Thursday 26th August - Windsurf **** River Stour at Bradfield – cloudy and cool.

Foil – 17.86 knot max, 16.51 knot ave ., 11.74 knot hour, 15.56 knot mile, 61.16 km ., 11.69 knot alpha.

Exocet RF AST 91 with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7m.

August continues to keep on giving with todays session at Bradfield on the River Stour being my 13th windsurf with several more days of northerly winds to come! With high tide at Mistley at 3.20 I had time to do my exercises while Mag had an hour or so in the garden, the only downside being the cloudy, cool weather which is probably expected with the wind in this direction! I was expecting it to be busy today so after Mag made lunch, we left Felixstowe at 11 arriving 45 minutes later and we were lucky enough to get our favourite spot in the corner of the field by the sunflowers which are now definitely past their best! Neil Hurrell was already there as was Peter Edmunds who had brought over a lovely secondhand F2 Xantos (yellow) 295 which he kindly picked up for me from Oxford, can’t wait to give it a spin! There was plenty of water now in the river as several sailors were now arriving! Setting up my foil I took it down to the beach and with the wind in this direction sail choice is next to impossible being pretty gusty especially in front of the launch beach! There were some big gusts coming through so I started to rig my Lightning 7m, changed my mind, rigged my Thunderbird 6.5 but in continued to rig the 7m. No shortie today with the weather more like Autumn than summer I went for my full wetsuit. Neil was heading out with his 6.9 so took a chance with my 7m which I have foiled in winds up to 25 knots of wind so hoped I would be, OK? With the wind dead onshore, it is a good direction for sailing the whole length of the Stour, Shotley to Manningtree and I expected the best wind to be down in Holbrook Bay. The wind was light and patchy as I set off down the river but approaching Wrabness you hit the wind line with some big gusts making foiling interesting as I headed off broad towards towards Parkstone. The wind got light before reaching the oil refinery so turned, it was not a day for me to practice my gybing as I had probably rigged too big but still managed to be out well over 3 hours covering nearly 40 miles so the sail must have been OK some of the time:) I spotted Andy M heading down river so decided to follow and had the most wonderful run straight down the middle of the river playing with the swell, sailing past the yachts, ending up opposite the pub at Shotley, time for a selfie:) The beat back also keep you on you toes in the big gusts, so cool trying to keep the board from hitting the waves, not always easy as the big gusts hit! There were several fin boards flying down this way too, certainly the best place to sail if you are brave enough to venture away from Bradfield. You just have to keep an eye on the tide and be near Bradfield when the tide starts to go out! With the wind up I carried on past Mistley ending up at Manningtree for more pics. One more run down past Holbrook before flying back to the beach nice session, the only thing missing was some sunshine! Time for a late lunch and cuppa with Mag who had had a good day, she walked to Wrabness nature reserve to collect blackberries and got a tub full, looking forward to the crumble now:) Mag took my picture with my new yellow board, must get my haircut as it is now completely out of control! Will probably have a day off and try Bradfield again on Saturday when there is more breeze even if the tide is a little late in the afternoon!

PS – got a pic on the local BBC Look East weather tonight – always nice and it was of Bradfield too :)

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