Saturday 17th April - Windsurf **** - River Stour at Bradfield – sunny but a bit chilly.

Foil – 18.35 knot max, 17.44 knot ave., 11.20 knot hour, 14.94 knot mile, 58.00 km.,13.13 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lighting 8.5.

For the second day running we had a marginal NE wind forecast with a 3.44 high water at Mistley on the Stour several headed over to Bradfield with fingers crossed that the wind built as the tide came in like over the last few days! So spent the morning at home doing my exercises in the back garden in wall-to-wall sunshine as the wind increased. Left home around mid-day after loading my big xantos as I hoped I could get out on the fin today as I have been on the foil nearly every session this year and am keen to get out on the fin! Was third to arrive at Bradfield with keen Neil and David already there, in fact there was probably ten there today, all on the foil! There was enough water already to fin but sadly not enough wind so rigged as yesterday 8.5 for the foil and as I had time, I rigged my 7m just in case the wind really got up! The wind had picked up nicely by the time I got my wetsuit on and waded out to deep water but although there were strong enough gusts to fin, probably as yesterday 20 knot peaks but the were some big holes in the wind being up and down, nothing unusual for a river venue! Although sunny again it is still a bit on the chilly side and had and gloves were required by me! I spent a lot of the session beating into Holbrook Bay where you get the best water state and again bumped into local James who launched from Wrabness again. The foiling racers were whizzing upwind on their race kit but Andy was giving them a run for their money on his freeride kit! I am getting on well using the big sail and it handles the gusts great but a smaller sail might have been a little faster going broad when the wind was up! The swell on the river makes going really fast challenging so I did not push it too hard and again gybing is still not there yet but I can get around only to touch down at the rig change stage. You definitely need to get the hang of the flying gybe as it definitely increases your flying time and you get to cover more distance but never mind and even with ten foilers out, a wing foiler, a flying moth and some dinghies plus yachts you have enough water here to manage to sail clear of everyone most of the time:) I tired to beagt a little further than yesterday but the wind was a little up and down and keep swinging direction so decided to have some fun broad reaching back playing with the swell. I soon made it back to the launch beach and continued on towards Mistley were I actually had the best runs of the day; I could have definitely been on my fin board now! With the tide now going out it had made the swell bigger, I did come off on top of my 8m and annoyingly put a small hope in my sail, shame really as it was my only sail not to have any tap on! Again, I had been out nonstop for three hours covering as yesterday 36 miles so it was time to head back to pack up! Changed with the diesel heater on and soon warmed up, derigged two sails and drove the 24 miles home, a good couple of days:)

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