Let me start by saying – WIND and loads of it!!! GET IN…..
AWESOME, the wind came back, it was sick! In fact, we were so amazed that the wind was back that we did a 3 and a 1/2 hour stint on 4.2's without so much as stopping in the shallows for a breather!
Sorry there is no pic to go with this but no one wanted to sit on the beach and take photo's!!!
So here's one from the last session
Windsurfing is back on! Today was fun, nothing special but fun. Light gusty winds good for 5.3 85ltr and small inconsistent waves were quite sweet set against the bitter famine of the last few days. Ah windsurfing! How you tease and tantalise! Then, as if by magic, the winds filled in.. time to change down to 80 Ltr and have a little fun solo session at T'others low tide with a building swell
We are expecting good wind for tomorrow.
Let's hope there will be some waves also...
Really small wave...
Dropping in on the beach
Heading over the hill
Si eyeing up a small lip
Take off on a small hill
Matt down wind
Burn off the Christmas mince pies and turkey dinners with a sail...
The only way of working off the excesses of Christmas Cheers Nick for the Photo's
The yard foreman greets us in the afternoon on the high tide and helps us get positioned correctly on the cradle
Each winter it is one of our "traditions" to run the mother ship 45 minutes North to the nearest marine haul out for our annual inspection and painting of the hull. So with the Christmas break looming its an ideal time of the year to haul Fortius out the water before the 2012 session starts. Captain Tuc had several maintenance projects in mind... Pressure wash, installing new anodes and sea cocks, polish the hull and applying new anti fouling, bilge pumps to fix and rewire due to too many dead sandeels being sucked in..... etc etc... After 3 weekends work Fortius is now ready to go back in the water looking very smart with her new coat of anti fouling
A clean bottom is always a good thing Good for another year!
Haul Out Completed! Ready to Splash
Plans are already in the making for a spot of festive fishing on this week, so keeping an eye on the forecast with fingers crossed that the wind drops for next week.
Long range weather maps showed a deep depression heading towards Guernsey, arriving at the end of the working week. Gale force winds (60+ knots) hit with full force on Thursday. The storm currently battering the west side turned up late on Wednesday night and Vazon took the brunt of the storm. By late afternoon we were heading into the eye of the storm and the conditions still had some kick and were 30 gusting to 40 and sailable. It was downright intimidating. I text the crew and it was game on. As the eye of the storm passed over us the winds dropped to a nice 20/25 knots. The 5.2 sail was put to use and we headed out into the storm surf for some air time. A few locals pulled into the otherwise empty car park to watch the action. Large cross onshore gusts with big waves made for some interesting jumping. After several valiant trys to go over the handle bars I had to concede. The last wave broke before I could clear it and it took board and sail toward shore--luckily no damage. Facebook is alive with images of the storm as people captured the experience and posted online
Low tide action
No Wind = No Windsurfing. I'll give it a go 10 knots here I come. Anyone going for a light wind sail at Vaz
Then as soon as it came the wind disappeared completely as we hit the eye
There is always little to no wind in the eye of storm. This left a few of the boys wallowing out back with a massive wind shift from cross on to dead on shore. Frustrated by the lack of wind and fading light, it was time to end play time
Upset that the wind has dropped. What a way to burn up brownie points
It's okay to cry or have emotional outbursts when there's no wind. It's like pms, no difference ..
Gale warning with dangerous seas. Small craft advisory. Use extreme caution. Moderate long period swell.
Seas: W 12 feet at 11 sec.
Winds: W force 6 to 7
Afternoon
Gale warning with dangerous seas. Small craft advisory. Use extreme caution. Large short period wind waves.
Seas: W 13 feet at 11 sec.
Winds: SW F7 to gale F8 with some gusts to 50mph
There is s a whole 'lotta' wind coming this way, as well as stormy seas, rain and maybe a bit of flooding. The National Weather Service has issued a few warnings and watches which essentially mean a big storm system is working its way up the English Channel. A wind warning is in effect until Thursday, changing to a high wind watch from then until Saturday afternoon.
What a couple of beautiful windsurfing days we have had since the last post! Last Wednesday was probably the best session of the winter so far for me. 4.2 winds, waves on the rise, what can go wrong? Well!!!
WIND AND LOTS OF IT
PLUS
A Few Wipe outs That's what can go wrong
Another dose of big waves on Guernsey this week plus the arrival of big winds has ushered in the winter windsurfing season on Guernsey. Proper winds and swell are hitting town and I finally can enjoy the sky.
