After the Louisbourg session I posted about last week, we got a couple of wavesailing sessions in Dublin, before starting to look ahead to the forecast for the first round of the Irish wave Championships, which was set to take place in Cork last weekend.
A massive storm was on the way, with most of Ireland promised 30 to 60 knots of wind, 13m swell, and very mild temperatures. Could this be the end of the arctic winter and freezing windsurfing sessions we have been having?
Where to go, and where to sail before the wave event was proving to be a hard choice. Go to Donegal or Sligo to find massive waves, but then have and drive to Cork for the event at the far end of the country? That seemed like too much of a mission, and still manage to get work done too (yes I do actually work too !).
Another choice presented itself, and is one I have been waiting for, for a long time. Dungarvan Speed strip was forecast for Friday last with SW winds from 30 to 55knots, and the tide absolutely perfect for speedsailing all day. Better still, it's kind of on the way to Cork from Dublin, so in the end it was an easy choice... time to pack the speed board again and see how good Dungarvan might actually be for speed in the right conditions.
I have to say I got pretty excited at the prospect of possible record breaking conditions, so spent most of the night before checking gps equipment and settings, updating firmware, and getting all the speed gear together too. And of course packing and getting ready for the wave event afterwards in Cork.
After an early start to get down there, I was greeted with the flattest water I have ever seen, with sure enough - 35 to 50 knots blowing down the course. Rigging was a mission in the howling wind, and luckily enough a local sailor Oliver Clancy turned up for a sail too, which meant I could hit the water straight away, while my friend Dave Garvey followed me down (who while on the way discovered he had forgotten his wetsuit - which was pointed out by his young daughter, and a cross Dublin mission was set up with his very understanding and brilliant wife Cora).
For me it was time to put all 12kgs of lead in the weight jacket, and go and try out the conditions. First run down the course was pretty maxed out on my 4.7m RS Racing, and the GPS hit 43.5 knots max speed. This was going to be an interesting day indeed ! Run after run the speeds increased, with the top of the course being perfectly flat but still broad, until you get to the second red marker bouy, and then the course goes broader, and seems to increase 10 knots at the same time. Quite a few high 44s appeared, and then eventually a 46.34 !
My mission all along was to try and improve my 5x10 second average (which is what the gps-speedsurfing.com ranking is based on, and of course try and beat my 500m speed, and see if I could also break John Kenny's (R.I.P) 500m record at the same time. It's no secret that I have been chasing that speed for a long time.
With these times coming up, it looked pretty likely, as the course is sooo long, that it's pretty easy to wind up to top speed and hold it for a long time, with room to spare.
Dave eventually turned up, and had his first ever go of a speed board and small speed sail in strong conditions. It was a bit trickier when he got out, as the oncoming tide was pushing a lot of water through the starting area. He had a blast though, and got a good few runs in and started to get the hang of the speedboard. He definitely wants to come back for more.
The whole day I kept thinking that it would eventually have to be time to man-up, and go and try the 5.5m, and see if it was any faster. As it turned out, for me it was slower, only managing to get 43.5s on it. I think there was too much drag in such a strong wind, and for my bodyweight, the smaller sail was just more efficient.
Anyway, if I haven't bored you by now, you might be interested to see the speeds, which I could only find out that night when I got to Cork and could put them on a friends computer to analise.
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| Top Max Speeds |
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| Top 10 second speeds, with the 5x10 averaged at the bottom. |
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| Top 500m speeds. |
Mission accomplised, or so I thought, as after Dave did all the GPS record witness stuff for me, I uploaded the wrong files to gps-speedsuring, and found the speeds to be slower than I thought. Eventually we sorted it out with great help from Roger in Holland, and then I could claim a new Irish GPS record, which was then sent for verification.
I found out last night that everything is in order, and I have got official word that I now hold the National GPS speed record, which is based on the fastest 10 second run of 45.02knots.
Have so say, not bad for a guy with 1 speed-board and 2 sails.
And finally.... here is the video of the day !!!
Hope you enjoy it !
Dungarvan Irish GPS Speed Record from Surfdock Watersports on Vimeo.
I will have to write about the wave event in the next post.
That one well really well too, and I'm glad to say the strong winds continued and we had a great competition ! Also happy to report I won the event too :)
Hope you got to catch some of that great wind over the weekend !
www.surfdock.ie
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