Sad day at Felixstowe today :(
The day started so well, with no wind forecast until this afternoon we headed over to Ipswich for a nice visit to my Dad and Shirley, then we headed over to a bike shop where I bought a nice Cannondale mountain bike to replace my worn out Claud Butler - can't wait to try it out but not picking it up until next week ! We got back to Felixstowe at 2 just as the wind was filling in :) I then headed done to The Dip as David Coles was rigging 11m and Steve Carter 8.5 but the onshore wind looked light - I then checked out my trailor and it had broken again and put a large hole in my raceboard :( So I didn't want to use the longboard with a big hole so got the big xantos ready and started rigging the 8.5 but changed my mind and switched to 9.4 !!! I then had 40 mins struggling as the wind got lighter and lighter :( David and Nick were going well on there formula kit but it was even too light for the big board. I came ashore just before David who then had some devastating news - they had discovered a body :( :( :( So while David rang 999 Nick stayed with the body as it was floating up the coast and heading towards the River Deben. I then got my longboard off and headed out to see if Nick needed a hand, David also headed out again and we waited for the Harwich inshore lifeboat. By now there were several emergency vehicles on the prom, the small lifeboat arrived and we left them with the unenviable job of recovering the body from the sea. The lifeboat then headed round to Felixstowe Ferry where the ambulance were waiting - our thoughts go out to the persons family.
Then when things had calmed down the wind filled in and I decided to stick with the longboard and go for a cruise to The Manor just to be alone with my thoughts as in my 30 years of windsurfing here at Felixstowe this is luckily the first body come across by windsurfers !! Back to the windsurfing, the beat was nice and the broad reach the 5 miles back was good but I was a little underpowdered. I was going to try it again but the wind swung from South to SSW so returned to the beach. I had made 22 kts on the big board while Mark Smalling had nearly made 24 on his big shortboard so I finished rigging my 8.5 and took out the Xantos and made 24 kts on the first run out by sailing really broad toward the River mouth, you then had to had upwind right through the rough water which was interesting ! did this several time and nearly made 26 kts :) So in the end it turned out to be a 4 star windsurfing day but I can't give a day when a body was found 4 so one it is :(
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