Weymouth Speed Week 2011 final report

Gold Fleet Winners L(3rd) to R(1st) Daniel Borgelind 33.5knt,
Kevin Greenslade 34.4knts, David Williams (kite) 36.3knts.

For myself and many others it was a long week, with good winds on a couple of days and lots of waiting on others. I have been asleep pretty much since Friday evening so I have a new found respect for many of the speed and windsurfers who stayed on over the weekend to compete in the BSA Weymouth slalom.

After a quiet weekend with very little wind on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th, Aeolus delivered the goods for the early part of the week (google it if you dont know).

Monday was a great day and I am sure if the harbour had been quieter then the local legends would have been chasing records. As it was the harbour was busy with many people standing around (in the middle of a wind hole leaving no run up to the lead in bouy)) waiting for their runs. The wind built as the day drew on, allowing for some runs later in the afternoon quite close in to the shore where it was not so choppy. This is where the big names made their winning runs for the week, none of the top scores made on the Monday were bettered before the end of the week.

Trying out new camera functions.

Some big news for Redsurfbus.com is we now have confirmation from Surfkraft who is the UK agent for Exocet boards and XO sails to do some testing and reviews. In the next couple of weeks we will start a full review of their SL Sport boards (some of the best looking boards on the market, we are looking forward to see how they perform) and their Freerace twin cam 'Silverline' sails.

For this I have been out practising my novice photography skills. Some of you regular readers may have also noticed I have been editing a bit with a photo editor as the header has changed a couple of times, this one at the top now is my favourite but am open to advice and help with it.

These are a few shots from the weekend. Portland Pirates machine The Matrix can be seen in the top two. He had already been sailing over 4 hours none stop in these to aim for some distance for the team. Unfortunately no one else in the team put that much effort in so although we are second for distance for the month thanks to his efforts, we are quite easy to catch.

The following photos were taken by Portland Pirates team captain Swagger. It is Kev Greenslade the current Speed Week champion and Simon Pettifer, it is one of many where they were doing the most fantastic synchronised laydown gybes. I think they scared a few of the less confident sailors as they flew past them at over 30 knots into their gybes.

Jim at PuraVida Boardriders should feel proud of himself. Look at all his sails and boards on Portland Harbour.

I was leading into the gybe and trailing after it, must work on my gybes, I can see from this one photo that the gybe masters have their sails far more upright than mine. It was great to get a few minutes on the water with lots of people around who were checking I was okay. I certainly felt it afterwards and will do for a few days yet. I think this was my shortest session since I started windsurfing, it was probably good that I didn't get wet.

Here the Matrix clearly was trying to get the two posers to do some work for the team by spoiling their fun.

By 'The Bus'
Pictures by 'The Bus' and 'Swagger'

3days of fun - total 1075nmi

Saturday 16th July -  44nmi sailed. Today was frustrating, it was a bad day on the water. Every time I went out with what I thought was the correct kit the wind changed. I had a rest in the afternoon and went out in the early evening and had a much better time. In the morning I was over finned at one point and my ankle clicked causing a bit of pain after tail walking the board through chop while going for a nautical mile. Later on I had to ditch a run due to a kite surfer gybing right in front of me and dropping his kite, again something clicked in my ankle.

 Sunday I woke in a bit of pain due to my ankle, but it was all up to my knee. I took the abuse from my team mates for not getting out early, rigged up and hobbled out. My first run was fast, then the second even faster then I could barely stand on the board so did a walk of shame in neck deep water to keep the weight off it.

Only 5nmi sailed today.

Monday and my ankle felt a lot better, after a day at work nothing would keep me off the water, even some of the heaviest rain we have had for a while. I went out with the intention of getting my alpha above 20knots. An alpha is 500m with a gybe where you must end within 50m of the start. I did one just over 20 but not within the limits, every session now I am getting 19's!

20nmi sailed today, giving a total of 69 for the 3 days and 1075nmi overall for the year. Not much wind forecast for the next week, fingers crossed that the low pressure that is overhead brings us some.

