Looping day

With looping fever a group of us hired the services of Peter Hart, master coach, to guide us through our first loop attempts.

Did I do it? 

In a word no. You can make all sorts of excuse when it comes to this sort of thing and if I'm brutally honest we simple weren't good enough. On the other hand I think the conditions were definitely against us and for most of the day I, and I think the others would agree, were sailing at the limit of their ability. Not exactly ideal for trying something new. On the plus side we learnt plenty.

We rocked up at Peter Hart's about 10ish and had a pre-looping chat about all the mechanics of the move over a coffee. Peter showed us some videos on his laptop, gave us his wisdom, words of encouragement and generally made it sound straight forward. It basically boiled down to getting planing early (with a running beach start), hitting the first ramp, extending the front arm, looking back and sheeting in ....easy. I was "well up for it" and couldn't wait to get to the beach.

The leaves had started to rustle outside so we promptly relocated to Bracklesham (just along the coast from East Witterings for those that haven't been).

When we arrived there we were greeted to about 12-15knots bolt onshore SSW, mid tide. Not great. However, the forecast had it coming good and Peter was confident that the wind would switch SW (making it cross on) and build about 12-1pm.

So we waited. In the meantime we did an on the land looping drill...the one were you take a rig over your head, sheet in and basically rotate the sail through exactly the same motion you would do on the water. We all did that well, no injuries and Peter commented that Rob's efforts were good enough for a planing forward. All good. Add a board and water and it was a different story.

The others talked through some tacking and heli-tack drills with Peter, keen to get something out of the day while we waited for it to build. We had an early lunch.

It eventually picked up, I rigged 5.3 whilst the other went with 5.6. It was however still very on shore and about 20-23knots. The shore dump was starting to look intimidating...not to mention the groynes being right in the way for getting out.

Time to get wet

Getting out was a case of timing your run to avoid the bigger waves, wobbling upwind enough to clear the groyne, before bearing off to get going. I made it on the first few attempts. With the wind so onshore the waves were coming broadside to the board, so finding a ramp was difficult. I had a few good jumps, and one were I fully intended to pull the trigger, but the surge in power made me panic and I bailed. I'm now kicking myself I didn't go for it then. Anyhow, there was plenty of swimming and some heavy beatings in the shore dump. This sapped our energy, so much so that that there was little left for any solid attempts once you actually got out. All you could do was cruise whilst the heart rate dropped back down and Rob promptly blasted to the horizon. We came in and Steve and Peter did some rather nice demonstrations, which were very impressive, whilst we took a breather. Worryingly there were no other windsurfers out despite it being windy; always a bad sign in my book (they turned up later when the tide had gone out).

The carnage ensued...more swimming, more beatings in the shore dump. If you got the launch wrong you were finished, and all you could do was drag the kit out of sea by whatever means and then collapse on the beach. Even Peter and Steve got caught out. Amazingly there was only one bit of kit damage, unfortunately for Rob. With his kit being tossed around in the waves the fin managed to slice through the sail....it's definitely patch-able, but on the plus side a good excuse for an upgrade. I had a few near misses with the groynes sailing right over one with about an inch of water to spare. Thankfully the fin cleared it.

It was now high tide and still onshore. I was keen to save some energy and changed down to 5m. By about 5pm the tide had backed off a lot and started to clear the end on the groynes and you could stand comfortably in the water. The wind picked up more and I downsized to 4.5m. The condition were pretty good, very flat in between the waves, ideal for getting up for speed to hit a ramp (it was still a little too onshore, but much better than earlier in the day). This was the last chance for a good attempt. The wind, however, backed off for my last few efforts and I was having trouble just getting going. To be honest by the point we were all knackered. Just sailing along in a straight line was a mission, let along thinking about looping. I had a few waves hit me broadside, throwing me off the kit and sweeping it in towards the shore; resulting in a big swim. After that I was finished, utterly exhausted and with bad cramp setting in. Five hours on water in some gnarly conditions was more than enough windsurfing for one day.

We packed up with the sun going down. Peter had to leave early to look after his kids and we hit the pub to talk through the day with a couple of beers.

So where's that leave us?

A little disappointed and not much closer to a loop unfortunately, but I think we got something out of the day none the less and I'm definitely more confident with the whole thing. Given the conditions were far from ideal, Peter has also kindly offered us a second half day/couple of hours session sometime soon. He commented that if it had just been a case of not "manning up" then there would have been no such offer and that the conditions had been some of the toughest he'd had for a looping clinic.



Peter put together a video of the days action, which I've posted below:-