Easter Windsurf

I haven’t been able to get out windsurfing for a while. Conditions and commitments just haven’t permitted any time on the water. I was therefore a little rusty whilst out for the first time in ages last weekend. The conditions were perfect with a decent Easterly howling down through the valley and a midday high tide. It was also the first opportunity I had to try out the new camera mount that my Dad had made for me.

It didn’t feel that windy on the beach so I rigged my 5.7m and my 80 ltr slalom board. By the time I had done so it felt a little windier and was forecast to increase so I rigged my 5.0m sail as well. I headed out with the smaller sail, leaving the larger one rigged in case it was needed. Once on the water though the 5.0m was plenty. I blasted about in the estuary at Ynyslas and then headed over to Aberdyfi too. There was quite a bit of chop, especially over the bar and in the channel and the speed of the slalom board made it quite a handful. It was quite an exhilarating ride though! The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and it was a Bank Holiday weekend – perfect.

Stu and Will were out windsurfing from Aberdyfi and there were loads of kite-surfers out from Ynyslas, the usual crew were there, Shem, Lawrence, Michele, Rhys, Dunk, Liesa and a few others. There were some people out wing-foling from Aberdyfi too and Chris and someone else on a wing-foil launched from Ynyslas later as well. It was a busy day in the estuary.

After battling with the slalom board for a while I decided to change to the 85 ltr wave board instead. It may have slightly more volume but is much slower and has a lot more control, especially in the waves and chop. I had a few more blasts to Aberdyfi and back and played around on the Ynyslas side too. I wasn’t sailing that well and didn’t make many of my gybes but the conditions weren’t the easiest and I was now well and truly overpwoered with the 5.m sail. Stu who is a good 30kg heavier than me said he was overpowered with his 4.8m sail – no wonder I was struggling. The weather Station was recording 45 knot gusts so here in the more exposed estuary it was probably hitting 50 knots once or twice.

The new camera mount seemed to work well. I barely noticed it was there most of the time and although it looks a little silly, especially whilst on the beach the results from it look pretty good I think. Here are a few stills from it.

You can’ t really see the mount at all and the angle gives a good impression of speed and shows me and the entire board and rig. It also seems to keep the horizon nice and level, but that’s more a feature of the Insta360 stabilisation than the camera mount. Mark was out flying his drone too so there are some good shots of the day from above such as the overview of the estuary above. Here’s another still from Mark’s video showing me so that you can see the camera on its mounting pole coming from my harness.

Tags: Windsurfing