Jinx of the New Toys

Typical isn’t it, I get a load of new windsurfing kit in my quest to hit 40 knots before I’m 40 and then there’s a conmplete lack of wind forecast.

I’ve just taken a look at the forecast on Windguru for the next week and there isn’t a single star showing. Oh well, I’ll just have to hope that Ivor out katabatic wind can do something about that!

Wind Forecast for the week ahead

My quest to hit 40 knots on a windsurf board continues with the delivery of another new board last night.

Boardwise in Cannock did me a great deal on a brand spanking new Fanatic Falcon Speed and delivered it in person for me last night… Although it may have looked a bit dodgy on any CCTV in Machynlleth as we both pulled up on the main street in the middle of the night, shook hands, had a quick chat and then exchanged the board in its bubble wrap packaging, before heading our separate ways… Dodgy dealings on the streets of Machynlleth!

The board looks awesome and has just one thing in mind – Top end speed.

The first stage of the quest, equipment acquisition is almost complete – I just need a suitable 430 mast for the 6.3m sail and I’m ready to go. Then all we need is some wind, some time to get out there on the water and the nerve to hit 40 knots.

As you should know by now, it the big 4-0 for me this year and I’m trying to hit 40 knots on a windsurfer.

The first stage is to get the right tools for the job so I’ve been doing my research and have come up with a list of kit.

The Boards

Mistral SL Red Dot

I couldn’t decided between a dedicated speed board and a small slalom board. The dedicated speed board is very small, narrow and the fastest thing in a straight line under the right conditions. They are also pretty challenging to sail and don’t cope well with choppy water, gusty wind or poor technique. The slalom board is still quite a small board but being a little larger and slightly more user-friendly it is the fastest thing on the water in a wider range of conditions. It copes better with some chop and gusty winds and is a little more forgiving. Both are really fast in comparison to the wave boards that I usually sail. The slalom board is likely to be the fastest in most conditions, but when the conditions are perfect the speed board would be considerably faster.

Unable to make up my mind I decided that the only option was to get one of each! The speed board I’ve picked is a Fanatic Falcon Speed (242cm long, 48cm wide and 68 litres), which Boardwise in Cannock are getting for me. The slalom board is a Mistral SL Red Dot Team Edition (240cm long, 55cm wide and 80 litres) which was delivered on Sunday night by Jim from Puravida Boardriders.

The Sails

The boards are crucial for top speeds, but the sails are just as important. The wave sails that I usually use are designed for ease of use, to feel light in the hands and be manouverable. Perfect for the jumps and gybes and general hectic sailing in waves, but lacking the power, stability and aerodynamics needed for top speeds. New sails were therefore needed too. I’d need a couple to cover a range of winds and my engines of choice ended up being a 6.3m North Warp and a 5.2m North Warp. These are stable, powerful sails that should be capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots.

North Warp 5.2

North Warp 6.3

Both arrived last night and I’ve just rigged them in the garden.

The 5.2m rigged beautifully but I wasn’t able to get the 6.3m rigged very well. Either I need a better mast for it or more strength to add more downhaul. The former is probably the case!

The Fins

Fins are probably the most crucial part of a speed-sailors equipment. Top sailors will have loads of them and will fine tune them for the board and conditions in order to get maximum speeds. The shape, stiffness, size, foil-profile and rake are all important. I don’t have the time (or money)  to bother with all of that, so a couple of speed fins will have to do. So far I have fins, Fanatic Falcon fins in 28cm and 30cm.

Other bits

This windsurfing malarky isn’t cheap! New sails require new masts. All of my wave masts are RDM’s (Reduced Diameter Masts) which are stronger and therefore better able to cope with the demands of jumps and crashes in the waves. Speed sails however all have camber inducers in them which provide an aerodynamic, wing-like shape to the leading edge of the sail. These are designed to fit on Standard Diameter Masts (SDM’s) as the larger diameter mast improves the foil shape, so at least one new mast was needed (North Viper 380cm) for the smaller sail. Since rigging the new sails though it looks as though I may need one for the bigger sail as well.

Similarly the booms I have are designed for wave sails and would be a little too small and too flexible for use with such large powerful sails. A new Simmer Silver Series boom was in order!

The Cost

This really is getting expensive now, and all to eek out a few extra knots of speed, I hope its worth it!

Speed Season is here!!!

I’ve just got back from a windsurf session the estuary here at Ynyslas. Ivor, our local katabatic wind was up to his tricks so the wind was ballistic at over 40 knots. The water was a seething mass of white and simply getting out of your car on the beach led to an instant sand blasting.