Only 20nmi left before I go over 1000nmi.

Today was a little frustrating. It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right and I will class it as a bad session. The good news is that this is the first bad session for a while so the next one will be brilliant.

It started all wrong, I am in the process of sorting my quiver out with more powerful sails. I have a simmer SCR 6.3 which at first I found a beast to tame, but now it feels great and powerful and very well made. I have decided to trade in my Tushingham x15's in the 7.0m and 5.8m sizes for the Simmers so that my quiver matches for all speed sail sizes. I picked up the 7m yesterday to try out on my masts and it clearly didnt fit. My only worry is that it wont fit properly on the mast I am going to buy to go with it, as the 6.3 fits perfectly on the mast I tried the 7m on. I need to borrow a North Gold mast to try it on.

So I rigged my 6.3 and went out, then felt a little underpowered at times. The wind dropped a little and I came in and rigged my only other option, my 7.6 x15. I was overpowered on this but stuck it out as I knew the wind was forecast to drop, after about an hour it did. I got a personal best for my Alpha of 19.76 so I am quite pleased about that, nearly 20 which is my next goal. Once I have that I will go for a faster nautical mile and try to get around 27knots.

23nmi sailed, 20nmi left to get to 1000! (To be honest I know I could post some lightwind sessions to take me over the top now so in my mind I have done the 1000, but it will be easier to just sail for an hour and a bit than look through all my files for the lightwind ones)

35knots in Speed, one goal complete. 23nmi sailed, 957total

Yesterday evening I completed my goal of getting 35knots this year. Every run was over 30 even in the low tide chop, then I changed down a board size to my Tabou Manta 54cm (74l). It was like wearing a comfy pair of shoes and I got on with it straight away. Far easier to use than I expected, easier than the Mistral SLRD 95l to be completely honest. It glides through the chop and is easy to get upwind with a small fin/big sail combination (too easy at some points that I went too far into the wind). What it did though was give me more runs over my PB than I expected. The first downwind run was 33.5knots, then a few more at 33, then one at 35! I got a little over excited at this point and couldnt get going again. Then I had a 34knot run which gave me my fastest 10secs and 500m.

All in all I learnt that I can compete against/train with some of the best speed sailors in the country and now get a respectable score. I think I could have got more yesterday as well if I had been a little more patient and not rushed onto the water at low tide. Today I am aching more in my arms and shoulders than I did after sailing 109nmi, but only managed 23nmi giving me a total of 957nmi. Hopefully I will get to 1000nmi in the next two sessions (maybe even tomorrow)

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.

100+Nautical Miles in a Day!!! New total of 619NM

Awoke to drizzle but did not even notice it.....the goal for today was to get some serious mileage, both for my challenge and the team effort on GPS Team Challenge. This has secured our place as 4th in the world, ahead of all countries apart from the Netherlands who just seem to have too many locations with perfectly flat water and a lot more wind than us!

Mid morning and I was barely holding on to such a big sail.

After about 70nautical miles I had a break and changed kit after warming up for an hour.

All the time now I was really forcing myself not to break out the smaller slalom board, I was tired approaching 100nm but the conditions were perfect for some speed runs, I knew I would not get quite as many miles on the smaller board though so kept at it with the bigger one.

The wind was perfect for me to cruise close in to shore at high tide, meaning no hard work getting upwind in the chop further out.

I learnt a lot today, was planing out of some gybes and now understand more what I need to do to get this consistent. I also proved a few things to myself that I had the determination to go on, even after a bit of chest pain. I knew the pain was more in my head than physical though and would not let it beat me. I will expand on this post further in the week. 

GPSTC reads 201.44km or 109NM at the end of the session, which is less than the sportstracklive data but more accurate. This makes my total now 619NM.