Tuesday brought yet another big swell our way. The beach was closing out, T'others opened up for some nice down the line, but a little toooo windy to lay the rail down and botttom turn. Just three nutters out at Centers/Gnarly suck ups. Big logo/mast high sets exploding on both reefs meant for some survival sailing by Hutch, the boy Marshall and myself. Omg, omg, omg, what an insane day I had today! Harness accidentally hooked in on a loop. Unfortunately, I didn't managed to un-hook before eating it and hitting the water... Caught a few butt hole tightening waves before it got a bit windy. I'll take a day of BIG clean waves over 50 knots, but strong wind is pretty fun too. Tis the season and I can’t wait for some real wind
Here's a pic of Hutchy sizing up the waves
on his first run out
The sea of the sky opened up letting down a crashing of torrential downpour from its dark underbelly. All of the west coast was drenched in this inescapable rain and all was grey! With the rain came nuking gusts of 50 knots that forced us to the shore line to take cover as the squall passed. Couple more runs out and we decided to save the energies for another day......
Strong winds are in the forecast for the rest of the week so after several months of collecting dust, the small gear is going to get its share of use and abuse for the next week at least.
Cor dammy la! It’s wild out there. My next door neighbour's fence (which has been in his garden at least five winters I know of without so much as a wobble) has blown over in the last hour, the crossbeams snapped and the posts up-rooted so it truly does seem to be quite windy. The clouds are racing each other in the sky. A bird trying to fly into the wind has just been blown back and so seems to be flying backwards. The lamp post looks fragile like one of mother's daffodils.
Very very very windy gusting to very very very very windy. Lamp post now wobbling like a man forced to leave the pub after a works Christmas party, when the pub owner has put the theme tune for the Littlest Hobo on, to encourage people to make their way home.
For almost a week I am listening to the winds whilst sitting inside my house. Today, I just thought it was time to take time out from work and capture the windy weather.
Due to some rather crazy wind we are experiencing in little old Guernsey, its time to hit the water. I think for all of us the weather has been challenging this year - to say the least. Here in the Channel Islands we had some truly alarming windless days. Windsurfing came alive after the worst October wind drought in recent memory. The Atlantic front’s strong westerly winds started in the dark early morning hours. After the rain squalls cleared 43 knot peak WNW gale force gusts came across the west coast to greet 8 happy, wind starved Guernsey windsurfers sailing off Vazon and Pembroke beach. It's time to head out to the water again. There’s more folks out on the water today probably as conditions are approaching gale-force at times. Fantastic! But the wind direction has changed from yesterday more on-shore than cross-shore, which put a few people off sailing at Vaz due to low tide and pretty much dead on-shore conditions. Starky and I decided to head North to see if Pembroke was working in this wind direction and to our surprise when we pulled into the car park it looked like it was going off, the bay was picking up a small ground swell (5-6 foot) rapping around big bill with cross-off 35 knot winds. I've not really sailed in cross off conditions here before but this looked sweet. Depending upon the size of the swell, low to mid tide can offer some relatively good wave sailing in this WNW direction. For those sailing in front of the car park, when the tide touches the rocks it is time to head more West back to Vazon to catch Centers at high tide. Had some awesome wave riding absolute flat out through the bottom turn then all onto your heels to avoid going off the back . It was just a race track on which the board was super smooth, with 2 to 3 bottom turns. I just could push my luck on each wave breaking the fin out at that speed meant I skimmed the top for 50 metres before re-engaging and then smashed a few aeriels before lunch. Two hours of side-shore, down-the-line joy. Super stoked now.
4.2 ready for action
I try not to look at the forecast each week until at least Thursday however for some reason last week, I couldn't resist and I booked today as holiday in the hope the purple crayons would actually appear on wind guru and for ounce the forecasts were right..
A short 15 minute drive up the road and a hour break to meet Matt in the cafe for a brew and bacon sarnie. It was time for a jumping marathon, high tide session at Centers and what an opener, logo+, cross-on, 4.2 weather. Luckily while the sets were big they were pretty well spaced with a decent break to get out. The only problem was sailing around mid tide, the waves were tending to close out on gnarly suck ups. Atlantic logo+ waves closing out on the shallow reef are mast breakers. I saw Matt chicken out on a few runs out and not going for the lip opting for the chicken jibe instead of a busted mast. Probably the first 90 mins or so were beautifully powered with some great waves for jumping but then it started to pickup and it was a real struggle to bottom turn. At its windiest (40 - 45kts) the boom would be pulled out of my back hand on the top turns, it didn't matter, all I had to do was just give the boom a little tweak with the back hand to set up the next bottom turn and could let go until the next bottom turn, I think there was enough wind on my back to keep me going at mach 10 without the sail.. After about two hours, I called it quits as my body was starting to hurt after a days sailing in gale force winds.
All too soon the sun went down, and the show was over for the day.
gnarly suck ups
Told you it was windy
While we were having fun wave sailing fellow sailor Martin Ogler flew up Tuesday night to West Kirby for a spot of speed sailing. Check out his video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omZVNSkdH_Y
Let me start by saying – WIND and loads of it!!! GET IN…..
