Portland Away day - Sunday 8th June 2003

Early start!

How often do you think that? I like early starts but don’t always get the chance. Sunday was different. 6am I was on the road to Portland. No traffic & good roads makes the drive fun and a great way start to the day.

There is a shop almost opposite Windtek that’s open early on a Sunday morning. A paper and food for the day can be got for not a lot.

I arrived at the boatyard about 10 to 8. Surprisingly the gate was open. At this time in the morning there is plenty of grandstand seating available. Just 2 motor homes, curtains drawn, for company. The barrier is back, between the car park and the beach but this time in the form of small concrete sleepers. Useless as windbreaks and almost as bad to sit on….bring back the wood!

If you have been watching the weather since Thursday then like me you might have seen a promising 16 to 18 mph for late on in the day so it was generally looking like a large sails and being social kind of day. I sat in the car with a coffee watching a guy and a kite banging back and forth doing the occasional jump. It didn’t seem very windy but he was definitely enjoying himself.

I unloaded and rigged my trusty 7.6 Tush and Viv’s Bee 144. Some of you may know that Viv is off in Ireland enjoying a week long ladies windsurfing course run by Shawna Cropas. So I get time on the water with the Bee. Now being large (read almost portly) I have to spend a little time getting used to a shorter, smaller board than I’m used to. Just about got planing on the first few runs but cant get into the footstraps.

Nomads started to arrive. I’ve tried to include everyone in the list below, apologies if you’ve been missed.

The wind increased a bit and I changed down to a 6.5 A number of people used me as probe and I hope they were not too disappointed. I know Brian changed up after his first run muttering darkly. The best of the wind was to be had down the other end of the causeway near the boats…isn’t blasting fun!

The rest of the day was reasonably constant except for a particular squall in the afternoon which while not being the best we’ve seen at Portland (flattening everything in sight!!) did disrupt the weather for half an hour or so.

We did see a boat trip during the afternoon when Richard Bister was given a lift back to the beach. I have only 2nd hand information on this but I hope the problem was not too serious.

Jon White was seen, just returned from southern climes, windsurfing in the sun. Jealous…not much, honest.

Al Donald was spotted practising Duck Gybes and he pulled at least one out of the hat.

People attending:

Richard Bister
Brian Derrick
Phil Baker
Steve Powell
Dudley Brown
Neil Bass
John White - 1st time windsurfing in the UK this year.
Roger and Gail Blythin
Chris & Gerry Sanders
Tony Low
Jonathan Low + young lady from France.
Ally, who also came along with Tony (Try to imagine 4 people in Tony’s small hatchback plus 3 boards and all the kit!!)

Again, apologies to all those I have missed.

I left Portland at about 3 pm. Several Nomads remained, Brian, John and AL at least.
The wind had been great virtually all day, a smashing day out.

Steve Powell

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This page last updated: 3rd Sep, 2021.