Visit to Wesh windsurft park - Leucate

On our family drive back to France from Barcelona, we passed by Leucate. This windsurfing town, famous for its windsurfing speed strip now boasts the first windsurfing rail park. I managed to convince the family to make a slight detour so we could visit.

It also turned out to be windy so I was super stoked that I might get to sail. On our way to Leucate, we drove by several beaches jammed with windsurfers, kiters and learn to sail operations. We also saw a few well stocked windsurfing shops.

When we finally got to location of the Wesh centre, I was excited to find a fully stocked windsurfing rental operation. I quickly got a wetsuit, harness, 5.8 and 100l Naish concept board, and headed out to the water.

My kids hung out in the car playing video games and my wife chatted with many of the French windsurfers at the beach hut.

I sailed for 2 hours and then started feeling guilty about leaving the family on the beach. It was the first time in months I'd abandoned them, so they readily forgave me when they saw the size of the smile on my face.

My loving family captured a duck jibe from shore

Unfortunately the ramp and rail were not set up. In fact the ramp looked to have taken a beating over the winter. I'm not sure I would have tried it anyway. I did do a bunch of nice upwind 360s in the straps and got some downwind 360s as well.

The Wesh centre ramp

The location is a nice protected bay, where the Tramontine wind comes out to the sea. It felt a lot like the walk down to Doug's in the Gorge, but with a Bonaire waist deep area and very small chop. The warm weather, good vibes, muddy water, dry hills, parking lot full of RVs, windsurfing gear trailers and seeing the French TGV trains going across the other side of the bay probably were some of the many things that reminded me of being at the Columbia River Gorge. 

The path looks like the one to Doug's

I enjoyed sharing my copy of Windsurfing Mag with them. I happened to have the "Ripping up Rails in France" issue, so I left it with the Wesh crew. That turned out to be very handy and good karma, as then next day we realized that my wife left her ID at the cash. Luckily they had our postal address on the magazine cover and could mail it to us!

All the facilities are right on shore

It is very cool that in France there are so many windsurfing rental shops right on the beaches.

A great session!

Mistral today - I'm glad I've got a 4.2

After a week of waiting for a good day, the Mistral (north wind) happened as predicted. Topping it off, it was 21c and sunny.

I started out on my 4.7, but rigged down to 4.2. I'm glad I had that sail, but still didn't really have much success in the trick department. Survival sailing was the best I could do, with a few good jibes.

I am really pleased that the foam nose protector that I glued to the front of my board is sticking in place. I would have had one very ugly nose crack if it wasn't there!

Wind stats during my time on the water, 11:00 to 13:00.
Later in the day, gusts were hitting 49 knots

Is a 2 hour session in that kind of wind wimpy? I kind of thought so, but some of the other sailors that rigged up and headed out at the same time as me, were already de-rigged and gone when I got back to shore.

I think that's me, captured out on the Le Jai webcam

I have lots of Shadowbox and GoPro data and look forward to posting some of that soon once I go through it all. A failed loop attempt and a possible 13ft high jump off chop should be interesting to review.

A better location to sail the Turfdog

We were supposed to get a day of Mistral (north) wind, so I headed down to Marseilles to check out the beaches there. I took my board (Fanatic Skate 108), 4 sails from 4.2 to 6.2, and my new Turfdog as the low wind fall back position.

When I arrived at 11am, the water was glassy. None of the north wind had materialized. So I waited a while, drove around looking at the parking lots and grassy areas, and finally decided to rig. While Marseilles is a city of 4 million people, the beaches are empty in early April, so empty parking lots were easy to find.

7 knots of wind is actually enough to get going in a flat parking lot, so I started having fun on the Turfdog. A bunch of guys came by to check out what I was doing, and I had some nice conversations in my broken French. One guy even asked if he could try the Turfdog and I was happy to share. In 5 knots of wind I kind of even did a slow motion Vulcan, but I'm not sure I'm going to count that.

I did enjoy making figure 8 loops doing tacks and jibes while going back and forth in the empty parking lot next to the beautiful blue Mediterranean.

Parking lots and lots of grass at the Marseilles waterfront

Then the wind started building. Soon it was white-capping out in the water, and I was getting too much speed in the parking lot. The Turfdog's front wheels can generate quite a speed wobble. I headed to the grass, and found it was ok too. I can see that is where the Turfdog is good for practicing freestyle. Eventually I was getting pretty tired and when I found I could "grass start" from a sitting position using a 4.7, there was definitely too much wind to be on land. Unfortunately it was now close to 2pm and I had to head to the airport to greet a guest. North of Marseilles at the airport I could see people out ripping it up at Le Jai. In hindsight I wish I'd headed there.

The windsurfer has been on the roof
and not in the water for too long!

I definitely need to get out on the water soon, but the weather looks sunny and windless for the next week.