Suffering from excessive wind? Me too! Fun isn't it?

Sailing this weekend has been a bit of a blast! I got out for a quick spin on Friday and a squal blew up and it was all a bit hairy and no rescue boat at hand!
Saturday We managed to get one race in and a squal blew up, so heavy that at one point on the wind we had to let the sails flog until the gust past. We finished the race (got another 2nd) and decided to call it a day. Ten minutes after we were ashore the wind dropped.
Sunday, no other Enterprises to race against (too windy apparently) Jo and I went for a spin anyway and had a real blast! It was pretty heavy going for most of the time but quite manageable and the reaches! Well they were just brilliant! Really hair raising rides, bucket loads of spray and just incredible planing. Catching waves and a gust at the same time and we were flying so fast with the bows right out and riding it for ages, in fact we had to stop before we got to the shallows, planing all the way. Probably the best sail of the season.

August has been a month of extremes, either high winds or no winds! The only two races we have had this month have been at the two extremes! Something has gone wrong with the weather.

Last weekend was a total blow out with storm winds that put 2 meters on the tide and with the wave action a good chunk of the beach has been washed away. The environment agency (I think) spent £7Million last year seeding the beach with a whole load of shingle, they built it up quite a bit. Most of it is no longer on the beach! We went down to the beach just to check on the boats and see what was happening and the sea was boiling with waves.














The windsurfers were the only lunatics out last weekend! I guess it was an onshore breeze but I'm not sure I would be brave enough to be out there! The picture doesn't really do justice to the ferrocity of the sea. Hard to believe that the previous weekend it was like a mirror!
















The waves erroded the beach away and damaged the concrete slip from the dinghy park to the beach. It used to be fairly level with the beach. Of the 15 boats on the moorings only 5 remained, a number broke thier moorings and washed up on the shore, some folk got thier boats ashore before the storm hit. Only one racing mark broke free from its mooring but was found washed up one of the creeks.

Next month we have an 8.5 meter tide (2 meters higher than last weekend's) and if we have winds like last weekend then I think there is a real chance of the seawalls being overwhelmed.
If that happens then a lot of people could well be flooded out. Watch this space for news!