Just got home from a few weeks in France to a load of wind so as the gear was already on the van and with a good tide decided to go to Southend. As usual with speedsailing things never turn out just right :( Firstly had to change some broken harness lines and then choosing the right sail is always a nightmare here as the long walk makes changing next to impossible !!! so with the wind supposed to be building I went for the 5.2 and had a problem getting the mast the last few cm !!! That sorted I made the long walk out only to discovered there was an inch gap on my mast so I had to re-rig it all out on the Ray and then all day I had a problem with the cams popping off the mast :( At first I had a job getting going and was never fully powered until the wind went balistic later !!! As usual I am miles off the pace :( perhaps my love affair with speed sailing is coming to an end !!! ??? even though it was good fun sailing as close to the East bank as possible trying to avoid the freestylers and kiters !!! and it was nice to met up with Ian and Michael. I got my best run after I broke a battern too !!!

A really nice day on the Ray - sunny, windy, summer wetsuit and decent speeds!

I'd arranged to meet up with Ian Richards and Ant Todd who was turning up for his first taste of real speed sailing. Top effort on getting a 36.85 with a 90L board. I think Ant is now hooked and planning to get a smaller board! Stephen Squirrel was also sailing with us after his time in France. Just three other GPS windsurfers - two I didn't recognise and one who we see occasionally on NP Speedseeker sails.

The wind was a good strength (building throughout the session) and had a bit more west in it than an actual SW. This made the western course too choppy so we spent the whole day on the eastern course. It was pretty square and we were able to sail back upwind next to the beach so high speeds were mainly when bearing off 20 to 30 degrees.

I started off hovering around the 38's / 39's (peaks) and 36's (10s) but as the wind got stronger my speeds improved. 40's turned to 41's, then 42's and 43's. I was pretty stoked to get my first 44 on the dial (44.70 knots) which was the fastest of the day until Ian got 46.15 about 30 seconds later!

It was a long session - 5 hours out on the water with over 4 hours actually sailing. I learnt a fair bit during the session and most important of all had a great time!

Where were the other UK speedies?

Great day on the Ray, solid 30-40 knots of wind, just the angle not working for high speeds on either course, bit more south or west and it would of been epic. Was cool doing tight 500m runs on the east course in a lot of wind and flat water.  Good to see Antony Todd getting the speed bug... next time on a speed board!

Well done Mike on your PB vmax.