Thursday 1st September - Windsurf * - The Dip at Felixstowe – sunny.

 Fin – 22.86 knot max, 18.72 knot ave., 10.14 knot hour, 18.24 knot mile, 25.94 km., 7.30 knot alpha.

F2 Zantos 295 with 36 fin and Sailworks Retro 7.5m.

After two full-on but fun days over the border at Wrabness in Essex I thought would stay local today and save the diesel joining Ian at The Dip here in Felixstowe, sadly it turned out to be a big mistake. We were hoping it was going to be windy enough to fin and both set up fin boards, me rigging 7.5 while Ian went for 5.6. We both got into trouble being under powered not helped by the fact it was wind with tide, that’s a lesson learned, never fin when the conditions are like this, also the wind was too light to stay upwind not helped by a big sea too! The Retro I have noticed when foiling is not the best at going upwind and it did not feel comfortable for some reason on the fin board today, perhaps I will look for a Tushingham Thunderbird 3 – 7.5 to go with my 6.5 which I love for both fin and foiling. The conditions looked OK when I set off but I made the mistake of sailing too broad on the first run and soon ended up down towards Jacobs ladder and despite my best efforts could not make any headway back upwind being way underpowered too! So, in the end came ashore and had to carry my board back over half a mile, by the time I had retrieved my sail that’s nearly two miles of walking, so not a great day! When I got back to The Dip Ian had gone, we meet up later as he had been driving along the coast looking for me, top man:) He then went to the Stour something I should have done without wasting time at Felixstowe. Ian also lost a few groynes too but managed to get back, I hope he had better luck at Bradfield!

Foiling would have been the better option today but launch conditions were far from ideal so it was not worth risking breaking something!

More bad news another lightweight Xantos yellow 295 bits the dust as it has a huge crack across the deck, so can’t risk using that again!

At least I had some good news in the evening when I got a pic on the lovely Chris Pages weather report on ITV About Anglia:)

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