Hi All This is phuknunkle here (name change). Thank you everyone for your help today. I planed for the first time !, which is way more than I expected. Special thanks to Nick for his advice about detuning the sail to make it less powerful, and Dave (Divaldo) who finally made me understand the concept of mast foot pressure. After they started giving me these tips, things began to fall in place :) I had four sessions. The first consisted of getting tipped off every few minutes. I think I sailed for 5 seconds. I ended up doing a self rescue :). The 2nd was a disaster when my base popped out of my board after tring to adjust it in the water (man that was exhausting !)-- again, another self rescue. 3rd sess, things clicked, and I was planing !. I was going along straight (I must have fluked the bearing away -- "bow & arrow"). The wind picked up, the front of the board came out of the water, there was another gust.. and then there was a big.. BIG F.O. !! surge in speed. I was probably only going ~20km/h, but it's the fastest speed I've been on a windsurf :). I pissed myself laughing when this happned. You guys didn't hear it, but I was laughing manic like a kook. I haven't experienced a sensation like this since I popping my first decent wheelie on 80HP sports bike in my early 20's. The 4th sess, I was going up and down like a yoyo. I was even bloody tacking !. The tacks weren't anything special, but I was tacking ! -- everything came back to me from the course I did with Matt Stringer. The wind had died by this stage, so everything was very easy to do. I've got along way to go before I can say i'm profficient with my equipment (maybe sometime in the next for weeks, I can burn the "L plate" so to speak :), however, today was a progression jump that I did not expect :). This is such a fanastic hobby :). Today has made my week !. I'm dead keen for the next meet ! :) Nick: Yeah, I definately need to get some "booties". My feet are a bit cut up from the self rescues hehe :) Ja

Heres Phoebe and Kym cruising around later in the day, she is getting so much better, Gybes are a piece of cake, days usually end with "I did 24 gybes dad, how many didnt you do?' Heres Jason having a crack, great effort today buddy, you stuck at it, knew what you were doing wrong and came good with some blistering runs, especially that third session! I reckon Matt taught you some good tips as you had it mastered by the end of the day, hope you didnt fall asleeep on the way home? Fark that would have been a hard drive!