The Magic Hour

Living in Guernsey with a huge tide of nearly 10m poses problems, least of all when to go wavesailing! Today the 9.8m tide was high at 9.10am, meaning mid tide at about 12.10am, and the old rule of thirds means that by middy the tide would be falling fast and making the call would be difficult. A westerly is ok on high but any south in it and you need it to no longer be battering the sea wall and if there's no swell you need it high but if there's swell you need it low etc etc etc. So when is the magic hour?? Well today it was t'others from 11.45 to 12.45, any earlier and there'd be too much backwash from the wall and any lower and it would be rock city! I made the call at 11.45 and Jas and I had a sweet sess with cross on on t'others, 6ft in the sets and nicely powered on the 5.0. By 1pm it was getting low and the wind had swung onshore! It was good call even if I do say so myself!!!

As for other stuff well the last few weeks have been pretty windy with 8no. 5.0 or less sessions in the last 14 days. I've minimal media coverage it has to be said as we've been too busy sailing :-) however Martyn Ogier's now back from Namibia having taken part in the Ludertiz speed trials; he's not quite broken 50knts over 500m but pretty close at 49.55knts - but he did peak at just over 50knt as a VMax. He was also there to witness the greats of our sport Anoine Albeau, Bjorn Dunkerbeck, Anders Bringdal battling for the top spot which was eventually won by Albeau at 52knts (and a new windsurfing speed record).

As for me well we're off to France on Saturday from Christmas. Renting a place right on the beach and the forecast is looking pretty good so hope to score a few Breton waves during the hols.

Here's a link to Martyn's blog http://martynogier68.blogspot.com/ and a couple pictures taken by Pierre Bisson that I took from Martyn's blog - also there are tons more pics of the event on Pierre's website www.gsyphoto.com