NO PENALTIES REQUIRED!
-
No Penalties Required
-
RYA Windsurfing Lessons
-
And What About the Wave Course?
NO PENALTIES REQUIRED
What a great day! England get stuffed 4-1 and it's windy and sunny - you can't get much better than that, given that the cheating French team have already been sent home with a croissant up their derriere...
Anyway, it's been a funny month for windsurfers. We normally associate this time of year with good Spring winds and they're from the prevailing west. Instead we've had mostly dodgy wind (rather like being the vicinity of Andy) and it's been from the north. I've heard a lot of tales of quite good sessions at Ballyturd, well I guess that's one way to get a fake tan. However since I live near Lough Neagh, I've found myself out there a lot.
In case you don't know, Oxford Island which is the bird sanctuary on the south of the lough, is great in northerlies. You get very clear wind whistling right down the lough and there's quite a crowd go out there. The only negatives are flies if the wind is low and the funny water, some call it fresh water but it doesn't taste that fresh to me. It's also a good spot if you want to indulge that other windsurf related sport of giving the grannies something to look at if you have a wardrobe failure as the main coffee shops look out on the area we all get changed.
Mostly I have to admit I've been out there on big kit (9.4m) but I did get one very good evening on 7.5m when most others were holding down 6s. Nice spot and good company with the added benefit that Ross sails there a lot which is handy if you need your board repaired. But you do have to watch out for certain spots where it's shallow - I've just spent a happy half hour sanding down the new dents in 2 of my fins.
But this weekend it swung to the west and Saturday saw a few people out at NSC on around 8m. It was apparently up and down but very warm. Sunday provided a much bigger crowd and better wind. I was second down and rigged 7.5m on 120ltrs in warm sunshine - turned out I got it about right. Lee and James appeared and raced about on smaller kit. James especially planes on the proverbial and he and I had some great races, I think we was on around 6m but only 100ltrs. He was faster than me but when we raced I was able to use my larger fin (40) to go up wind across him as he caught me forcing him to go up wind and slow or fall back before trying to pass me downwind. All great fun.
For once we had two girls out as Lee was joined by Paula. She had some great runs at good speed but when I asked her about her gybes she used some (very) mild swear words. Shocked at this change of image I asked for clarification and she claimed that in her book these were very strong words - she's clearly not be in Ali Turrettes Todd's company very much...
Tim was out - I mean on the water, no dressed in frightfully garish tight clothing... He was rattling along nicely on 7.5m although he did seem to be taking the phrase lay down gybe rather too literally I noticed as I gybed round him in the water.
Gary joined us and stretched his whole body on 8m and 135ltrs. He had a good sail though. We also had David Brown although he stopped early as wanted to get home to watch the England match. Clearly he prefers to watch paint dry to windsurfing, although he did sail well on the an impossibly small 5.5m.
We didn't see Pat Panty Liner out - but this could be due to lack of shoes. He was apparently out sailing while a sailing course for scouts was being run. When the scouts came in, their leader gave instructions that all left behind articles of clothing should be tidied up and put in a bag. A nice way to ensure the Scouts tidied up behind them - but sadly for Pat they also tidied up his shoes and socks so he was seen bare foot in the bar afterwards. Pat is now apparently Scouting for Boys - a joke in itself...
So a lovely day's sailing, despite my attempts to complete a carving tack front to sail causing much (ironic) cheering and laughter from the shore. But then they missed the excellent planing out gybes.
RYA WINDSURFING LESSONS
The man with no shoes has been busy organising more RYA windsurfing instructors and as they come on line, the official lessons have restarted at the club. Tuesday night sees most people out, but some courses are also run over weekends. More than half a dozen are through or nearly through and there will be more courses to come. So if you know of anyone who wants to learn, please get in touch with Pat on
Tuesday nights are also set up that people who have passed their course can come down and use the club gear safe in the knowledge that there is some rescue boat cover out for the windsurfers. So any of you improvers, get on down every Tuesday night.
AND WHAT ABOUT THE WAVE COURSE?
What indeed about this year's wave course? Well the good news is that Jim Collis is well enough to give the course. The bad news is that the only dates he knows he can take a full week off right now are silly ie late August or late November. So we're currently waiting for him to give his best guess as to when he can wrangle say 4 days off and then we'll go for it. The best guess is sometime in October - and on the law of averages we must be due some serious wind.
So be patient and watch this space - it will be worth it!