Thursday 27th April - Windsurf **** River Orwell at Levington – sunny start but then cloudy and chilly.

Foil – 19.83 knot max, 18.82 knot ave, 11.75 knot hour, 15.25 knot mile, 46.26 km., 15.00 knot alpha.

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

With a bonus couple of days of wind, I was keen to get out on the water, today there was a moderate breeze from the SE forecast, ideal for a session on the sea but with temperatures struggling to make double figures and still suffering the effects of a chesty cold I decided once again to head over to Levington. Low water was at 10.30 which gave me enough time to do my exercises before hitching my trailer and heading over to the Marina around midday, I paid for the year and parked up. I was setting my foil board up when I nearly died of shock, my foil and mast were not there which is when I realised, I had driven off with it on the top of my trailer, old age is a terrible thing and I definitely should not leave home without my carer!!!! I whizzed home not thinking about the damage that had been done, I found my mast in the next road, luckily no damage and on reaching home my foil had been placed in our front garden, once again no damage, I can’t believe I could be that lucky! I then returned to the marina and set up my foil board and with a good breeze blowing from the left I took a chance with my 6.5. By the time I was ready to launch there was plenty of water and I only had a wade a little way to the deep channel, getting away was not so easy as the wind and tide were both pushing me back into the mud but I managed to get away in the end. I then did several short runs downwind towards Pin Mill, the day then turned into a gybe feast, in fact I did around 75 getting mot too:) The wind was stronger out on the water than expected and I could have used a 5.6 but the bigger sail handled the conditions very well. The wind started to go patchy so I started the beat back. It slow going getting upwind as it was wind with tide and the runs were short but you could turn in the flatter water either side of the river which was great fun, the only downside being the sun going in and it turned a tad chilly! I spotted my first tern of the year as I slowly headed down river with the wind regularly gusting to 20 knots. I made it back to the corner and had a few nice runs down towards Felixstowe docks were the water was particularly smooth but the wind started to go patchy and I was getting cold as I had been out at least 2 and a half hours! Nothing overly fast today as I spent most of the session beating upwind but great fun none the less and maybe more tomorrow? Pack up and over to the hot shower to warm up, reaching home just as it started to rain, fingers crossed its sunny tomorrow, also the Granddaughter, the lovely Maeva is coming for the day so I get to see her too:)

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