Thursday 4th May - Windsurf ***** The River Stour at Wrabness – sunny periods.

Foil – 20.37 knot max, 19.02 knot ave, 14.68 knot hour, 16.34 knot mile, 76.87 km.,(year PB) 16.39 knot alpha.

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

With the wind continuing to blow from the East and after a bumpy session on the sea at Felixstowe today we headed over for my second session on the River Stour at Wrabness and for the most part it was sunny with a constant breeze around 20 knots. A few friends were just up river At Bradfield but Mag and I prefer the peace and quiet that Wrabness offers, she can also go on a nice walk too:) With high water around midday we arrived just before ten, the foil board was quickly set-up, sail choice is harder here as you rig up on a little sheltered beach and it is difficult to judge the wind strength out on the river, with no white water I took a chance with 6.5, only learning later that the Bradfield crew had rigged smaller. I launched at 11 and was soon up and flying in super flat water, this was the best part of the session as it roughs up as the tide comes in. I had my fastest runs now just sailing across the river slowly heading upriver, getting my best gybes too. I then started a beat downriver against the tide, a little slow going to gain upwind at times but there was loads of wind and I could have easily used 5.6 but the bigger sail was fine although I did go in a few times but managed an OK hour, in fact I did 3 OK hours of 14.68, 13.42 and 12.27:) I broke 20 knots just once when flat but it was hard to go fast as it chopped up and I spent a lot of the session beating but managed a 19 knot average which was OK. The nice thing about sailing in Holbrook Bay is that the runs are nice and long, I was soon joined by Neil, Robert and Ian and made it well past the beach huts at Wrabness before turning having some mega broad runs ending up just short of Mistley Quay as the wind increased. I then had a long beat back in fairly challenging conditions, lumpy and pretty windy, I was now getting knackered, in the end I was out on the water for over three hours covering close to 50 miles! Back at the van to hear about Mags Day, again she had a walk along the beach past the huts and back through the Nature Reserve. After a freshly made chicken sandwich I packed up and we set off to Alton Water to see the Highland cattle calf, sadly we only got as far as Mistley when there was a huge bang as one of my trailer tyres exploded. It only took 15 minutes to replace before continuing onto Alton Water and were treated to a fantastic display from the cutest little brown calf, what a top day, hopefully we will have an easier day tomorrow as we are both knackered!

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