Last wind of the Holiday, Last day before the clocks go back

The winter is coming very quickly. As I rigged up today in a t-shirt it certainly did not feel like it. Monday though I will know about it as there wil only be an hour or so of light after work, and that reduces every day. Today was nice warm sunny weather and reasonably warm air and water temperatures, but I did feel tired quickly.

My fiancee came with me today to get some pictures, Kat clearly does not find autumnal winds as warm as I do though.

The wind was a bit fickle and it was hard to stay planing when close in to the shore. It is really good to see the pictures afterwards as I can see where I am going wrong. This is the first time I have seen myself from a third person perspective since I got a seat harness and now can see that my stance needs adjusting - but I am not quite sure how yet. 

This picture was taken just before I turned into a gybe. 

There are a lot of huge tanker ships moored in Weymouth bay and Portland Harbour at the moment, the one in the distance is huge when you get close up to it like I was doing yesterday.

Entering the gybe I can see where I am going wrong, I need to bend my knees more and look out of the turn, not at the mast. I seem to be halfway between a normal gybe and a laydown.


I am trying to get my laydown gybes sorted as my slalom board requires them to turn well.  I will try to pull more with my back hand to lift the clew and drop the mast more with my front hand, again with my knees more bent.

Flipping the rig with the duck gybe here I can see that my hand is no where near far enough down the boom, I did duck it okay and turned out of the gybe but stalled the board as my trim was all wrong.

All in all it was a nice day, with Kat to help me. She said I looked like I had improved a lot since last time, and that she needs to come when its actually windy so she can see me with smaller kit and sails going at real speeds. She thought that I was going fast today, but there wasnt enough wind to go really fast.

Days like today are a bit frustrating with my current kit, my biggest board - Starboard Carve 133l gets going about the same time as my next board down - Kode 112l which is a lot more fun to sail. In winds like this though I think I need a bigger sail, as my old north xtype 7.8 is not as good as my 7m x15. Ideally I would go for a 140l slalom board for light winds like today, with an 8.5/9m twin cam sail to power through the lulls and get going easily. I love just cruising in light winds, but today was a bit too light for some of the time, hence the short session. Maybe if I win the lottery tonight I will upgrade my big kit.

Thankyou to my sponsors so far, 20% of target has been reached and I have not even started begging at work yet.