Curse of the New Kit

by Alan Cole · Friday, June 11th, 2010

Ever since buying my new windsurf speed kit way back in March, there just hasn’t been any wind. Not enough anyway.

Yesterday however looked liked the most promising day so far, NE’s and hopefully Ivor our katabatic wind would show up. Usually on such occasions he starts blowing early in the morning, sometimes around 4.30am and then builds until about 8am before dropping off, so I was all prepared for an early morning, first light start.

4.30am came and went without the appearance of Ivor, as did 7.30am. There still wasn’t a huge amount by Midday but the underlying forecast was for it to pick up again later in the day. At last, at about 1.30pm it started to pick up. I had to do the school run at 3pm so couldn’t get out yet, but by 3pm it was 25 knots, wall to wall sunshine and perfect for my bigger speed kit.

I collected Morgan from school and hatched a plan. Load up car, phone Anna and tell her to go straight to the estuary after work, go to the estuary with Morgan, rig up with Morgan helping so that I was ready to go when Anna got there and could take Morgan off my hands.

I did just that. When we got to the estuary the wind was in the 30-35 knot range with gusts to 40 knots. The speed channel was looking perfect, could today be the day? I rigged my 5.2m North Warp sail and thought I’d start with the bigger 80 litre board and then change down to the smaller speed needle if all felt good. All the kit is new and never been used so I need some time to get used to it but conditions were looking perfect for a proper speed session

Anna rushed home from work for me and was on the beach by 5.20pm. I handed Morgan over and walked to the water. Jumped on and all felt fine. There is always a little bit of apprehension when going out on new kit, especially kit so different from that which I normally sail, but it all felt fine. Straight onto the plane, I headed upwind to the speed channel, beared away onto a speed run, taking it easy just getting used to the kit. Halfway along, the wind dropped. Grrrrrr!!!!!!! I didn’t even make it to the end of the speed channel before it dropped so much that I fell in backwards and had trouble water-starting.

I got going again and had one or two more goes, but there just wasn’t enough wind. What do I have to do to get to use my speed kit!

Needless to say I got nowhere near my 40 knot aim so the challenge to hit 40 knots continues.