More Windsurfing Humiliation in France - On the Rocks

Another huge forecast for wind. In fact too good. The place closest to home was supposed to have strong Mistral (north) wind, and it did. Check out the chart on the right!  Le Jai wound up with 44 knots with gusts up to 52 (that is up to 96 km/h!). So I didn't head to that beach, but drove in the other direction to where the winds were predicted to be more reasonable.

I arrived at La Coudouliere six Fours and saw around 25 sailors on the water, nicely powered up. They were all on 4.5-5.0 sized sails. I asked two locals what they recommended, and they said wear booties, and I'm glad I did!. For sail sizes one suggested rigging my 4.7, the other my 5.4. Since I was so worried about being over powered (and because I have a floaty board and the 4.7 was still wet from Sunday's session and the boom and extensions were set for it), I rigged the smaller sail and headed out just as the wind dropped off. From the small beach under the cliff, we had to head out and upwind to avoid the rocky breakwater for the marina. I floated out, floundered, started being pushed downwind to the rocks, and then returned to shore. I rested up, walked up the beach 20m, and started again.

This time, I almost got going, then got hit by a wave and fell. And then waterstarted and fell again, and again. As I floundered more and more, and the breaking waves started jacking up higher and higher, it was clear that I was heading to the rocks protecting the marina. The waves spewed me up onto the breakwall, but somehow I managed to grab my gear and walk up without killing myself and just putting a tiny tear in my sail. Whew. Check out the video. (Is the addition of music and credits done in Windows Movie Maker worth the loss of video quality required to convert from the .264 encoded GoPro videos of my other posts?)


Washed up on the rocks, Windsurfing in Six Fours, France from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

I walked past the RVs and boats back to the parking lot, where most of the sailors had also returned due to the weakened wind. I got undressed while the 5 remaining little French and Itilian sailors bobbed around with their 5.0s, and then caught nice waves on their runs back in. I wonder what my day would have been like if I'd rigged the 5.4, headed out 10 minutes earlier and had made my way upwind out of the breakers before the lulls came?

Six Fours on the Mediterranean - You can see the breakwater I washed up on. Nice waves though! 

I didn't actually feel too grouchy about another humbling session. I've learned to maybe go a bit overpowered when there is upwind ground to be made at a new spot. And winding up on the rocks might not kill you, and is not a good enough excuse to sit on the beach. And there were guys who drove from Italy for this day and were skunked as much as I was, just without an adventure on the rocks like I had. I will count this as session #13 though. I''m thinking there will be a few more windsurf-able days before the end of Nov?

Gotta Keep Smiling!