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Friday 4th September - Windsurf ** - River Orwell at Levington Marina – sunny periods.

Foil – 15.84 knot max, 14.95 knot ave ., 6.81 knot hour, 11.34 knot mile, 32.93 km., 10.39 knot alpha.

Exocet RF 91 AST with Slingshot Hover Glide 76 with Tushingham Lightning 7.8m.

After two 5-star sessions in a row it couldn’t go on and the River Orwell today was very gusty and I didn’t feel comfortable at all with 7.8! After doing my exercises in the sunny back garden I checked the winds coming from the west looked marginal but I decided to check out Levington as didn’t want to drive the extra miles to Bradfield today after going to Point Clear yesterday! I hitched the trailer or thought I had hitched the trailer and dropped Mag off up at the Post Office to pick up a parcel and realised the trailer was not there. Panic set in then as I whizzed home as fast as I could, not helped by the red traffic light, checking the road I had driven. I found my trailer neatly parked between two cars, I quickly hitched it properly this time and headed back to Mag, that was a lucky escape, old age must be creeping up on me, I shouldn’t be let outside by myself! When Mag got home there was a not through the door from the neighbour across the road saying the trailer hit their wall but luckily missed the parked car, thank goodness!!!!! And that ha had parked the trailer for me, Mag put a note through his door thanking him! I then made it to Levington Marina with Andy and Michael already there but it didn’t look too promising but they said it was building and were rigging big! By the time I had set up my foil after having problems with my mast bolts, a big thankyou to Robert for helping me out:) With the west wind building Michael changed down to 6.5 while Andy went with 7.8 so I followed suit. There was loads of water as we set off and I flow straight across the river past Swainy out ‘working’ teaching people how to sail yachts, he videoed me sailing back and as usual it was not windy enough to fly:( he manged to get a couple of great shoots of Andy though:) With no wind down towards Felixstowe docks we concentrated beating up the river and I ended up reaching Pin Mill in the end but it was hard going as the wind was all over the place, 20 knots one minute next to nothing the next so not very enjoyable really but it is nice to be out with all the yachts sailing and taking care to give the coaster heading out to sea a wide berth! I sailed close to the pub at Pin Mill to take some pics including the moored wooden barges and the famous boat graveyard. There was a bit of slogging back but I did manage a couple of nice broad runs ending up half way to the docks before running out of wind. There was a big motor cruiser heading up river and I was keen to ride its wake but sadly the wind did not play ball. It was then we spotted a small fishing day boat that had slipped its moorings and was close to running aground when the boat from the marina came to the rescue! Lucky escape as it was in the middle of the shipping channel and a coaster had just passed! Back to the van and the best bit of the day, a five-star shower in the yachties toilet block :) Perhaps a trip to Bradfield tomorrow but the wind is looking marginal again :(

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http://mkwindsurfing.co.uk/booms/

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