This weekend has the Sailboard Headquarters windsurfing event on. This event has been running for about 15 years, maybe more! It is all about having fun, some fun racing , fun wave sailing expression session and a fun BBQ and party afterwards. On all accounts it is always very successful! The idea that anyone who has a board of any kind is invited to sail and the courses are very easy reaching and the wave sailing expression session caters for the hotshots and the novices.
We had a moderate, gusty ENE today with gusts to 15-16 knots and lulls to 10 occasionally. 3 figure 8 reaching races were held. The first was 5 laps of a 2km lap course and the second 2 were half the length and only 3 laps. In the first the wind was quite holey with 12-14 alternating with 10-11 knots lulls. Over 40 sailors sailed but many of them on wave boards and under 6m sails spent a lot of the time not planing. Those on larger slalom boards with 6.5 to 8.5 sails did a lot better. I sailed a Starboard ISonic 111 and KA Koncept 7.5 and managed to keep planing for all but about 20m on the last lap to win by quite a margin.
In the second race the wind had filled in a bit and was hardly dropping below 12 knots. I led to the first gybe but stuffed up the Gybe allowing Luke Myers and Chris Diamond to pass. Luke held his lead but I just pipped Chris in the line after he had a minor collision with a returning sailor just before the finish line.
The third race was slightly windier again and we had a handicap start. All the smaller boards and sails went in the first wave and the larger boards started about a minute after. Luke Myres pulled away at the start of the second wave and passed the bulk of the fleet before the first buoy with Chris, Mike and me in hot pursuit. Luke continued to pull away as we swapped a few places on the gybes and lulls and worked our way through the fleet. Great fun, especially for the guys with larger slalom boards, but there were smiles on pretty well everyones faces right down to the girls on wave boards with 5.3m sails!
The young and fit have gone around to the Ocean Beach for some expression session wave sailing in cross off 12-16 knots. I think there will be some weary bodies tonight!
A strong Easterly is forecast for tomorrow so there could be some decent speed sailing happening.
The KA Speed Challenge Week continues from Monday and it's looking Easterly all week with the ever present possibility of a true 'Honking Easterly' some time during the week. Stay Tuned!