Snap – Another Cracking Day Windsurfing at Ynyslas

This windsurfing malarky is not only frustrating but expensive too. Wednesday afternoon was sunny and windy so arrangements were made with Lawrence for an afternoon session. He had to travel down from home so I was out on the water before he got there.

It didn’t seem that windy on the beach but it’s always windier on the water in a southerly so I rigged my 5m sail and 85 ltr wave board hoping there would be enough. Sure enough, once on the water there was plenty of wind. The Ynyslas weather station was reading 25-28 knots, but out here it was more like 30-35 knots. Although, there also seemed to be a big hole in the wind right in the middle of the white water. That’s almost always the case in a southerly too. I think it’s actually that there’s a strong current flowing S-N and when you hit that it effectively knocks some speed of the apparent wind and also reduces the pressure on the fins. This isn’t ideal as it’s when you’re in amongst the white water that you need the power most.

Out the back beyond the breaking waves there was plenty of wind and some big rolling waves too. All was going well. I was taking it easy as I was still on my own but I still made some nice jumps and played it safe by not going out too far. Lawrence then turned up on the beach and started getting ready.

I decided to head out a bit further so as to head upwind. I gybed before getting back in amongst the whitewater so as to head out the back and upwind. As I did so my mast snapped and I ended up with a big swim. You can see from the GPS trace how quickly I drifted downwind in the current once I was swimming.

Oh well, that was an expensive day at Ynyslas. A new mast is needed – I’ve ordered a 2021 Duotone Platinum Series RDM mast. That set me back £449 which sounds like a lot for a 4m long pole, but it is 100% carbon and a new 2023 one would be £689. I also need to do some surgery on my new(ish) Neil Pryde Combat Wave HD sail as the razor sharp carbon shards of the snapped mast did a bit of a number on the luff tube!

Tags: Windsurf