DavidJohn said...

The weather forcast has gone from 'Strong wind Warning'..to 'Gale Warning'..to 'Storm Warning'.. and now has just been upgraded to 'Hurricane Warning'..

Where are you seeing the Hurricane Warning? I just had a look at the bom site and it's still showing a gale warning.

www.bom.gov.au/vic/forecasts/melbourne.shtml

2 things are for sure:

- It's going to be windy
- It will be bumpy

The only thing that is not certain:

- whether you will make it or not

GOODLUCK!

mikeman said...

Please make sure you all have leg ropes attached and plenty of safety gear (flares, radios/mobiles, whistles, first aid kit, high visability clothings etc. A spare paddle is also a good idea. Dale Chapman and I did a paddle from Byron Bay to Burleigh heads (70km) on Friday. I broke my paddle handle with about 20km to go. Having a spare was very worth while. We had 2 Jet-Skis as support so this was also very helpful. On the leg-rope side once the wind gets over 20kts you can easily lose your board if you fall off. Don't paddle without one.
If you want any more safety hints on how to do these long downwinders properly please let me know. We don't want any accidents out there.
Have fun!

70km for those that don't realise that is 20km further than the Molakai Channel Race.....holy shiiiit big effort Mike & Dale.

DJ and crew I reckon you guys should organise a support boat especially with that weather pattern , what will you do if you break a paddle or someone dehydrates and can't paddle anymore...tow him ? anyway good luck it will be a fun paddle.

I know we're all giving you a lot of advice - but here's another piece.....you may want to think about a tether for your paddle. If you lose your paddle in those winds, you may not see it again. I can just imagine a paddle flying away from you at a rapid rate. Long way to paddle with your hands!
Look forward to the trip report.....

Getting ready to go and it's dark and overcast.. and raining.. Jeez I didn't expect that..

But it's also honking.. The wind is blowing our deck chairs around the backyard..

At least we won't need sunnies.. .. (maybe later we will) .. btw.. Found out that hurricane warning was for Bass Straight.. and not so much for us.

DJ

Some sought of eye protection would be handy in that sought of wind i reckon DJ

It's 8 pm Tuesday and I just got a call from DJ. He had just got back to his car, at St Kilda I assume. They are all safe, but no doubt completely rooted. They had trouble seeing the land (overcast and smoke haze), overshot Frankston, and made it to Mornington. Six and a half hours on the water. What an effort! DJ said he didn't have much left in his legs.
Don't hold your breath for a trip report tonight. Can't wait to hear it though.

That's a massive effort - well done guys. When I got home from work it certainly wasn't looking pretty out there.

Well done all of you, we were getting worried, glad you are safe.
Now go to your room!!!!


Elwood
the you won't catch me doing that freaky stuff, bus

Ten Lessons Learned

1. Have a backup plan. We had one but we probably could have used a third or fourth. As it is we wound up in Mornington and wandered around for about half an hour looking for a cab to pick up the car at Frankston. We didnt really consider what would happen if the wind didnt adhere to the forecasted direction. On a shorter downwinder this would not have been such a big deal but when you are covering 40+ km even a small direction change makes a big difference at the other end. However you dont really want to get to the point where you're dropping half-a-dozen cars off at bail out points along the way so its a balance thing.

2. Take extra water. I had a 1L bottle of gatorade for the whole day. I only finished it about 60 minutes before landfall but rationed myself pretty strictly once it was apparent we were way off beam. I could've probably used another L and it wasnt even very warm out there. More food would have been good too. I had one nut bar all day. Probably a few more would've given me some energy for the intense final hour.

3. Have regular breaks. With 5 of us we got pretty distant from each other at times. Every hour or so we'd sit and regroup, talk about tactics, rehydrate and maybe swap boards. Everyone always caught heaps of big runners after these breaks

4. Safety gear. We took several mobile phones. A marine VHF, GPS, spare collapsable paddle. Dave was the only one with a PFD (it doubled as a camelbak). We didnt need to use any of it but was reassuring to have it there. With 5 of us we definitely had safety in numbers too Of course everyone was leashed. Dave and Pete had calf-straps

5. If you fall off your board stay upwind of it. A couple of times I fell off the nose and the board brushed my head as the wind picked it up and tossed it. Could've been nasty if i got hit by an edge or the fin. After a while if I fell in I would just toss the paddle and dive straight down then swim underwater until I was upwind.

