Yesterday's wind at Bronkhorstspruit was fantastic after the dodgy winds we've had this year. Hopefully the August winds are just a bit late this year. We had about 15 - 20 knots from NE for most of the day. That means quite a lot of chop at the catamaran club but nothing too hectic.
It's the best turnout we've had for a long time with 10 sailors turning up. Unfortunately in my mad sprint out the house to the dam I didn't take any cameras along, doh! There were some people there (I didn't catch their names, a guy and a girl?) taking pictures and mentioned they would be putting them up on a website. Does anyone have a link?
It was a pretty good day for me as I sorted out a couple of problems with my rigging, namely not putting too much downhaul because it depowers the sail completely and solved the camber-inducer-popping-off-the-mast-on-every-turn problem by tying a length of rope from the cam to the base of the mast to stop it sliding up the mast. Worked like a charm.
Once I had the cam problem sorted I actually started to get a few jibes with a decently controlled carve.It's a lot easier to concentrate when you're not worrying about whether the sail is going to survive the turn. I still need to work on the sail flip timing (a lot) so that I don't stop moving. I was only used as a jibe bouy once which is a major improvement...bastards!
I think there's going to be quite a few stiff people today, because most of us are still quite unfit from the slow winter. I know I am.
For all the people I haven't told yet, Nicky and I are going to become parents sometime near October/November. If you hadn't guessed from the title of the post, it's going to be a girl.
We went for a 3D scan today, but she was playing hard to get, hiding her face all the time, so these are the best pics we could get from the video.
We also went to buy one of those camp cots today. The assembly was quite interesting with the instructions translated from spanish, even the pictures were not much help for these instructions:
1. Cross the bassinet with tubing
2. Then cross the two sides of bassinet with tubing and cover the plastic jointo.
3. Aim and push the tubing until spring will be out.
4. Screw the plastic.
Huh?
We eventually figured it out. I think that's how it's going to be from here on...
All those months of bitching has paid off with some wind. I got to Bronkhorstspruit at about 10am and the wind was looking a bit dismal, but by 11am the first big gusts were starting. Today there were some Laser sailboats racing, so I spent a lot of the time dodging little boats and making them look slow :-P
Not the best wind ever, as it was mostly gusty the whole day, but I think I was planing at least 60% of the time I was on the water.
Malcolm, Philip and Roy turned up late (about 2ish) but they got some good runs in late in the day. By that time I was too tired to sail any more so I took some really crappy photos and some video while they blasted up and down. Best recorded speed of the day was Malcolm with 51km/h
Here's a some video. (The quality is a bit lousy and and very shaky, I'll try do better next time)
Windsurf Bronkies 20050814s.wmv [2.3MB]
According to www.1stweather.com there is going to be some wind on Monday
so it's a good time to go windsurfing. Valid work excuses are :
- I have a board meeting
- I have a sails meeting
- I have a forecast meeting
- I have a plane to catch
- I have a bad case of wind
There comes a time when you have to accept that you can't just mangle "blog" into any word you feel like.
"
Blogversation" is a stupid word. Reminds me of
Not Another Teen Movie : "Let's get one thing straight. This is not a cheerocracy. I'm the cheertator. I make the cheercisions around here."
