Yeah, a great weather forecast and I managed to make the most of it. Wind surfing, wind foiling and wing foiling. And luckily I had taken my old Garmin 910 watch out to the Launch Pad and charged it the day before as I’d forgotten my normal Vivoactive watch charging on my nightstand this morning.
I headed out at 11:50 with the Idol 5.6 sail and Freeware 116. I thought about launching from the point but there seemed to be enough SW wind to launch from the dock. The weather was still threatening rain but the radar didn’t show any more storm cells.
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| Not much upwind ground on the regular windsurfer |
Indeed I got going several times while very slowly working my way upwind. Only my 5th day this year on a shortboard and I was a bit rusty. Eventually I got a few jibes and even a duck jibe. After an hour and 16 kms and a bit more slogging than I’d expected, I headed back to the point. I left the Freewave in case I’d need it later, and took the 5.6 back to try out the Techno with the 76 cm wing as it felt like the wind was dropping.
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| Having fun going up and down wind with the wind foil |
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| 34.6 km/h max speed on the 76 cm foil |
Wow, I hadn’t really used a foil with footstraps for a higher wind day in a long time. I felt surprisingly comfortable in wind that was stronger than I expected. I headed up to the waves at Wedge island and was having a ball! Surfing down waves, even doing a few switchbacks! I started trying foiling jibe 360s without success but didn’t mind how much time I was sp ending in the water. Most of the time I could waterstart the 5.6 with both feet on the board - and only touched the sharp foil once with my foot. I had two stretches where I worked on trying to get a good maximum speed going. After an hour and a bit and 22 km, I headed back for a lunch break.
The weather was clearing and the wind was still from the SW and was predicted to back to NW and then fade. I took out the 6 m Echo wing and the Stingray 140 with the 99 cm foil. It was super comfy compared to finning and windfoiling. I’m getting better at keeping the wing out of the water and am riding with the harness lines most of the time so it is really easy on the arms.
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| You can see the 90 degree wind shift from SW to NW! |
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| No great speed with the wing but 7 nice long upwind runs |
Well it was easy until the wind shifted 90 degrees in 15 minutes. That was as predicted. But what wasn’t predicted was that it would suddenly start gusting to 30 knots! I could barely hold the wing and even the board was having major forces on it heading upwind. But heading downwind was a dream. I could just hold the wing in front of me and cruise straight downwind.
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| Some big gusts as the wind shifted while I was winging |
As I got out of the water I realized that the two machine screws holding the fuselage to the mast were quite loose. The photo is a reminder to myself to retighten everything every few sessions!
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| Hex key ready to tighten the machine screw! |
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