6. Knee-paddling. A bit of knee paddling went on. On your knees (or sitting) you can get a much higher cadence paddling which gives you extra speed and the ability to surf much flatter sections. This was actually surpisingly fun and I managed to link a few good runners.This was useful when the wind dropped down around the 25 knot range for a while. I estimate I would've stood for >80% of the day. Others did more and less. One knee paddling drawback is rubbing the skin off the knuckles of your toes

7. Board selection. Between us we had:

11'4 Naish
11'6" C4
12'6" Starboard
12' Naish Glide x 2

We had pretty much every body type covered as well. Quite a bit of board swapping went on and it was interesting to see how different boards went with different people in the conditions. The conclusions are probably best left to a different thread but the fact we had the opportunity to do this research was a definite bonus.

8. Catching runners is a split second thing. You pretty much dont know you're on a runner until its right under you. The waves were so quick and changing shape so quickly that something that looked great 20m or even 10m away could just go past you.

9. Concentration. This was a very tactical downwind and in the conditions we had to watch the sea surface closely at all times to make progress. I know RamboOC1 has posted some advice catching runners about always scanning ahead for the next opportunity. I found myself scanning ahead a distance of one or maybe two board lengths. I dont know if this was far enough but I seemed to get a few glides out of it. We also had a period where there was swell coming from 2 different directions at once. This really made it difficult to get glides as you had to watch not only in front of you but off to port as well. This was too much for me and that section was a bit of a slog with the paddle.

10. Linking up runners is the best experience ever!! A few times (maybe less than 1/2 dozen) I managed to surf off the runner I was on and onto another one in front of it. On one occasion I got 4 or 5 in a row and it was exhilerating! Its like surfing but at another level. The best I can compare it to is like riding a surfboard shaped jet ski. Except instead of the wind in your face its howling at your back I think this is the reason downwinding will be huge

Well done guys.
Would be interesting to take a Garmin Forerunner 301 or similar to look back on the track later & check your max speeds on runners etc.
Apart from extra length of the board can you guys think of any improvements to your boards for doing down winders, I am about to make a board aimed at this use.

Jonathan had a GPS thingie and it registered a top speed while dropping down the face of a runner at about 25 kph I think... I think our average was only about 6 kph. (due to all our stops..and falls).

We had no sun and could not see land for ages.. A compass would have been good if only for throwing water in the air and checking the angle of the spray so we could tell the exact wind direction.. We had no idea.. When we saw a ship in the shipping lane not far away we thought 'this is not good'.

The board thing is an interesting one.. My Glide worked great for 3/4 of the trip but the last 1/4 with the swell and wind chop hitting at different angles it got very hard to balance on.. Side chop would knock the board sideways and the sharp rails would catch and over you would go.

But then I was so buggered I don't think I could stand on anything.. It will be interesting when Jonathan gets his 14' Pene and Dave gets his 16 DC. The waves started close together and steep but became further apart and flatter further out so these big boards should work better on them. I think this is why the short Glide worked well in the begining and not so well towards the end.

I would go more for stability over speed.. What size are you thinking of making?

btw.. I've got about 50 pics to post from our trip and will try and get them up soon.

DJ

LEGENDS! and i was worrying about paddling on the murray
this weekend. Bah!

I picked up Jonathan and Pete then drove up to St Kilda to meet Cristian and Dave.. The poor little zook was overloaded.



Jonathan ready to go.



Spare paddle, radio, phone and GPS was a nice touch.



It all looks nice a calm in the pics but the dark wind patches zoomed across the water heading dead off shore.



Dave had come straight from a night shift.



Christian just had a drink bottle duct taped to the back of his board.. I thought 'how long will that last?



Once under the pier were knew our trip was about to begin.



We were off.. It still looks calm in the pics but it was pretty windy.







Yeah.. That duct tape was starting to lift off.



Dave and I saying 'this is it..we're finally going to do out Frankstone trip'.



Jonathan cruising up behind me.



Pete was off powering away in the lead.



I was getting some great little runners and tried to catch in on film.



Even the best guys fall.. but then Pete was going for a hang five while on a runner.



The waves started to get bigger as the city disappeared in the distance.



Here's Dave fully plaining on a great runner.



Pete has time to do a paddle pass while on one.



Jonathan digging deep.



I'm fully planing on one here.



One last look back at the city.



I sit down for a second to put my camera away and their gone.. Time to paddle hard to catch up.



First stop at about 1 1/2 hours.

Well done guys!

Jonathan, apologies for calling you mid adventure yesterday, at least you know your mobile phone service provider works in the middle of the bay!

I'm up for the next one, although I may need to work up to the 40km+ distance....

I have a Garmin Forerunner 305 that you can plot a course on the PC beforehand and download it into the unit. Then you set your workout to the course and if you deviate it should point you in the right direction .... I haven't tried this feature so I don't know how well it works.

DavidJohn, can we expect any GoPro footage?