Sailing til Destruction

Autumn is here, and with it big winds and big seas too. Today looked perfect, with 30 knot SSW winds, 4-6 foot surf (Magic Seaweed was actually calling it 8-10 foot!) and the sun was shining. What’s more it was pretty warm too at around 14ºC. So, it’s still plenty warm enough if not a little too warm with just a 3/2mm summer wetsuit on.

Out I went with my little 72 ltr wave board and my 5m sail. The 72 ltr wave board has had quite a few repairs so is probably more like a 70ltr board really. I was well powered up though and it felt good. There were of course one or two times when I would have liked a little more wind, especially in amongst the whitewater. Most of the time I was going well and if anything was a little overpowered out the back.

With cross-shore winds and nice steep ramps there was plenty of jumping to be had.

Something wasn’t quite right though and my new harness was feeling really uncomfortable. I didn’t really manage to get on with it last time I sailed, but today in more extreme conditions it just wasn’t good. It soon became so uncomfortable that I wasn’t able to commit any power to it so soon got pretty tired. In the end my side just felt totally bruised and I was unable to carry on. I made a good gybe on the inside though so headed out for one last run. This time the whitewater got me and destroyed my sail!

That was an expensive session. I’ll have to see if anyone wants to buy my (only used twice) DaKine T7 harness. There’s nothing wrong with it and it’s virtually brand new but it just isn’t comfortable for me. In the meantime I’ll have to buy another, and I’d better go shopping for a new sail as well. I knew that my 4m and 4.5m sails needed replacing soon thanks to a tear in the 4.5m and mouse damage to the 4m. Typically, the one I destroyed today was my 5m. Such is the joy of windsurfing!

2 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    Bit more than a oops

  1. Wednesday, October 28th, 2020

    […] may recall in a recent post about a windsurf session here that I had said my new harness was uncomfortable. This resulted in some bruising and sore […]

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.