Wednesday 1st December - Windsurf **** River Orwell at Levington – mainly cloudy.

Fin – 28.71 knot max, 25.92 knot ave., 11.34 knot hour, 19.08 knot mile, 35.95 km., 16.34 knot alpha.

F2 Zantos 295 with 36 fin and Tushingham Thunderbird 6.5m.

Keen to get out again today being the 1st December as the temperature is set to drop again with a small chance of some snow tomorrow. It had been very windy in the night with a couple of 47 knot gusts at Shotley and I was hoping it was not going to be that windy this morning but the wind had eased as I headed over to Levington for the second day running. Ian was already there with his foil board already set up, I followed suit as it did not look silly windy on the river but with the wind WNW it was difficult to judge? With loads of water in the river and flat too I changed my mind and decided to take my fin board out as I did not use it for the whole of November, in fact I have not finned since 20th October! While Ian rigged 5m for foil I went for my 6.5 again and was well wrapped up against the cold as only 8 degrees, mainly cloudy too! I headed out and quickly found the wind but it was a little up and down, I had one long run down towards the docks but with the tide going out I did not risk doing it again as struggled to plan on the return to Levington. I was then stuck in the corner of the bay and started the long beat back against the tide. It was slow going as the wind eased back past the corner making the planning runs quite short and I gybed in the wind, in fact I only dropped one gybe all session, love the Xantos 295, perfect for river sailing:) Slow but sure I made it back to the launch beach where Ian was going really well on the foil especially being on the same size sail I would have used and I am much heavier than him! He did go in with a big splash but he had caught an old mooring rope! I was just about to call it a day and was heading in but Ian was there with his camera so had a few more runs across the river as the wind increased as did the state of the water but you could turn in the slightly smoother water each side so it was OK. So, a nice couple of hours with only my hands getting cold helped by the fact I only went in once, was nice to get some faster speeds today and was quite pleased with the max speed and average today:)! Hot shower and home for yet more yummy soup with Mag before we went for a quick walk along the prom at Felixstowe. With the wind offshore it was lovely, some top clouds too, then the showers arrived and we had a couple of double rainbows, so top day:)

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