Spending the next couple of days in Noosa and looking for some wing sessions. Forecast is NE/NNE can I launch near the river at the end of the Spit? What about Lake Weyba, where is the setup/launch location? How deep is the lake as I have 75 and 95cm masts
cheers Cameron
Hi Cameron,
I haven't, but yes you can foil off from the river mouth
There are some signs there which outline where you need to keep clear of
I believe you want to go on the fuller tides
For Lake Weyba, just follow the road in & turn left at the end, you will then see the car parking area & the little bay you walk out from.
75 Mast & you will have to wade out a bit to get to deep enough water however once out there it is a consistent depth, wear booties
In the NE's it will be sheltered in the Car park but you will catch the wind once you get out past the headland
Noosa spit at the river mouth is perfect in NNE but folllow the signs a recommended above. Weyba good too but not too deep so 75!cm mast needed plus a bit of a walk out to the white buoys in the lake.
Tried the Noosa river this arvo, on an incoming tide and not quite enough wind for my setup (5.5M and an RS850) and skill level, so I struggled to get up on foil and when I did I couldn't gain enough upwind to get me past my start point so I taxied back to the Noosa side and packed up somewhat defeated. I decided to try Lake Weyba and found the picturesque launch spot, I rigged up big as I didn't know what to expect and the wind looked very light from the shore (8M Strike and a GoFoil GT2200. I carefully walked barefoot out to the wind line until I had enough depth, just, for my 75cm mast. Bang! Didn't have to pump anything I just got launched (overpowered and overfoiled) but decided to stay out and practice going slow, staying high, gybes, long toeside runs, some lovely floating downwind runs, switch foot starts, tip breaches etc. Ended up having a blast just mucking around and experimenting with how little effort I could use to get up on foil, especially as I only usually had 10cm of water between the bottom of the foil and the mud most of the time. The big 8M wing paid off as it actually gave me VTO (Vertical Take Off) so I could get up and flying in less than a metre of forward motion, I just flagged the wing out overhead to offset the gusts and focussed on riding the fairly decent wind chop/swell. I roamed around the lake trying to find if it got any deeper, and at one point I had a long downwind run into the SW corner (NE wind) only to find that when I came off foil it's probably only 1/2 metre deep so it was quite a long walk back in the mud to the middle of the lake to get enough depth to start again. My conclusion was the lake was probably a maximum of 1 metre deep so I just got up and stayed up as high as I could. I got myself upwind again so I could do a downwind run back to the launch bay and I was able to stay up really high and was about 50 metres from shore when I dropped just enough to hit the mud and come to a sudden halt. I stood up laughing as I was in water that only came up to the middle of my calf, so probably around 30cm deep, but at least I eliminated half the walk back in. For me winging in this lake either a 60cm mast or another 15cm of water depth would have been ideal as the wind was really good and I would like to wing here again, however when I got back to our accommodation in Noosa I looked up the depth of Weyba and saw that it is really only 1metre deep even right out in the middle. I'll probably try Lake Cootharaba tomorrow if there's another NE in the arvo as it lists water depth at 1.5M.
