Sunday 4th February  – Windsurf ***  River Orwell at Levington Marina  –  mainly cloudy and mild.

Foil – 20.83 knot max, 18.86 knot ave, 11.46 knot hour, 17.58 knot mile, 44.59 km (year PB)., 15.86 knot alpha.

Starboard Freeride 150 and a Tushingham Bolt 5.5m.

Feeling sad as we have some family and a friend with some health issues I headed over to Levington Marina for a windsurf foil to clear my head, making the most of the currant run of mild, breezy weather, I do find it harder to sail two days in row these days as it takes the old body time recover! I arrived at the marina aound 10.30 and backed my trailer near the marina entrance and being low water I had to sail out of the entrance channel, with the wind wsw it was straight out. Not much sun today, just brief glimpses and always nice whizzing down towards Felixstowe docks with the Orwell being particularly quiet for a weekend! Again I took a chance with my 5.5 which was OK and again went for a fast hour which is difficult here especially with the wind in this direction as the wind is a little up and down. I started well enough doing short runs across the corner but if you went too far you ran out of wind:( Then the wind turned west and I had 3 great runs down to the docks with some big gust approaching 30 knots coming through. Nothing overly fast as I didn’t want to push it too hard, I did come a cropper a couple of times but it was mild and I took my gloves off! So not a bad day, got a couple of good miles, some nice gybes and sailed over 27 miles, the best of the year! I sailed right through low water but you have plenty of water but I did run aground once while gybing but no damage as sailed into soft mud! After two hours and getting knackered it was time to call it a day, pack-up, shower and head for home.

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