time to try and sort it out:( also the water was very lumpy. Had a few nice gybes then tried a few runs up river but the wind gusted up close to 30 knots for awhile so I headed back. I was pleased to get back, the sun had also disappeared. Then the highlight of the day as I was packing up Mag turned up on her bike with lunch, she is a star:)
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Stats windsurfing 2022 :)
Last years trend continued with foiling being now taking over with 75 sessions compared to 29 on the fin! I will start with the highlight; I try for a fast hour at the start of each session and ended up top in the UK on the GPSspeedsurfing site on the elevated hour section having posted every month of the year. Not bad for a 69-year-old who has not broken 30 knots since 21str May 2021! Again, I was let down by my Slingshot foil which broke for the third time on 22nd May, while waiting for my new Starboard Freeride board and foil to arrive, I had 15 sessions on my much-loved Fanatic Cat, you forget how much fun longboard sailing can be fast too, regularly getting over 20 knots with my 8.5 lightning being my favourite sail with a top speed of 23.66 knots:) I had a lovely cruise over to Dovercourt and up the River Deben to Woodbridge as well as sessions on the Orwell and Stour.
My new Starboard Freeride 150 with a Freeride foil arrived in July and I absolutely love it and my foiling has improved, not hugely faster but my gybing is coming along nicely now especially when it is nice and breezy with smaller sails making things a lot easier.
With the price of diesel going up I am content to stay fairly local these days having many hours of foiling fun especially at Levington my most used venue but I did head over to Point Clear a couple of times for the first time in ages and had some fun up the River Colne mainly!
Venues sailed this year.
Levington Marina (River Orwell) - 49 times.
Bradfield (River Stour) 1 times.
Wrabness (River Stour) 9 times.
Felixstowe.
The Manor – 19 times.
The Dip – 25 times.
Point Clear – 2 times.
Equipment used this year.
Boards.
Fanatic Mega Cat – 15 times.
Exocet RF 91 foil – 27 times.
Starboard Freeride 150 foil – 47 times.
F2 Xantos 295 – 10 times.
F2 Ride 282 – 20 times.
Sails.
Tushingham Lightning 9.4m – 2 times.
Tushingham Lightning 8.5m – 18 times.
Tushingham Lightning 7.8m – 2 times.
Tushingham Thunderbird lll 6.5m – 50 times.
Tushingham Vulcan 6.0m – 14 times.
Tushingham Storm 5.2m – 10 times.
Tushingham X – 15 – 5.8m – 2 time.
Naish Nalu – 4.75m – 1 times.
Sailworks Retro 7.5m – 16 times.
Speed/Distance for 2020.
In my 101 sessions I sailed for 2740 miles with my best day at The Manor where I sailed for 57.50 miles.
Fin. Foil.
Max speed – 28.98 knots. 22.16 knots.
Average – 26.39 knots 19.87 knots.
N/mile – 22.36 knots 17.91 knots.
1 hour – 17.85 knots. 14.47 knots.
Alpha – 18.20 knots. 16.83 knots.
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy new year with loads of lovely mild weather, a good breeze and sunshine:)