SpeedsurfingBlog Article by 'The Bus'

Last night I rounded up the various stuff I had done about West Kirby and the amazing hour by Jacques van de Hout and Hans Kreisel for an article on the Speedsurfingblog. There was something I missed from all the work I did on here, cannot believe it either. Not the fact I missed it but the fact it stands out nearly as much as Steve Thorp's 50knot display. Click the banner for the link.

Hope you enjoy it, good speed and winds, 'The Bus'

Grevelingen Chop Team does it again.

Just a quick note to mention the amazing hour by both Jacques van der Hout and Hans Kreisel. Thats not forgetting the Nautical Mile and distance on top.

This is amazing stuff. They came to the UK and showed us what they were made of at West Kirby on the 6th of October , and have now returned to their home spot at Grevelingenmeer - Zonnemaire, Netherlands. 

I expect most people who read this will understand why I am writing about this achievement, but for those who do not know I will explain. Most windsurfers cruise across the wind at 20-25knots, anything upwind to get back to where you started from  means the speed drops to 18-22knots (all figures are approximate and really depend on a variety of factors) Then when you turn obviously you reduce speed a lot (not if you are one of these two guys though!).

Carve Gybe Consistency Improving

Last Saturday I did more good gybes to earn my Alpha scores than ever before, each session my times are improving. An Alpha is sailing 500m with a gybe, the end has to be within 50m of the start. Last year I was getting the odd 16knot alpha. As we have progressed though this year they have slowly increased, but my gybes have got a lot better. I just need to make the turn tighter for more of the planing ones to count. In April my fastest was still low 18knots, now I am getting a few a session faster than that, and most of them around the 17knot mark.

The good sailors get 20knots, the excellent sailors get 22knots+. It is now my goal to get a 20knot Alpha in the next few sessions. My primary distance goal is complete nearly so I can turn more and go on shorter reaches to practice them until I hit the goal.

Unhooking and bending the knees ready to power further downwind

Need to get front arm straighter and knees more bent in the above picture, this will power the sail up more and allow me to absorb more chop.

Again knees should bend more

Saturday I started to practice my hand positions more, rather than grasping for the mast to pull the sail into the wind I was going for Boom to Boom gybes, by the end of the day I was doing them every time and they are faster. Some gybes I can pull the boom head into the wind a let go while the sail rotates, these feel really natural and fast.

My exits are getting better, I can see by the photos that I am driving the board through the mastfoot rather than weighting the tail and slowing down.

Great Day, hundreds of Windsurfers out. 55nmi Sailed, 795nmi total

The sunrise woke me at about 5am, so I rolled down the blind in the van and went back to sleep. I woke up with a jolt just over an hour later realising I wanted an early session and the van was rocking in the wind. First thing was to get the kettle on and the kit out. I rigged up 2 sails and 3 boards, ready for anything. Then realised the kettle was still boiling so made a coffee and got into my wetsuit.

I got onto the water and had a good hour blasting and clocking some miles up. Then I got my smaller board (Mistral SL95) and went faster than ever before, getting a top speed of 33.04 knots. Also my gybes were brilliant on the smaller board and I made my fastest alpha (500m with a gybe returning to within 50m of the start) at just under 20knots.

I thought I had made a 30knot 500m run but was not quite there with 29.99! At midday I decided to have a break as it was very busy with freestylers that do not understand the concept of right of way. The night before they were all telling me how they sailed at Portland all the time, I had never seen them before. By the end of the afternoon the water was all mine again so I went back out with the intention of having a 50nmi non stop session, and I was doing dry gybe and dry gybe. The runs were short though due to the and bar and trying to stay close to shore in the flatter water. The wind then swung about 20degrees to the north and died off for 20minutes. In that time I slogged to shore and got changed...........only for it to come back at about 22knots.

I called it a day, happy with a few personal bests and another 55nmi.

Nearly matched my donations now - 36nmi sailed, 739nmi total

Good session today, didnt think I had sailed so far. The wind was strange and there was not quite enough to keep the speeds up for over 10 seconds so just missed out on a 30knot 5x10sec average.

I went to get a nautical mile but was using a big fin at that time and there was a lot of chop. Chop with a big slalom fin was not nice. I changed down board size and used a speed fin meaning I would struggle back upwind so did not bother with any more mile runs. 

I did my best ever gybe, not dropping below 10knots according to GPS Results, really pleased with that.

36nmi sailed, 739mni total.........with a windy few days looming ahead. Hopefully I will get within throwing distance of the 1000nmi by the end of the month.