I’ve haven’t been blogging amd my writing skills are beginning to atrophy. I wasn’t at a high level of proficiency to start with, so any losses leave me very badly off. What I have been doing is learning the basics of windsurfing. My neighbour Kevin has a windsurfer (actually a Bic) that I have taken onto the water a few times — or rather have taken myself into the water not less than a few times by falling off while the board floats and sail sits safely and securely lying flat along the water.

I have gained suffucient skill and balance to go straight for a while but tacking and gybing are still very difficult. And running before the wind is almost impossible. The Bic has a slight V in the entry and a noticibly round cross section — this makes it chanllenging to balance on — especially when launching and landing with the centreboard kicked up — it really wants to throw you off. Supposedly the full bottom profile gives you lots of buoyancy for little wetted-surface, giving good light air performance and a gentle transition to a plane — I wouldn’t know as I haven’t yet taken it out in sufficient wind to plane (or I’m just too heavy for it to plane at all). The rig is very small with no battens and a hollow leech, which makes for a nice learning experience as it is very easy to pull out of the water, but I suspect that it wont plane until whitecaps are visible.