After a morning of heavy rain and gales it looked it had eased so rigged 76l/4.2m. A bit of a wind shadow or small gear at jetty so launched by bridge. Windier than I expected, half the time strong F6 and rest F7, with strong gusts I either sat out on beach or on one occassion just lay in the sea until past. Good when not beserk wind with some nice 3-4 foot swells to ride down. Lasted about an hour. Sometimes you could see wind coming and other times sea looked like F4 but it was 30 knots. Other side of Straits looked more so stayed close to shore. 3*