Weymouth Speed Week Update to day 5

It was a dream of mine to get a photo like this with the blurry background, and I didn't do it in
Photoshop. Thanks to Dave White for the pictures, image taken from the Boards Mag website.
(They pinched a couple of mine last week so this makes it fair ;-) )

David Garrel

First thing I want to say is sorry for the lack of updates in the past few days. I am very tired after only 2 half days of speedsurfing, and did not even go that far in those 2 days.

The current standings found here on the Weymouth Speed Week results page look to be the final results. There is no wind forecast in the next 2 days. This means that the European Speed Championship will be won by David Garrel by a small margin due to his impressive performance this week (35.742 Knots). Unfortunately he is not the clear winner of Weymouth Speed week 2011, that looks to be going to one of those things we shouldn't talk about on here (but may be forced to in the future). David Williams is leading with a speed of 36.25knots, and in fairness is a decent bloke and follows the rules of the course unlike most of the other kites, and a lot of the speedsurfers I did notice.

Norman Petty

Other Congratulations closer to home go to Portland Pirate Team mates; first is Kev Greenslade (El Reg, no picture here as he gets one monthly in Boards Mag)) who leads and defends last years crown from the Gold fleet windsurfers by nearly a knot margin with 34.39knots. Jim Crossley with 33.41 sees him round up a great year with an impressive performance here and Steve Corps(Camel) with 33.37knots had a great performance on the second day of wind (tues) which was WNW which is not a great direction for the harbour.

Next is Ian Richards with 32.92, he too has shot up the leader-board rankings on GPS-speedsurfing.com this year so must come back to Portland Harbour more often to practice rather than travelling for the perfect flat water he always goes for. Simon Pettifer scored 32.90knots and Norm(ski) Petty had a score of 30.12. Most of these scores were done on the Monday in the SW winds.

Steve Corps

On a personal note, I came last out of the team, and far down the leader-board with a low speed of 29.54knots. This places me as the second place novice windsurfer (3rd novice overall) at the event. I did this speed on the Monday while I was learning what to do for the 500m run as I have never sailed a 500m speed course before.

I had much better speeds on the Tuesday but for some reason they do not show up in the results. I must have sailed an arc rather than straight line while following the wind, it curved slightly down the course in the WNW direction which veers closer to west the further south you travel down the harbour, or did that day. If my GPS results 500m (30.5knots) had counted then I would only have 2 amateurs above me, the rest being pro or gold fleet. That's a big IF though.

Next time if I get the chance I will not be recovering from a serious illness (I hope!) and do a lot better in the rankings. I only wish the days were the other way round so I could have learnt the intricacies of speedsurfing on a defined course in the poorer wind direction and then nailed it in the good wind direction. I was really grateful of the chance to speedsurf again while still quite ill and really go for it, especially with the knowledge there was a safety boat if something went wrong. It would be great if there was one out everyday while I am still recovering.

This report is perhaps a bit biased to the Portland Pirates with quite a lot of personal notes, please forgive me for that but I think they all deserve it. If it was not for them I certainly would not be windsurfing at the (low) level I am, it is with their encouragement on and off the water that has been a big inspiration and motivator behind this website and helped my ongoing recovery from both a heart attack and more recently the multiple pulmonary embuli. I will do a more general and thorough one once the week is over.

Good speeds and winds, 'The Bus'