My new speed kit isn’t here yet so I was forced to go out on wholly inappropriate kit. My board was far too big as was my fin and my sail was far too old. In fact, I didn’t notice this until I was at the water edge but the entire top panel was missing – not ideal. However, with temperatures at just above freezing it wasn’t really a day for messing around on the beach rigging different kit so I went out with the broken sail anyway.

It was hard work hanging on and keeping the board on the water was tough too. Not really perfect conditions for getting a top speed, but I stayed on the water for about an hour and had a few fast, but not very comfortable runs. My top speed was 32.85 knots. Way off my 40 knot target so I’m hoping my new kit will be easier to use as well as faster.

The tracks from my GPS drew some pretty lines though and you can see the speed channel I was ailing in pretty well from this.

My GPS Tracks from todays Speed Session

Its the big 4-0 for me this year. How did that happen so soon?

Oh well, not a lot I can do about it so I may as well use it as an excuse to have some fun and buy some new toys! The plan / aim /dream is to hit 40 knots on a windsurfer. If I can do it before or whilst I’m 40 then all the better.

In case you don’t know, then 40 knots on a windsurf board really is VERY fast. The top guys are getting close to 50 knots, but that is just silly. I’ve managed 35 knots before now and although that doesn’t sound far off 40, I can assure you it is. 30 knots is very fast, and every little increment over that feels a whole lot faster. 35 knots on the kit I currently have is an impressive feat in itself and not one that I’m likely to repeat too often as it is the absolute maximum possible on such kit.

All of which means if I am to achieve my aim of 40 knots I’m going to need to through some money at it and get some proper speed kit. I’ll hopefully buy the kit soon. I’m looking at a couple of boards at the moment, a tiny little Fanatic Falcon Speed and a small Mistral SL Red Dot Team Edition slalom board. I’m not sure which to go for, so might just have to get both! I’ll also need a couple of speed sails and a mast and boom to rig them on. It isn’t going to be cheap, and even with the right equipment it isn’t going to be easy, but it should be fun.

I’ll be looking out for the perfect conditions and then I’ll be off. You’ll be able to track my progress here. Will I make it to 40 knots?

Windsurfing in the estuary at Ynyslas

I’ve just got back from a nice little windsurf session in the estuary here at Ynyslas. Ivor, our local katabatic wind was up to his usual tricks with a decent NE wind funbelling down through the valley at up to 25 knots. And this was  despite the fact that the forecast was for winds of 5-6 knots. Lovely.

The wind wasn’t quite up to its usual strength, but it is still pretty early in the year so I think Ovir was just warming up. Hopefully we’ll get some really good winds in the spring.

With the sun shining it was pretty warm out there as well. I had my 5/3mm wetsuit on and boots and a hood but if anything I was a little too hot whilst on the water.

There was something going on at the visitor centre car park though. Four police cras were in attendance and the car park was closed off with ‘Crime Scene’ tape all around it and a police officer at either end preventing anyone from entering it. Anyone know what’s happened?

I’ve just got back from an adrenalin packed windsurf session here in Wales. I posted a session log on Forces-of-Nature as usual, but as it was such a mad session thought I’d share it here as well.

Woohoo, what a session. Went out with my big wave board and 4.5m sail and soon realised that it was a lot bigger out there than it looked from the beach!

The first run wasn’t too bad, some nice big jumps and then managed to sail out the back and have a good blast over the swell before gybing and sailing back in amongst some pretty big lumps of water. But then it just seemed to get bigger and bigger. I’m not sure why, but it was dead on high tide so that may have had something to do with it.

On about my 5th run out it was easily the biggest I’ve ever sailed in, way over mast high and not only were they huge but they had become snarling monsters that seemed intent on punishing me. At one point I had been sailing out, well powered for ages but still wasn’t out beyond the breaking waves. I was at least half a mile out to sea and still surrounded by big waves and walls of whitewater with nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.

Then I thought it was all over as a huge waved reared up in front of me, pitched and exploded into a wall of white-water. I had no option but to hit it flat out and try to sail up and over it despite the fact that it was mast high. I hit the whitewater head on, sailed vertically up it and managed to pop out onto the top. By this staged I’d lost some momentum and it had me. I was travelling backwards on top of the white-water in its grip, pumping frantically to try to get going and not get sucked backwards over the falls. Somehow I made it, but there was another wave in front of me.

