I am really excited about this summer! If it keeps going the way it has been. The past two weekends have thrown up 2 incredible days windsurfing for myself and Rick.
Last Friday we headed for the trench at West Wittering with the plan being to do a spot of wave sailing before low tide. Low tide was at something like 7 in the evening. We met Tom down there (we haven’t sailed with Tom for over a year so we were very keen to show off how much we had improved without him in Dakhla last year). When we got down there it was going mad, about 40knots of wind and the super fine West Wittering sand flying everywhere. After a bit of mincing I rigged up 3.7 and my 74 litre wave board, which hasn’t been out for about 2 years. Tom persuaded me to do a forward on the first run which I duly obliged. I haven’t been doing many forwards recently so Tom’s annoying persona was the little push I needed to man up and get forwarding again.
As it turns out that little push did even more than that. Later on in the session after a few goes I managed to stick a push loop! I always thought that back loops and push loops were supposed to take ages to learn. As I always thought, WAVE SAILING IS EASY!!!
The three of us sailed for much longer than we intended in the waves and were properly exhausted for the freestyle in the evening. We relaunched at little later and the wind had calmed just a little to make freestyle possible on our 3.7s. We were the only windsurfers out and along with a couple of kiters up the other end of the trench we hadn’t a single watch between us. We somehow managed to time it spectacularly well though and got away just before the gate was locked at 8.30!
The following weekend another trench forecast was on the cards, this time with low tide perfectly at around 3.30. I had just about finished removing the West Wittering sand from my sinuses when it was time to go back!
Rik’s van was out of action so it was a day for ‘how many people can we fit in my Peugeot’. Both my brothers, Hugh and Arthur and Andy B were all coming so it ended up being 4 people in the car with 5 peoples’ gear in the trailer (myself and Rik were taking 2 boards on top of that). Rik also ended up going on the train with 2 boards. Somehow we made it even after a couple of near disasters with slipping straps.
It was again super windy and the wave sailing was pretty extreme. I did the biggest 2 or 3 forwards I have ever done and the pushlooping was going pretty well too. Rik managed to snap his 86L board in two trying backloops which was pretty impressive!!! We saved a bit of energy for the freestyle this time. It was super windy and at times just a bit too much on a 3.7. Max R was out so it was really fun to see what he was doing. We managed to get a bit of video footage so I’ll put a little clip together soon and share the fun.
Hugh and Arthur were sailing really well, taking some pretty huge catapults though. Arthur was trying his first few chop hops which is pretty ballsy considering how windy it was. Arthur’s mast became the second casualty of the trip on the equipment side! Rik finally overcame the funnel hurdle landing his first one right at the end of the session! So all in all it was another amazing day of windsurfing!
This weekend is also looking great. Long may the BAD weather continue!!! The tides are wrong for West Wittering so I was thinking of heading to the Esso Garage however West Kirby is pulling me back north!!!
Thanks to the Guys at West Witts for sorting us out!
Keep it real
Contributed by: Jack K108
