I think it was a golfer who said 'the more I practice the luckier I get' - well I had some luck a couple of weeks ago on the Saturday' but only after years of practice.
In the morning I went past Vaz just for a look as I was pretty tied up. There was a good 4ft+ swell but it was pretty light, good enough for a drift n drop with 6.0 but not much else. In the back of my mind I sort of knew that something was in the offing - WindG was forecasting a couple of knots more for the afternoon as well as veering slightly to make it onshore on the beach but cross-on on t'others. The burning of brownie points is a skill that can only be learnt by experience and I just knew, in the back of my mind, that with a veering wind, a clearing of the weather front and pushing in tide the brownie point burning would have to take place later in the day. Marshall and a new English guy from well England I guess!! went at 12ish on big kit and were struggling to get going but I wasn't rushing. I headed down at 2ish, the sum was popping out and Hutch was kiting and there were a few guys slogging it on big kit (6.0-6.5s). Not keen on anything bigger than a 5.3 I rigged up and decided to head out on the 85l. The tide was perfect and the swell was building - and more importantly there was the odd gust pushing through. I planned straight off the beach and knew straight away it was session on. After about 10mins the guys on the big kit were tail walking Hutch was struggling to hold on to his kite and there were some nice 6ft ers pushing in (for those who don't know a 6ft swell means about 3/4 mast high wave). It wasn't long and I was rushing up the beach to get my Starboard Quad and I was pretty much the only one left on the water. A few loops and waves under the belt and things were ticking along nicely. Hutch had packed in and event though he was way up the beach he clocked me doing one of the biggest backies that I've had in long time (just didn't quite hold the back hand on landing but pretty close) - and for Hutch to say it was big is a good endorsement for me!! Not long after that big Ogier came in with his 6.3m2, an d was planning off the beach - which meant that given his 110kgs it must have windy. I by this point had bee nin for about 2hrs and was thinking of changing down to 4.7, but the brownie points were burning fast by this point and I was conscious of eating into the capital reserves so I packed it in for another day.
It turned out that a few of the others had been in at Ladies on their 7.5s and slalom board clocking up towards the 40knt mark - pretty scary if you ask me. I'd rather stick to the waves thanks. But that said on the Sunday I broke out the 130l iSonic and 8.5 and went for some slalom racing. I'm beginning now to learn how to crack the jibes on the beast - it's a real art of deft footwork and hand placing to be able to get the aircraft carrier out of the jibe fully on the plane - the real probable being the apparent wind issues and backwinding in the jibe. We're now fully back into Island Game training and things are going well with the team not yet fully decided.
On a final note I've got myself a new toy. My old Gopro gave up the ghost a while ago and I'd been waiting for a good price replacement. Gopro do various wide angle HD versions but most of them are about £250-£300 which is too much. However they do a very difficult to come by slightly lower res still wide angle still HD version for £160 - so that 's what I've just bought and I'll be using to full effect on this blog soon.
CFN
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