Malahide, County Dublin, Ireland Friday 24th Spetember 2010

On Friday last week i drove up to Dublin from Kerry as the forecast was looking amazing for burrow beach with winds from the North East which is the perfect direction and 20 knots gusting up to 25 knots so i reckoned it was worth the drive up. I left Kerry at 3.30am and got there at 7am but as i was pretty tired i decided to have a quick sleep in the van before rigging up. I woke just after 8am and saw the wind was around 18 knots but a little bit gusty so i decided to rig my 6.4m KA Koncept and use my Starboard I Sonic 86 with 32cm Vector Maui Fins SL9 Alfa Fin. I got changed quickly and got out on the water but as soon as i got out the wind went more Northerly and dropped :-( so i spent the next half an hour slogging around and i couldn't get going. As the tide was also nearly overlapping the sand bar there wasn't much point rigging a bigger sail as there would be no sand bar to keep the water flat for speedsailing i decided to head in, derig and head over to Malahide. Steve Flannagan had also arrived at this point after being stuck in traffic for 2 hours also decided to head over to Malahide with me.

Once we got there there wasn't much wind so we stopped in by Wind & Wave to see if any arrangements had been made for John's burial and wait and see if the wind would pick up. After a little while the wind picked back up to around 10 knots so myself and Steve went down to the sailing club and rigged up. I decided to use my Starboard I Sonic 144 with 50cm Vector Maui Fins Canefire fin and my 8.3m KA Koncept. I hadn't used this combo before so was interested to see what it was like. Once out on the water is was apparent that wind was very gusty and it was hard to get going but i still had just under an hour on the water until the wind dropped right off. I should really have been on my 9.0m KA Race but it was good to see what the low end performance of the 8.3m was like but i think that the 9.0m still has a place in my quiver in this wind strength as i would have got planing sooner on my 9.0m and been able to sail through the lulls easier as well.

I had a nice little session that helped me take my mind off what happed to John and at least my trip up wasn't wasted after not getting the forecasted wind at Burrow Beach