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

Breezy one

Mother Nature has finally kicked in good and proper. 52 knots today, perfectly side shore. That's more than 50 miles an hour for you non-marine types! For the rest of, that's a Force 9, "Strong gale slight structural damage occurs, trees uprooted and slates removed". Still, a bit windy for most people, but we decided to brave it... With the media hyping up crazy storms and 60 mile an hour gusts, I pulled the new 76 Tri out the pickup rigged up my smallest kit, said a few farewells to loved ones and hit the water. Bloody hell that was windy. It started off just about manageable, but then the wind really picked up and it was just stupid. No more cobwebs....
Spanked, slapped and spanked again! hey but it was fun!!!
Mother nature wins. Completely spanked and pretty much blown off the water in the end, but this session definitely ranks as one of the best high wind Vazon wave sails I have ever had, a little much during the 50 knot/force 9 squalls. Good fun sail that looked very uninspiring when I got down there.. Went home happy. This week has been super windy but unfortunately a lot of rain has been on the menu.  I had three good wave sessions which were actually the first proper days down the line that I got in this year. The Tri Wave works great and I'm very happy with the way it's wave riding and jumping. Anyway here are a few more pics from this weeks sailing thanks to http://www.gsyphoto.com/ and Olly...

Nice way to finish 2013 and looks like a windsurfing session could be on the cards for after Christmas and the start of 2014. Happy Xmas everyone....

 

Oh for more wind

 Second session on the new 81 Tri fin. No major wind, but planing in the gusts. 5.3mtr not enough for the lulls. Such a great wind direction and nice clean lined up waves. Just needed more of it.   Great gusts, as well as long and tedious lulls, it was weird, in the lulls there was actually no wind at all, and then a 25knot gust would come along and take you flying, still, had a nice time on the water with a nice gentle cruise around in Vazon.
 



In early 2013 I began thinking that I wanted to get a new wave board and probably a quad.  However, knowing that I would likely be sailing in side-on to on-shore conditions more frequently than side-off, I was concerned that a quad board might not be the best choice for me. Then after doing much research and chatting to other wave sailors I pretty much confirmed that I still prefer a faster, single fin design over a quad for typical Guernsey conditions.  I like a wave board that can still get you up on the plane,  accelerating quickly as well as offering that extra speed when needed to aid in schlogging on the inside.  These are all good things here for sailors my size and can significantly aid in countering the effects of our typical strong on-shore conditions.  These attributes also help get you out over the breaking waves on the inside when still schlogging or marginally planning.  I have notice that Quads seem to be slower to plane and not as fast as my favorite single fin boards. Not everyone wants to go fast but I live by the saying, “Speed is your Friend” and “when in doubt, NAIL IT”!

A rare off-shore day,
 The boards seem to offers more control on a wave
allowing me to stay more in the critical sections with more comfort 

Unless you are sailing in solid down the line waves, you really don't need a 4th fin.
We only ever got quads because designers couldn't get Tri fins to work well and it was easy to add a couple of fore fins to a twin fin design.

Looking at surfing and windsurfing where they have used thruster set ups 25 years ago, this always seemed like a cop out to me and a fin too many, with extra drag and not much lift.
 The new shorter and wider designs of Tri fins today are superb all round boards, easily as good as the best quads, and a heck of a lot better than most quads in typical cross on Guernsey schlop. For me, where most of my sailing is with onshore wind swell, my Tri fin boards have opened up opportunities to really play with the wind swell, rather than just straight line to get airtime. The boards  seem to offer tight drivey turns and provide more surf time on a wave.
 What is exciting is seeing how good the Tri fin designs are in normal bump and jump sailing, an area that has been dominated by single fin boards. As for opinion, I reckon that what we will see next are more single fin boards again. All good sailors in powered up euro condition will be on multi fins unless forced by their sponsors to sail something else. Back foot heavy punters and people that are slow to plane will be on tri fins. Quads with small front fins will become specialist boards for good waves and sailors with a particular taste. Riding oriented mush sailing will be dominated by thrusters or big fin forward quads - ie surf style setups. Surfers have mucked around with fins on there boards for years whether it's 1'2'3'4'or even 6 fins, at the end of the day it's what works for you and the conditions that you sail in....
  

I have sailed and seen many a board shaped by my late farther who made Blade custom surf and sailboards back in the 60,70 and 80's and from what I have learned after playing with countless board design and fin set up combos, I agree that board shape and rocker line are more significant than fin numbers in the back end. But fin numbers can improve or detract from the boards performance if used in the right or wrong setting.

Single fin –
For: earliest planing, due to single fin and simple alignment with water flow along boards centre line. (Less drag).
Using a longer fin exerts leverage on board which the sailor 'holds down' and this in turn lifts the board in the water, allowing it to ride on the tail to reach better top speed. So single fins are faster.

 Against: can over power when too long a fin is used, causing a board to tail walk in extreme conditions.


Twin fin –

For: If you change from a single fin to the same area but spread over two fins, the board suddenly feels very different. The tail may feel insecure for the heavy footed sailor – but is very loose for turns and 'skatey' on the wave.
The lack of leverage with such short fins means the board tail doesn't over power, so any board gets a wider wind range.

