Nice day for mid winter. New 4/3 kept me toasty warm. Wind 23-28 SW. Maybe the rare short gust to 30.

I went down at 10am to find the tide all the way up the road. Amazingly, Craigs car was parked up the sand dune. That was the first hint that he had got there pretty early! When I finally got in at midday the second hint was that he was wearing his headlights!!!!! Man that lad is mad!! 4.30am start in the dark and freezing cold - on his own!!      

Peter was waiting for the tide to drop as well. Adrian couldn't wait and walked his gear in to Freeze with Craig!

Wind looked very south so I went with 5m KA Koncept on IS 87 slalom with Time Machine speed 26. Geared up for Alphas and a one hour.

I threw in a few Alphas and then set off for an hour. All was well until about 15 mins in when I missed my grip on the boom and dropped the sail. Full on sunken rig. Bugga! I figured I would go another hour starting there but at 45mins in a squall hit just as I hit the speed run. I was really struggling to hold the board on the water at mid 30K's and no way I was going to make a gybe so I just kept going down the speed run. Peaked at 41.2 knots and 40 knot 10 second. That is a PB by a LARGE margin for me on that board! It was really on the edge though. Even at 120 off the wind the board was wanting to fly! I crash stopped at the end and just had to hold the rig down for a couple of minutes 'till the squall abated. Now I had two stops and I was in no condition to start again so I just kept going to make the best of it including another fluffed gybe and slow waterstart.

After a bit of a rest I got the CA40 for a few runs. I think the wind filled in a bit better but it was still up and down a lot and always below 30 knots but I managed a 42 peak and a couple of 41, 10 sec runs so it was a bit of fun. Course was too square for better speeds.

Thanks for the bun Peter!