Sunday 17th October - Windsurf *** The Dip at Felixstowe – mainly cloudy.

Foil – 16.39 knot max, 15.44 knot ave ., 11.80 knot hour, 1.84 knot mile, 35.43 km., 11.99 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

There was a chance of a sail today as the forecast with a SW to 15 knots but the mornings weather was poor, very cloudy with some light rain, also with high water around 10 I was in no hurry to get down. So spent the morning doing my exercises and then with the wind building I spotted Swainy and Paul Already down at The Dip after checking the conditions on the webcam I decided to head down and join them. I dropped Mag off at Jacobs Ladder before continuing to the beach and was impressed by the new barrier gate with its new lock:) The others were nearly ready both having rigged 7.3 and with a bit of white water I quickly set up my foil and was about to rig 7m as Paul headed out but looked under so swopped to my 7.8. There was a bit of a break on the beach but you could easily get out but you then sailed straight into the lump bit caused by the River Deben flow and the wind was light, so slowly sail out to smoother water out by the red and white bouy where I was able to pump it up onto the foil. Paul was now going OK while Swainy headed back to rig something bigger, I think. I then had a good hour and a half doing really long runs out, slowly beating down the coast but it was slow going upwind against the tide but the sea was fun to sail in being quite big. The wind increased a fraction and I started to make progress up wind, I had a two-mile run out to take pics of the small ship moored offshore before turning back as the wind eased right off:( I managed to fly nearly all the way back to Jacobs Ladder before it went. I made it back OK after two slow runs back, so a 4-star session went to three but it was good none the less being so mild too, we even had a little sunshine too. Ian and Robert had also come down for a short session before the wind went and there had been at least 8 kites out. There is some big winds coming with Wed/Thurs looking particularly good if we can avoid the rain, so fingers crossed for Point Clear on Wednesday and maybe Levington on Thursday?

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