Against: Tail can feel insecure for the heavier sailor – and may appear to plane later if you don't know how to unload the back foot. You can however overcome that with longer or more powerful fins.
Top speed won't be quite as good as for a single fin – due to two fins adding more drag than from a single fin.


Tri Fin –


What comes around goes around
Myself on an 80's custom Blade Tri fin


For: You have more tuning options with three fins – for example, using three equal size fins for a planted feel, or else using a longer central fin and two thruster fins set in the rail.
The tail should not overpower unless you go too long with the central fin.
The rail fin comes into its own when hooking a tight turn on a proper wave.
Three fins can also hide a lot of fin area, meaning you can point high and appear to go upwind well.

Against: Three fins will not help top speed. Setting the fins at the rail requires toe-in to match the water flow direction at the rail. The toe in that is optimal on the wave will not be the same toe in that works best in a straight line.


Quad fins –
For: Short fins that make the tail feel planted and the board won't tail walk when overpowered, so again you get a good wind range.
Lot's of fin permutations mean lots of tuning options. (Some might say, too many, confusing, tuning options.)
But the main plus for the quad is when on a wave – where the amount of fin and area in the tail can be used for drive on the wave and to generate speed. The fin tuning options can be optimised for any good sailor on a specific wave but that's pretty advanced.

Against: Toe in needed for outer fins and potential for getting this wrong is greater as the water has to flow across four foils. Four fins can mean the board is slower and later to plane than a board with less fins. Quad sailors all report their boards feeling a bit 'draggy' at times, say in a straight line – although you won't read this in most mags or online.
The sheer amount of fin area in some boards can mean they need a lot of sailor weight and good technique to drive them through a turn – and with bad technique or with bad fin tuning/placement you may find they 'straight line' in a turn.

  I am drawing the conclusion that the only place where a multi-fin is useful is wave riding, and even there if a single fin is used proficiently in conditions like the one we mere mortals have we would not have to go through the complication (and added weight) of multi-fins? Otherwise for flat to B&J to mast high wave riding, the single fin would appear to still be king. For where I sail (cross on/on shore wind) the only reason for a three fin, with small sides,center fin would seem to get a happy medium between a Quad and single fin, (And to be honest, I find the idea of having 5 fin boxes on a board as some manufactures offer a bit ... silly? Way too many options and all the possible combinations would be kind of overwhelming. We could go on and on so I'll stop here and say one last thing. I think it's time that the leading board manufactures gave you the options off buying all four variations of fin set ups to suit your personal choices.............

Down The Line Tri Fin Heaven

That made up for every session I've missed lately!! 

 Took my new  Fanatic 81 Tri fin for a spin.  Very short and very light but really floaty. Heaps of fun. I love my old boards but I don't want to sail them again now. You know those days when you wonder whether it's worth going out or not? Well, I'm glad I did. It was cross offshore and gusty, but the waves showed up and so did the crew, so we decided to get out there and have a crack. No one else around just us. Had some quality waves with some great, clean, down the line rides with enough speed to hit the lip hard which definitely kept me buzzing for a long time after. Heaps of fun hooning down the line and trying to destroy it. Plenty of water getting thrown about. That's what it's all about. Wind picked up and up, should of changed down to the 4.7 but unfortunately the "old" body ran out of steam and couldn't face the walk back up the beach to change board and sail , kept going anyway.  More of the same tomorrow by the look of the weather charts.
Better eat my weetbix tomorrow..

Batten down the hatches!!! Thar's a hoolie blowin in

What A Night

Well, finally everything lined up favorably for our first night diving expedition of the season. Good weather reports plus flat calm waters had us salivating for a night dive on a night that won"t soon be forgotten. Setting off from St Peter Port at around 5.00pm on a dark November evening  under picture perfect conditions.  We were soon over the broken-up steel wreck of the Oost Vlaanderen know locally as the Cement wreck after it's cargo of cement and guns. The shot line was soon over the side and anchored in on the first try (as usual). As the tidal current settled we were over the side and in the water. 
What a way to kick off the week. 15 metres viz and tons of sea life all over the place. Once the sun sets the vibrant colours of the daylight dives go with it, and the colourful fish somehow manage to disappear from view and the cast of ocean characters change as the night shift comes on.
  Instead the ocean is filled with a variety of mollusks and crustaceans coming out of their daytime hiding places for their night time feasts. This is also the time for the predators to appear, creatures like the conger eel and squid who are mainly hidden from view during the day in wrecks and under rocks can be seen swimming freely out in the open at night. Many marine creatures will take advantage of this magical hour to hunt with the squid already ahead of the game out and about looking for love. To add to the night’s diving excitement it was time to turn off my torch. Once your eyes have adjusted to the underwater environment you may notice that the water around you appears to have a certain glow, and any movements you perform can be traced in swirling patters of Phosphorescence. This is caused by the plankton in the water and the disturbance your movements causes, something that is invisible during daylight hours.
 It was time to push on and get back to the shot line, on the way back Matt stumbled into a Monkfish.  He brought me over to the side of the wreck and pointed out one of the seas nastiest predators just a few feet away from the shot line sitting on the bottom waiting for it's tea to swim past. You know me, I am always game for catching myself dinner but we were all a little chicken when it comes to grabbing a fish that size with no spear and just a small dive knife. Here we are three grown men sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean too afraid to grab a fish. I was loving every minute of this dive and did not want to leave the bottom but my time was up,,,