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Friday 24thth August – windsurf **** Levington – sunny periods

F2 Xantos 310 with Tushingham Lightning 8.5 and 44 cm fin.

26.53 knot max., 24.02 knot ave., 13.01 knot hour, 18.77 knot mile, 66.30 km., 15.76 knot alpha.

After four days up North in our little campervan cycling along canals and picking up my new windsurfing trailer we had to be back today for a pre-arranged haircut and luckily the forecast looked good for a windsurf:) With the wind coming from the west, offshore at Felixstowe a couple of mates were going to West Mersea which is a bit of a trek for me so I went to my local option, Levington which is only 6 miles from my house and can work well in this direction:) With a sunny morning forecast and a 11.30 high tide I wanted to get to Levington Marina fairly early. I arrived at 8 and Michael Galbraith was there already, rigged 7.5 and ready to go! So, with loads of water in the River Orwell I quickly rigged 8.5 for my big shortboard put my shortie and headed out. West can be a great direction here as sometimes you can plane the two miles down to Felixtowe docks but today you mostly ran out of wind once you crossed the half mile wide river:( I did have a few runs down to Felixstowe but it was very patchy. I set my stopwatch going to keep an eye on how long I was out as I had to be home by two and it took me 1hr. 53mins. to fall in, I must be improving, in fact I was out non-stop for 2.50 hours:) The most wind was probably in front of the van and I had a bit of fun beating up to Levington creek in and out of the moored yachts:) I returned to the van for a snack and Chris Stephens was now out. Refreshed I headed out again and had my best run-down river, gybing right at the end of the docks. Stopping on the shingle bank to take a selfie before returning back to Levington. With the tide now going out you had to keep an eye on the wind as you didn’t want to get caught out far from the marina! With the sun now disappearing the wind went patchy so I had a slow beat back to the van, everyone there had a good sail and Michael covered an amazing 50 miles, that’s 100 times across the river! It was also good sailing at the windier West Mersea where they were out on 7m, I was just glad I didn’t have to do the 100 mile round trip there after driving 250 miles yesterday! Looking good for a sail somewhere on Sunday, it’s been another good month so far and I have already covered 464 km :)

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