Fingers Crossed for some Personal Bests

Now I have made it half way for my distance I can relax for a while and enjoy my sailing a bit more with shorter faster runs hopefully. Instead of going another 100-200m each run I can get my gybe practice in each session and hopefully there is plenty of wind over the next few days to do this.

With my 7.0 Tushingham X15 on the sail repairers floor, hopefully to be ready for the weekend, and the batten in the Simmer 6.3 SCR Race repaired I should be set again for all conditions. After a few hard days sailing I feel good having a break today. I have a bit of a cold coming on like it usually does at the end of term, hopefully the salt water will get rid of it tomorrow. I can hear the wind hitting the window already.........33knots here I come.

Kit Reviews

Hot Sails GPS intro review.

Hot Sails Maui are my new sponsors for sails. Over time there will be comprehensive reviews of their range, starting with the GPS -Grand Prix Slalom. This is my weapon of choice for the BSA Slalom 2012, to be paired with Exocet RS Slalom and SL Sport boards and Black Project fins (in my opinion THE only fins to use now).

Hot Sails GPS First Impressions

click the headings for the full reviews

Exocet RS4, First impressions

Following the reviews below I was over the moon to accept sponsorship from Exocet, and now ride for the UK Team 'Exo Warriors' under the management and guidance of the UK Exocet agent Ian Kraft. Over time I will do a series of reviews on the RS series, I currently now own the RS4(69cm), long with the SL Sport 78 (see reviews below). In the long term I will also get the RS2 and RS1 (59cm, 54cm)

Exocet SL Sport and XO Silverline, with Black Project Fins Sails Full Team Review

This section is where the real reviews are, using  a team of sailors of varying abilities over a period of time to give full feedback on the kit. This is a different type of review, pitting the abilities, weights and styles of sailor against one  board range rather than brand against brand. It is going to be a series of reviews.

Part 1 - Initial Impressions While Rigging

This first introduction to the kit looks at some of the extra features  and the standard parts such as footstraps and the extras on the sail. The sail is rigged a few times to see how easy it is with it being a cammed sail with thin luff tube.

Part 2 - First Impressions in light winds on the water.

Here I talk about a very light wind session with use of both boards, the 7.8 silver sail and a couple of Black Project fins. The outcome was good despite marginal dropping winds.

Part 3 - Good winds and good speeds.

Getting to know the Exocet 66 SL Sport, Silverline 7.8m sail
 and Black Project Typr R 37.5cm fin

Here the kit is tested in force 4, gusting to 5.

I rarely top 30knots in these conditions with a 7.8m sail but manage it with this kit.

The Black Project fin does a fantastic job.

Part 4 - Final thoughts and details.

The sails and boards are discussed in detail.

Positive and negative thoughts are highlighted.

Overall opinion and would I buy one?

All the reviews below this point were part of my learning process while I completed the 1000nmi challenge, and no where near as rigorous as the 'true' reviews above. They will give you an idea of some kit that I could not find anything for on the internet review wise.

Mistral SL 95 RD (2009)

The Mistral Slalom 'Red-Dot' is a full carbon construction, feather light speed demon, read the review here. It took me a while to tame the board.

Starboard Kode 112l (2009)
For a long time this was my favourite board. It is such an easy board to sail that it almost makes me look like I know what I am doing. It is still my weapon of choice in the winter when I do not want to get wet.

Tushingham X15 7.0m (2009)

This was my first speed sail and started me on this quest. I guess if I had not bought this then this whole website may not exist. For the time it lasted it was a great platform to learn on due to being light yet powerful.

Tushingham X15 7.6m (2010)

This is my lightwind sail, and will be for some considerable  time. It gets going very quickly considering the 4 cams and deep profile. First impressions are here.

Simmer Slalom fin 34cm

My first 'true' fin purchase that did not come from the bargain box. It was worth it.









My Personal Kit List.

Here I have a list of my kit, more to keep a track of it myself than anything else. I have also included links to my preferred shops as they are always a pleasure to deal with.http://www.redsurfbus.com/2011/10/exocet-free-slalom-tests-first.html