Friday5th March – windsurf ** Levington – sunny periods but cool.
Starboard 155 with Neil Pryde RS: Flight AL 85 with Tushingham Lightning 7m.
19.10 knot max, 16.40 knot ave ., 2.93 knot hour, 0.00 knot mile, 20 km., 4.60 knot alpha.
After a cracking 5 Star fin session at Levington we returned again today but this time Michael and I went out with foils and were joined by Neil Hurrell who sailed his small Formula board with 8.5. As this is only my second time out trying to fly so I relied on seasoned foiler Michael Galbraith to suggest a sail size. With loads less wind today and SE which was not as good as yesterdays SSE. Being lighter and with a strong incoming tide it was again difficult to get my board moving fast enough to lift out, wind against tide would have been much better for me at the learning stage as it was at times difficult keeping upwind as I was moving very slowly being way under powered for most of the session, even though Michael was flying a lot of the time with 6.2 on a 70cm wide 120 freeride board but he is much lighter than me. At this stage of learning I just can’t see it working in under 10 knots of wind, in fact at the moment I need a constant 15 knots and defiantly a bigger sail! I had been reading up on the basics and asking local foilers so I had some things to try today. I moved the mast back and set the boom higher which helped, at first I tried pumping the sail with only my front foot in the strap but that didn’t work well, when the board came up, it came up too quick, luffing up and throwing me off which can be painful as it can be hard to get your foot out of the strap! Michael then told me to sail broad and noticed his board pops up with minimal effort, no vigorous pumping for him. I was getting knackered pumping hard and it’s hard concentrating, learning something at my age is exhausting! Then I had a little breakthrough, getting some good gusts and with both feet in the straps, sailing broad and trying to pump with my back foot to weight the foil and I managed a few flying runs, not far but enough to think there was some improvement! With the wind going even lighter it was time to call it a day, Michael had had a brilliant session not flying all the time but once up he could keep it flying, Neil on conventional gear had a bit of an up and down session looking to me to be underpowered a lot of the time so I didn’t miss much of a fin session. So, what have I learned today, rig bigger, weight back to fly and the next step is to try and keep the board flying! Mag then arrived as I was packing up and made yummy scrambled eggs for dinner. We spotted Swainy on a yacht, he calls it working :) and tomorrow is showing marginal winds from the NE so it could be The Dip or Wrabness, will make up my mind in the morning?
https://www.facebook.com/stephen.squirrell.1/media_set?set=a.10215693450821944&type=3
http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms/
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