Mathew Robertson (8362km):
2740 days ago 2 categories Budgewoi Lake, NSW, AU - KA 5.8, F2 Missile speed
I have been watching the weather for this lake, for some time now - finally the forecast look good enough to do the drive. So stopped by Jordan's Boating Centre and Mark kindly lent me a Black Project 50deg weedy, and got the lowdown on where to sail.
Opted for the speed board, but had to choose a big sail [ for my size ]. The wind didn't really ever get "speedsailing powered up", but it was a good day of sailing.
By the time I got on the water, some of the locals were already sailing ... and walking.... the wind finally kicked in around lunch time. And by kicked in, I mean "not quite" but enough to stay planing during gybes.
After speaking with some of the locals, apparently the lake was much choppier than normal - there was about 10cm more depth than normal. This made the weed about 20-30cm below the surface - with very few patches of weed floating at the surface.
Started the session with Mark Jordan's 50deg -> definitely feels nicer to sail than the 55deg Delta's ...far less twitchy. Sailed on this most of the day, but couldn't get the board to fly... I think this was largely because of the chop -> it was too big, and not enough weed to justify using a high-rake fin. [ When I use such a big sail with this small board - I'm not the biggest fellow - I often find I cannot fly the board, and thus get a low speeds. ] Using the 50deg, I was topping out at 35kn or so.
Since the water-level was quite high, I switched to a Tribal Weedspeed -> the extra lift allowed me to "go deep" in the choppy water - which is where I found the most wind - immediately produced better results allowing the board to floy over the chop, giving another 2kn of top speed.
Overall I had a great day - sunny weather, good water and good old chat with everyone ( particularly Matt Dowse... and our non-windsurfing activities! ).
Thanks again to Mark Jordan for the testing of a Black Project 50deg.... given I have a Delta [ and dont like it all that much ], I am absolutely sure a BP 50 going to replace it.
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