Dungarvan Monday 5th April

The forcast for Dungarvan was looking great for Monday and forcasting 30 knots SW going to SSW later in the day plus so i decided to take the drive over to Dungarvan to sail with Steve Flannagan who was coming down from Dublin. As low tide was not till 5.04pm and the sand bar would not be sailable until after 2pm i left Kerry at 9am and got to Dungarvan just after mid day.

It was blowing 22-28 knots so I decided to rig up my new 5.7m KA Koncept and 2 boards, my Starboard I Sonic 86 with 28cm Vector Maui Fins EX Speed fin and my Starboard I Sonic W49 Speed Special with 23cm KA Assymetric Fin and wait for the sand bar to show.

I got on the water just after 2pm with my new 5.7m KA Koncept and I Sonic W49 but the chop was massive and you had to sail upwind to get to the course so after 10 minutes of trying to get upwind on the speed board i accepted defeat and went in to get my I Sonic 86 and got back on the water with that. With the wind being very gusty aswell as the massive chop i couldn't get up to the sand bar so just stayed sailing in the chop for a while and came off the water exhausted. This was the first proper windy day in 6 months and towards the end of the session my calf muscles were cramping up so decided to call it a day.

The new 5.7m KA Koncept is amazing and a definite improvement on my old 2008 5.8m. It's sets fuller and is alot more powerfull. I need to play around with the settings a bit but i am very happy i got the new sails this year and i have the sails to help me do well this season in the Irish Speedsailing Championships. Just got to work on my fitness now