Thursday 9th July- Windsurf **** - The Manor at Felixstowe – cloudy.

Exocet RF 91 AST with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7m.

Foil – 16.63 knot max, 14.90 knot ave ., 6.87 knot hour, 9.94 knot mile, 25.44 km., 7.32 knot alpha.

With the bolts etc sorted out on my brand new Exocet RF 91 foil board I had no excess when Andy and Robert arranged to head down to The Manor to make the most of the WSW breeze which was forecast to drop during the day! Arrived at the beach at 9 and despite the miserable cloudy day, at least it was not raining and with the wind cross off the sea looked nice and flat:) I set the foil up on the beach so I didn’t have to struggle board and foil down the steps. Next problem was sail choice which is a bit of guess work with the wind in this direction, so when Andy decided on his 7.3 I went for my 7m. Andy was first out and was soon up and flying, making it to Bawdsey in the end:) I was much more cautious today as I had a new board to get used to! I set the mast towards the front of the track which I think was a mistake and needed to get my weight further back, in fact I went over the front several times, something I don’t do on my old Starboard! It will take a few sessions to get up to speed on the new board but after a few runs in front of the Manor I did start to venture off downwind despite being overpowered a lot of the time; I should have rigged my 6.5. The board feel fast and fly’s easily and glides along very comfortably at low speeds when the wind drops. I had some lovely long runs downwind but had to concentrate on keeping the board flying and lost the foil out of the water a couple times. It was a tiring session for me as ended up in the water several times but exciting times on the new board and I only manged to scratch a little blue paint off:( After some good broad runs, I made it down to The Fludgers only for the wind to go light. It was a bit of a slog back with only a couple of flying runs but that didn’t dampen my spirits and cant wait to give it another try although the long term forecast does not look very promising:( So just three of us out making the most  of the morning breeze with super keen Robert coming along nicely on his foil:) So home in good time for lunch with Mag, sort out my trailer managed to leave some boards/sails off so much less wait to tow. Then we go and drop some stuff off to our son and partner who are self-isolating at home and had a lovely catch-up while standing in the road!

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