Still in the straps I pumped as hard as I could, pushed with my front foot and tried to get going again, back on the plane and the next wave was jacking up. Thankfully it hadn’t broken yet and I managed to sail up its face (I’ve never sailed so far uphill before) and just about managed to punch out over the top of it as the lip pitched forwards behind me. There were still more waves beyond it so once again it was back onto the plane and keep sailing out until eventually there was a break in the waves and I could gybe and head back to the beach.

By now I was miles out to sea and down towards the estuary. It was about now that I decided that maybe enough was (more than) enough. If I came off here and got parted from my kit or broke something then it was going to take me hours to get home. I was out on my own with no-one else around so maybe the sensible option was to sail back to the beach and call it a day.

I did of course ride some of the waves on the way back in just to show them that they may have beaten me into submission today but they hadn’t completely beaten me.

Only a short session, but a full on, scary, adenalin rush of a session!

What a weekend. Lots of DIY on Saturday for me so our new ensuite shower-room is just about finished. This meant I could reward myself with a windsurf session on Sunday. Simon and I had a pretty mad sail in the estuary. The weather station was recording gusts of 50 knots.

It was just about perfect with my 4m sail, but not quite windy enough in the lulls. The worst /  best part was the rain. When the squalls came through it was complete white-out conditions and sailing along at 30 knots without being able to see anything becomes quite a challenge. It was good fun though!

I did have a bit of a problem when packing up though. The back door on my car decided to jam itself stuck. I did manage to get thing shome, but I can’t open the door and much of my windsurfing kit is now stuck in the car.

It was nice to be able to come back, straight into the beach room and into the new shower though.

The wind continued to blow all evening meaning that we couldn’t hear the TV over the wind outside. It is kind of funny sitting in the living room barely able to talk to each other because of the noise of the wind and rain.

I love living here when the weather is wild.

One of the reasons we built a house here is that its such a good location for windsurfing. With 4 miles of sandy beach on our doorstep and plenty of Westerly winds and waves, the seafront from Borth to Ynyslas is perfect. But that isn’t all, we also have the more sheltered waters of the Dyfi Estuary which can be good when the wind is from the east. This is especially true in the Spring when Ivor, out local katabatic wind, comes howling down the valley.

On Friday, another combination of local effects allowed us to have a good windsurf session too. The wind was South-Westerly at about 18-25 knots. Plenty windy enough for most people, but us windsurfers like it windier so that we can use our smaller sails and boards. However, there had been loads of rain and lots of flooding inland. The Dyfi bridge was closed due to the flooding and the Dyfi River was in full flow. Coupled with an outgoing tide, this results in a very strong tidal flow through the channel in the Dyfi Estuary. The water flowing through here was moving at 10 knots or more  and flowing out to sea – in the opposite direction to the wind. This results in an effective windspeed (for someone on the water) of 28-35 knots… Perfect.

Andy and I launched from the Ynyslas side of the estuary, sailed out through the channel, walked across the point and into the channel where we spent a couple of hours blasting around perfectly powered up with 5m sails and smallish boards in really good conditions. For a change, sailing downwind was a problem though due to the speed of the current.

Once again, West Wales provides perfect windsurfing conditions.

Here’s my diary entry and here’s Andy’s diary entry.

Anyone who has ever had to put on a cold, wet, smelly wetsuit will know that it isn’t a pleasant experience. It is usually accompanied by howls and much swearing, especially when performed on a cold winters morning in a windswept car park. We’ve all been there and it isn’t nice.

However, I can’t remember the last time I had to do it as I now always tumble dry my wetsuit before putting it on. I can’t tell you how much nicer it is, especially if it has just that second come out of the tumble drier. I usually tumble dry it in the hot setting so not only does it come out dry, but it is piping hot too. Sliding into a hot wetsuit is just so nice, and the extra heat not only warms you up, but it also makes the suit more supple so getting into it is easy.

I know the care instructions on a wetsuit will advise against this, but I’ve been doing it for years without any problems. In fact, it is probably much better for the suit than drying it on the line in the sun where the UV rays will degrade the neoprene.

I’ve just checked my ‘Toy Box’ on Forces-of-Nature where I track my ‘extreme’ sports sessions and equipment usage and my current wetsuit, a C-Skins Wired, is now 4 years old and has been used at least 230 times and is still keeping me warm in the sea. It won’t have been through the tumble drier after every session, but must have been dried at least 100 times and will have had quite a few wash cycles in the washing machine on a normal 40ºC wash as well.

I highly recommend it.