w-surf-2017

The Don Ferguson Report

Thursday October 19, 2017
An interesting thing!
We all came to Rondeau on Thursday morning with high expectations of sailing till at least around noon with fairly strong winds for the morning but dying off by the afternoon!
Those that arrived very early ie) 8:00 am were treated with some great 6.0 sailing, however those of us that showed up at 10 am were dismayed to find out that the wind was actually West South Westerly ( not a good direction for the thermal to help us out) However that being said although it looked as though the wind was beginning to ebb several windsurfers rigged up and ventured out and at that time if they were lucky got in a few hard earned planning runs. Personally I watched as Annabel seemed to be planning less and less and on my 6.5 too boot! I decided at that point to have some lunch and stay dry! As we sat and talked and had lunch it seemed the wind was getting lighter and lighter until I was beginning to think about packing it in. Around 1pm though it seemed to pick up just a bit and suddenly began to change direction to a more South Westerly flow! Annabel decided to give it one more try and lo and behold planed out and back with ease! After her third planning run out and back I could see that the wind had dramatically increased to the point where I too could get some
nice runs on my 6.5 so we switched up, she now on her 6.0 and I on my 6.5 We continued to sail a very well powered session for the next two hours until we were both tired and ready to pack it in!
I guess my point in this is that if you check the attached graphs you can plainly see that Mitchell's Bay really received no wind worth our while after about 11 am where as at Rondeau Bay once the wind switched direction to SW around 1pm the thermal definitely amped up the wind The attached pic is of Annabel on her first run with my 6.5 The video is courtesy Bob Grant (Sky Dog Sports) and also shows how strong the wind ended up being!

Annabelle

October Video

The Skydog Report

Thursday October 19, 2017
Rondeau Bay it is and I get away from home by 11 am. Arriving at 12 noon there are maybe ten Windsurfers sitting around and two on the water. It seems that there was a good wind from 9 until 10:30 and then it dropped off to about 8 mph so most sailors were moping around. I chatted with most everyone and after an hour I noticed that the whitecaps were forming and we could hear some breeze in the trees so I set up and was on the water around 1:30. Wow, this some of the smoothest air that I have ever sailed in. The wind was around 20 mph and my 6.3 Ezzy sail worked well. I had the GoPro on and asked Annabelle to sail directly in front of me so that I could film her going across the one mile stretch. Later Les sailed ahead of me and got pretty close for some good video. Don passed me a few times and we have some decent shots there too. It was a great two hour session and the wind was still blowing at 4:30 when we tore down. It was a great day for my return to sailing after being off all summer with a bad knee.

Photos Below