Couple of hours after work in marginal winds at first - 23NM sailed 404NM total

Monday is meeting day after school finishes so I arrived at the harbour at about 1645. A couple of friends were there and derigging as the wind looked a lot worse than the anemometer was reading on the harbour wall. There was barely a white horse in sight so I resigned myself to a few days off as the forecast looked poor for the rest of the week. One went out, the other went home. I got the binoculars out and looked for some gusts and white flecks in the distance and could see a few so I got out my biggest kit, a Starboard Carve 133l and 7.6 Tushingham X15 speed sail.

The first 200m out was slogging and slow then I hit the wind line and could just keep the board planing, gaining a little speed to work upwind a bit. Once up I had more fun bearing off and getting a few good runs in, then the real wind started, I could hardly hold the sail down. I went in, put on as much downhaul as the extension would allow (I set it shorter than ideal and couldnt be bothered to re-rig the sail), and got a smaller board - my Starboard Kode 112l.

I planed off the beach, and had a good hour with what felt like some of my best nautical mile runs. They were close but 2 knots slower than my best. I could tell the sail needed a little more downhaul as it was not as stable as it should be, having said that by the time I decided to go back in the wind had dropped a fair bit and the tension in the leech was probably what kept me planing for the last 10 mins.

I am quite pleased to get over 400NM now, with a new total of 404NM. A few more days before the end of May to get to 500 which will take the pressure off a bit and allow me to have a bit more fun when sailing rather than going for such long runs.