Oldie but Goodie

2014 kicked off with a bang. Howling winds in the UK and the rest of the Europe, some of the biggest swell seen for years and everyone taking to the water to enjoy the extreme conditions.
Read more at http://boards.mpora.com/features/the-most-hardcore-slalom-from-the-80s-90s-and-00s.html#R8sOp0KPxqQlLb4U.99

2014 kicked off with a bang. Howling winds in the UK and the rest of the Europe, some of the biggest swell seen for years and everyone taking to the water to enjoy the extreme conditions.
Read more at http://boards.mpora.com/features/the-most-hardcore-slalom-from-the-80s-90s-and-00s.html#R8sOp0KPxqQlLb4U.99

2014 kicked off with a bang. Howling winds in the UK and the rest of the Europe, some of the biggest swell seen for years and everyone taking to the water to enjoy the extreme conditions.
Read more at http://boards.mpora.com/features/the-most-hardcore-slalom-from-the-80s-90s-and-00s.html#R8sOp0KPxqQlLb4U.99

2014 kicked off with a bang. Howling winds in the UK and the rest of the Europe, some of the biggest swell seen for years and everyone taking to the water to enjoy the extreme conditions.
Read more at http://boards.mpora.com/features/the-most-hardcore-slalom-from-the-80s-90s-and-00s.html#R8sOp0KPxqQlLb4U.99

Blew away the cobwebs today after a long break out the water due to poor sailing conditions. 

 

2014 kicked of with a bang. Howling winds in Guernsey and the rest of Europe, some of the biggest swell for years with everyone taking to the water to enjoy the extreme conditions. Only to be hit by a drought of the doldrums....
  Many times we have an excuse not to go on the water. The wind is too light or too gusty, the waves are not big enough, the sail is not big enough….Remember the old days, when windsurfing started or when you started with the sport yourself. Most of us stepped on a big board using a simple lettuce leaf of a sail. The board had a dagger board as well and it was fun. Sometimes so much that we kept on going for many hours.
 I was sitting at home trying to do what felt like advanced maths in my head, when the sum of years formed a number …. Gooood Gaaaaaaawd!! 32 years! How did that happen? It’s true, I can actually remember rigging up a teak boom to a perfectly triangle sail. Retro-moulded plastic boards were cutting edge. In the beginning you couldn’t just go to a shop and purchase something hi-tech like a harness because they simply weren’t available, so we used to try and make our own on my mum’s sewing machine. The hook I used; it was a REAL hook from the local hardware store. Then one day in the early eighties the windsurfing scene suddenly exploded and the equipment advanced at a dizzying speed. You could buy a fin and it would be outdated by the time you installed it on your board. Remember the Football Fin? It was an exciting time to be a windsurfer.  Aaaah those were the days, Sailors would drive themselves mad trying to rig up their old school gear with the right combination of board size and sail size. There were guys who spent a whole beautiful windy day rigging sails to try and match the wind speed and board size. The time had come..... A new generation, a new era, a new start...... call it what you will. it was time to start shaping custom boards, Dad back in the 80's shaped every type of board under the sun, influenced countless surf board designs into sailboards that are a mainstay in today's market. Myself, I was born into the sea and raised on the beach watching Dad surfing and playing in the shore break, as I got older (13) I had a go at windsurfing on an old windsurf regatta with the teak wishbone and wooden pull up centreboard. Loved the sport even more when I had my first custom short board made for me.
So what was your fave kit? I used to sail a Blade 8.2 squash tail on a Pryde RAF 4.7. Had this real sweet spot where if it was tuned perfectly and you were having a good day, it would get right up on the plane instantly and the leech made a slight humming sound to let you know you were at terminal velocity, loved it!..  Most people couldn't even sail it but being 13 and only 7 st, I gave it a go. It was just like a normal short board to me in terms of buoyancy and width, at just 5kg in weight with a 4.7m RAF rig on it I remember setting off on it in a fairly brisk Force 5 thinking this would be fun. I think I crossed Pembroke Bay in what felt like about 45 seconds before the mother of all catapults due to an inability to slow or turn the thing. Too frightened to sail this frankenboard back, I timidly walked it all the way around the beach and handed it back to Dad..
  Over the last week I have been sorting some things out at my parents house and low and behold, there laying un-loved forgotten about and looking rather sorry for its self was my old squash tail along with a speed board made back in the early 80's

Happy Ormering

I've previously blogged on and on about Ormering but today, we'll have another low-tide opportunity to potter around the tide pools and visit critters in their rocky homes. So the Channel Islands is the only part of the UK where you can find abalone in reasonable quantities. Our native species is the green ormer, Haliotis tuberculata, and is rather prized here.  With a sea temperature of 10 degrees, gale force winds and horizontal rain, why do I do it? It’s very simple; tradition, fun and good exercise!

