Windsurfers report in!

[Frapple]

Good afternoon all,

How many fellow windsurfers do we have knocking about on the boards?

I started up again last summer and a brief introduction to it as a child (dad used to go every weekend but could never get me into it)

I usually got to Notts County Sailing Club (http://www.ncsc.org.uk/) at Hoveringham, Notts. There's two lakes (http://goo.gl/maps/Pyqt) small one for learning, and a big one for racing etc. Only complaint I have it that the sailors are complete toffs, and have very little lake etiquette. Got my membership for Christmas, will have to do a couple of days 'duty' on the rescue boats, no biggy.

Got lent an old raceboard to start on and was soon knocked the daggerboard up and hooked in the harness lines and started planing! Currently using a 6.7m sail, used my Dads 8m Cam Sail a few times - was quite quick! Definitely going to try and improve my balance this year and get onto a shortboard, can't wait for the water to warm up.

Fell in love with it and went to Dahab, Sharm el-Sheikh last November for a week.Ended up in the 'Intermediate' stretch of water for most of the week, nearly scared myself stupid on the last day when the wind picked up and I started flying using a 4m sail! Going that's fast on the sea it quite a different experience.

Only had one accident so far, at the north west on the lake there's some trees that act like a wind tunnel, flew into it, sail swung down wind, I got pinged up in the air by my harness lines and landed face first on the top end of the sail - took half my front tooth off

So - anyone else into the wind?

 

[TallPaul_S]

Not many windsurfers on here by the looks of it!

First post, been lurking for ages as I'm planning a new build soonish, but back to the windsurfing

I first started about 11 years ago, haven't been out much over the past couple of years though. Last time of the water was on a 2 week holiday to El Tur, Egypt (up the west coast from Sharm, opposite side to Dahab) where I had wind every day for 2 weeks, up to 30 knots (F6-7) at times

You really should get yourself to Rutland water, not too far away looking at the map. Go to the north shore (whitwell), there's a sailing club on the south shore but it's full of dingys. On a sunny and windy summers weekend you'll be there with anywhere between 10 and 50/60+ other people on the water. W/SW winds funnel up the water and you get rolling 1-2ft swell in F4 and above winds, on a easterly it's brilliantly flat, no swell at all. Both W and E winds are crossshore, get the right direction and you'll get a run over to the dam or the other side which takes about 3-4 mins of full blasting to get there!

Using a JP 120l board atm but since I moved down to Bristol it's a bit big with moving from inland to coastal sailing. Spent most of the time in Egypt on boards between 90-110l.

 

[Judgeneo]

I did an activity holiday in rutland water when I was younger that included two days of windsurfing, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.





*I feel sorry for this forum, so little attention...

 

[AlexTrickle]

Never noticed we had a "On the Water" section!

Been windsurfing since I was 13 (now 21) and followed the RYA race programme starting with T15, then South East Squad finally ascending into the National Squad and removing all social life for two years as I competed at all national (and several international events) on the RS:X.

Realised I would prefer to go to uni and so dropped the RS:X and moved onto more casual yet faster paced racing like formula and slalom. When I got to uni I found it was too difficult to get to events from Durham so now I only ever windsurf during the holidays. Although I won the student windsurfing nationals using some old race kit and won a 50% off Club Vass holiday for two. Used it and went to Vass last September with my girlfriend who now can sail upwind and tack, gybing still eludes her though haha

I also work as a start and intermediate instructor over the Summers at The Aquasports Company in Surrey.

However I should add that since going to uni windsurfing is no longer my main sport as I have discovered rowing which has given me that competitive thrill I miss

 

[Jono]

Funny you should mention this, only last night I got my windsurfing gear out of my parents' garage and investigated it. All seems to be in working order, but I need to buy a new downhaul rope because I managed to snap mine last night... Grrr.

A mid 90's Mistral Screamer II ... get in... oh well I'm sure it'll do - will give it a go next week if the weather's right for it.

Maybe I should just buy a starboard or something like that, technology's changed sooo much since I last went out.

 

[AlexTrickle]

Funny you should mention this, only last night I got my windsurfing gear out of my parents' garage and investigated it. All seems to be in working order, but I need to buy a new downhaul rope because I managed to snap mine last night... Grrr.

A mid 90's Mistral Screamer II ... get in... oh well I'm sure it'll do - will give it a go next week if the weather's right for it.

Maybe I should just buy a starboard or something like that, technology's changed sooo much since I last went out.

The old screamers are fantastic boards in terms of straight line speed. New board technology means getting up onto the plane is much quicker/easier and also even hardcore slalom boards are more forgiving when carving with rails being much improved on in the last decade.

But with better technology and boards come a much heftier price tag. Kit is much more expensive now than when I started

 

[NickK]

I think my parents have my Fanatic RAM 310 Ultra in the garage. The sail probably has had it by now (and I bet the UJ rubber is dead too).

Not my pic but it looked like this:

So light at the time for a 310 it was ridiculous for acceleration.