With the club looking into organising another trip to Weymouth later in the year, I thought it was about time to finish off the report for the April trip!
With the weather starting to warm up a bit, the club embarked on it’s first trip of the year. We based ourselves at the National Sailing Academy in Weymouth, used for the 2012 Olympics. The facilities offer changing rooms, hot showers and a drying room, which is very beneficial in the cold weather. There is also a canteen on site for lunch and topping up on hot drinks. The sailing venue is within the harbour walls which offers safe sailing for the less experienced and there is a rescue cover as well. We even had rash vest to make sure nobody could miss us! The combination of good facilities and safe sailing venue were probably a factor in 21 club members attending for at least part of the weekend.
For a bit of competition, the club organised a friendly speed ladder throughout the weekend. For those not familiar with speed windsurfing, I’ll explain the concept. The first thing you need is a GPS unit. It fits into a waterproof bag which you strap onto your arm. This unit records your position and speed during the day. At the end of the day, the memory card is processed to give traces of where you have been and also the various speeds recorded along the way. For the purpose of our competition the maximum speeds over each day where taken.
The stats of interest were:
2 second speed – Fastest speed over a 2 second period (equivalent to a top speed)
10 second speed – Fastest speed averaged over a 10 second run
250m speed – Speed averaged over 250m run
500m speed – Speed averaged over 500m run
With only Dave Maul braving the conditions on the Wednesday, the competition didn’t really start until the Thursday. The early pace setter was Hywel, clocking just over 23 knots. Friday saw a few people make slight improvements in their speeds without changing the order. That was until Gordon clocked 26 knots to move to the head of the leader board. The Saturday brought a few changes with Loz being the quickest of the day and moving to second overall. Then as the final cards were processed the following morning, Dave had overtaken Loz clocking 24 knots. On the final day, there was further changes as Green Bean appeared to have clocked close to 30 knots although this later turned out to be 25.4 knots. Or at least that is what Gordon claims having processed the data!
So the Final results for 2 second speed:
Gordon Roach – 26.086 knots
Mike Green – 25.445 knots
Dave Maul – 24.784 knots
Loz Gardener – 23.929 knots
Hywel Harris – 23.579 knots
And for the 500m average speed:
Gordon Roach – 24.181 knots
Mike Green – 20.197 knots
Hywel Harris – 20.002 knots
Dave Maul – 19.769 knots
Clive Brown – 19.652 knots
Away from the windsurfing, we were based at the Pebble bank caravan site. The static caravan provide a decent base and most are fully equipped including TV (sorry Hywel, but there wasn’t much on so you didn’t miss much!). In the evening we would eat out, either at a local takeaway or a trip into Weymouth centre. There was even an evening game of skittles which Ian won after a final ‘bowl-off’ with Frank.
To conclude, it was a successful trip with the GPS units adding an extra twist for those interested in a bit of competition. Many thanks to Hywel for organising the trip. And if you are interested in using a GPS unit, then there is a club night coming soon on how to use them.