Saturday 22nd September– Windsurf ** - The Manor - Felixstowe - sunny.

F2 Zantos 295 with 39 fin and Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

Fin – 22.62 knot max., 17.87 knot ave., 7.87 knot hour, 17.36 knot mile, 14.13 km., 11.07 knot alpha.

The day promised so much but failed to deliver for me today, wall to wall sunshine and a good SE onshore breeze so what could go wrong! Neil and Craig Hurrell, Andy Mexome and I arrived at The Manor fairly early around 9.15 to make the most of the low tide. With the onshore wind it is difficult to judge what size to rig and you always need more than you think but no one wanted to rig too big with the sea quite big. Andy was first out on 7.3 and 115 and to our surprise got planing, not fast but planing none the less so Neil went for 8.m and I rigged 7.8. The first mistake I made was launching from the wrong end of the groynes and it was hard to get off in marginal wind with a big shore break and I got washed up a couple of times:( I got off but only just cleared the rock groyne as beating hard and struggled to make into wind as woefully under powered! Andy and Neil were going better further out so on gybing I managed to get away from the coast and had a couple of OK runs but defiantly needed my bigger board and 8.5 as you could sail parallel with the coast in brilliant sunshine in a good sea, it would have been such a good session if only the wind played ball! I seemed to run out of wind completely at each end of the run when it was time to gybe and was lucky not to get sucked into the River Orwell while trying to water start. Then the wind all but disappeared so time to call it a day and struggle back to the beach, I was then knocked off by a wave and had to swim the last few metres to the shore and thanks to Andy for helping me get my gear out. So, in the end Andy and Neil had an OK session, I had a crap one and Craig although he rigged didn’t go out! Still he had some fun walking a friend’s puppy! There was talk of heading over to Bradfield in the afternoon for some foiling but I was still thinking about that?