Wait & wish

Monday 6th Jan Hercules                                                  Saturday 1st Feb take Two

 

Good day to all of you creatures of briny interests! It's a decidedly overcast day here in the Channel Islands with the temperature's billowing in at 8 Celsius and no wind as yet.  After the psycho storms of late, this morning things suddenly went quiet, but not for long as another storm is developing out in the Atlantic just in time for the weekend and it is sure to trigger another round of Wave Sailing VS Mother Nature. The met office said something about a 'disturbed sou'westerly airstream' and 'gale force winds' for Friday and Saturday, with the forecast looking this good we are hoping for a big one. Big tides are not uncommon around here (10.1 on Saturday), but with the combination of the wind behind it we could get a battering. 
 With the Swell and wind from the recent lows fading, it is soon replaced by a new west swell so here's a few pics of wind and swells of past just to get in the mood for the next session.

 

 

Fingers crossed the isobars hold up. Roll on another SW storm so we can get in the waves again..

 
 

Double Dip



 There has been a series of storms over the last month, but fortunately, there are weather opportunity windows, that obsessed divers must take advantage of. With a small break in the wind on Saturday morning the weather was looking ok, in spite of a new wind storm headed our way for the afternoon. Water was pretty flat, no whitecaps, nor much of a swell. The surface water was fairly greenish blue, considering all the storms and spring tides we have been experiencing recently. And it was just a nice sunny morning for a quick one tank dip in the pool.
  Under water was a stark contrast to the conditions top side. Poor vis, about 2mtrs max. (Ok... 2mtrs was an over statement it was more like 10cm) and with me causing the occasional silt out dragging my scallop bag it brought it down to thick farmhouse vegetable soup. Jen declined my offer when I got home to scrape the plankton and krill from my dive gear to make a nice tasty soup for lunch. By the time I had washed my kit  I was pleasantly surprised to see the trees shaking as the day progressed. Managed to make it to Vazon  

early afternoon.  The wind over the last 24hrs has been really weird. From the South, then the West in the afternoon and blowing its tits off over night, then back to South Sunday morning.....  Just couldn't resist a few runs on the pond with a SSW. Only about 20 knots of wind. It was nice to do a double dip and get wet again. Swell was tiny but seemed to pick up mid session a wee bit. Wind was kinda weird and gusty. It would swing from SW at one end of the beach to W at the other, people were pointing all over the place. It was too onshore for any real attempts at getting rides. Lots of short period swell, which made for some good jumping going out. Rain clouds on the horizon soon moved in and the rain came in a series of massive squalls and saturated the place increasing the wind and turning it Westerly sailed around over powered for about 25 minutes. Got a couple of good jumps and some loops. Then it just started to get silly which killed the session. And that was it.   



934MB Atlantic Low

The Hype behind the “Black Monday” swell which was generated by a 934mb Atlantic low pressure named Hercules, was incredible. News crews and media both inside and out of the surfing world were in a frenzy in the build up to the predicted huge surf. Hercules the storm has been traveling up and down the Atlantic freezing the tits off 50 American states and delivering hell to the European coast producing the biggest waves ever surfed in Europe. The North Atlantic storm made landfall on Monday morning 6th January .This week brought the biggest swell of the season.  It could turn out to be the biggest swell of the year I suppose.  Waves are all over the place. Mother Nature is speaking, loud and clear.   Excitement is in the air.  Here's a few shots taken from various wave breaks around Guernsey on that day...  (It’s funny, but waves never seem to look as big in photos.)

Hercules has been traveling up and down the Atlantic freezing the tits off 50 American states and delivering hell and high earth to the European coasts.
Read more at http://surfeurope.mpora.com/features/news/hercules-takes-on-the-canary-islands-more-mad-footage.html#tiwOZWQzG1uiMQfg.99

Look who's knocking at the door

What can I say.
It's been a great two weeks of sailing with some great conditions here in Guernsey.

Today and all last week was about as good as Vazon gets. Nice lined up swell and a solid South wind even the waves had a bit of punch. On the right wave the riding was great. Great conditions to tune into my new Fanatic Tri. Excellent session. Nicely powered on the 5.2 today and great DTL riding on some pretty clean, peaky faces.

Lost count of how many waves I caught - they just seemed to be there on every run in. Had good speed off the bottom and got some awesome smacks, plus plenty of too-late top turns resulting in some wild tail slides around to 180 degrees, needless to say most weren't recovered! 

Looks like more wind and waves on the way