Wednesday 16th October – Windsurf **** - River Orwell – Levington – cloudy.

Starboard Formula and Slingshot Hover Glide F/Wind with Tushingham Lightning 7.

Foil – 19.65 knot max., 16.59 knot ave., 5.97 knot hour, 9.73 knot mile, 19.40 km., 9.09 knot alpha.

Was keen to get out today with a nice SW wind and favourably tide at Levington before hopefully some decorating tomorrow followed by a trip to Point Clear on Friday:) The only drawback being was it was supposed to rain this morning but after breakfast and although cloudy it was not raining so I headed over to the marina arriving at 10.20. With the cross-on wind gusting up to 27 mph it again looked too windy to windsurf so I took off my F2 Xantos 295 and rigged the 7m but by the time I had had a chat with Jamie, a foiler who works here, then Michael Galbraith arrived and we were interested to see his new foil board, the very short but thick RRD pocket rocket. By the time I had my suit on the wind had again dropped so I quickly set-up the foil and headed out at eleven with plenty of water in the water. I quickly got a couple of short flights but sadly the wind had gone very light, so light that even lightweight Michael couldn’t get airbourne but this is his first time out on this board and it took a bit of time to work out how it worked. The highlight of my session was actually flying past a slogging Michael, the position which is usually reversed! As soon as we got a few more useable gusts Michael whizzed up wind as I stayed in the river in front of the marina. I find that I can go downwind much easier than beating, being under sailed a lot of the time did not help! When the gusts came, I could sustain flight as long as the wind blow and the river in this direction is nice and flat. We some better gust I headed up towards Pin Mill and had some nice long runs and then things got interesting when it picked up to 25 knots and you could fly not sheeted in at all, I even managed to get in both straps and hock in on a few runs! With the wind now turning more west I had a really nice long broad run down the river and set off towards Felixstowe docks but quickly ran out of wind so with the tide about to turn I decided to head back to the van. So, another fun foil session even if gusty as usual and just missed out on 20 knot max, I must be brave enough next time to get in the harness and sheet-in!!! Fingers crossed for a fast session at Point Clear on Friday!

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