The sky cleared this afternoon and it was a really nice evening. It made a change from the thick mist that was around in the past two days. I arrived at the harbour straight after work and met Neil, who is a fellow team member in the Portland Pirates. He had rigged a 6.3 and 90l board which was looking a bit small. I got the 7.0out and the wind felt like it had really dropped so decided to go even bigger with Marks 7.7 Point 7. It was a pig to rig, but then when I rush I always make mistakes, so I slowed down and did better.
After slogging for about 50m I caught a gust and got that feeling back from the wind that has been missing since November. Everything felt right, the sail needed a bit more downhaul but was not a problem at all. Harness lines were perfect, height of boom, footstraps etc. My two other sessions since it warmed up a bit were the total opposite, where everything felt like it was rigged wrong or belonged to someone else of a totally difference size and preference.
After 2 runs of the harbour the wind decided to hide behind a cloud coming across the sky, the shadow of said cloud was always just a bit downwind of me, looking like a gust which never came. The wind came back 10 minutes later and was fine for about 15 minutes then dropped to a force 2 where even the gusts were not enough to move near the plane. I was hoping for about 20nmi today in an hour but have to make do with 7.97nmi, which I will round down to 7nm as I was stood around for 10 mins waiting for the gust and the gps can clock up a fair few hundred metres when stationary. I also turned it on before rigging as last time it took about 5 minutes to lock on to a satellite. So I have done a total of 18nmi, which I am reasonably pleased with in January. Hopefully another 20nmi or more tomorrow, if the wind is too strong it will be around 15nmi, if its less and I can just cruise then a lot more.
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