A quick visit to Sandy Point

In November we did some "speed tourism" in France and visited ”The Canal”, a holy place for every speedsurfer. Now when I am in Australia I just felt I had to go to Sandy Point. SP is the place where they frequently are posting + 45 knots sessions. So the last week down under, we did a 2300 km detour down south and back. First we went home to Tom Chalko. Everyone that have a GPS from Locosys have probably visited his website when setting up the unit. http://mtbest.net/

But the meeting with him and his fantastic farm is probably better to read about on my wife’s blog… 

Tom guiding me to the secrets of SP, click on pics to enlarge.

Anyway Tom asked us if we would like to go for a jungle hike or go windsurfing. Go windsurfing, today? I replied. The forecast was 5-10 knots from east. (The wrong direction and I knew that Tom’s biggest sails are 6,3). Well we went. And I must say that I was amazed when we came down to SP. The wind was around 10-15 knots and many guys were out on the water. Tom help me rigging the KA 6,3 for no low wind and I mounted my biggest fin, a C3 28 Venom. 

Starboard Futura 101 and KA 6.3

We had a great day with speeds around 25-28 knots. The speedstrip of the day was on the opposite side. The tide was going out and we sailed against the tide, so I think every run was about 2 knots slower. Also the tide made it very choppy. And as the day went by, the wind became weaker and weaker. Still extremely fun to sail. The Starboard Futura 101 had no excellent top speed, but easy to get going.

I was thinking about Per Andersson, the late Starboard legend when I was sailing. The small KA sail was working surprisingly well but it felt a little bit like sailing in jam. After about 5 hours, I asked Tom if we could switch boards so I used his Carbon Art SP50 the last run. Suddenly I was doing 32 knots instead of 27 knots. The board is important. But I also have to admit that in the end the tide was not so strong. Thanks Tom for letting me use our stuff, it was a very memorable session!

Christmas Greetings from OZ

While northern Europe is suffering from severe cold weather and snowstorms, we enjoy that the summer has arrived to Wollongong in NSW. Christmas Eve was the first day we only swam in the pool. But today at Christmas Day we had another stunning day at the Towradgi-beach. The idea of this holiday is to spend some time with the family so we all are doing boggieboarding (or bodyboarding as they say here down under). It is interesting those small differences in the language. We are calling windsurfing ´vindsurfing´ in Sweden, but down here it it is called ´sailboarding. Guess they do not consider windsurfing so much surf... Anyway, we are all improving our skills in boggieboarding, and I hope to manage a 360 before we are going home ;-)

Happy Christmas everyone that are reading this blog in Russia, Spain, USA, Greece, Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Croatia, Ireland, England, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden!


P.S. Some houses here would make Chevy Chase full of envy.

Wollongong - Second day and a second chance

Lake Illawara from Mount Kiera lookout

Click on the image to enlarge

Loft 5,3

Yesterday we arrived to Australia (after a non premium experience with Soutern China Airlines). Today was the first full day and when we woke up the ocean was boiling. Maybe gusts up to 50 knots. Here I am in the middle of the summer with no gear... After picking up the rental car we went to a shopping mall, went up to Mt Kiera lookout, took a walk at the Botanic Garden and eventually we went out to the lighthouse at the harbour. A lovely day with the family and freinds. But half past six a took a drive to the Yacht Club at Lake Illawara. (I knew this was the best place to find some local windsurfers). About 5-6 guys where out. Most of them on smaller wave or freeride boards and all of them had wavesails around 4,2-5,5. I asked one guy straight away if I could borrow his kit only for a few runs, even pay him well, he had a Severne-sail about 6,3 and used a GPS. But he replied that it would be better if I go north of Sydney and rent some stuff there (1,5 hours drive)... He thought I would break his gear. Can´t blame him, when getting a question like that from a complete stranger.

After a while most of the guys came ashore and they all started to chat with me. One had an old 5,3  Loft O2 sail with a big hole in the foot of the sail. After a few minutes he offered me to use his stuff. Oh, I was soooo happy!!!! I was so execited that when I did 5 good runs I did not switched on my GPS properly... But he was very very kind and let me do another 6-7 runs. I felt soooooo good, even on a old freerideboard and a non cambered sail with a 30 cm hole...! The gear was not trimmed at it very best, but it worked surprisingly well. I did over 33 knots in peak, the conditions was almost exact the same at Torkelstorp where I live, so it was easy to sail over the chops. But it was also very very much weed, actually the same sort of weed that we have at home, and he had a straight fin 35-37cm fin... When I get back home I will send him some good stuff. I think he will enjoy some nice Lessacher fins !