I made the late decision to make another trip up to West Kirby when i saw the Forecast on Thursday evening that it was forecasting winds of over 40 knots for Friday evening and as soon as i finished work at mid day on Friday, finished a few things that needed to be done before i could get away i finally got on the road at 2.30pm. Unfortunately the traffic was a nightmare and normally a 2 hour journey took me 4 1/2 hours meaning i arrived at West Kirby at 7pm.
When i arrived Mark Bailey who had been here for a few hours already had come in and was changing down to his 5.8m from 6.4m as it was gusting over 35 knots which was a good sign that the forecast was materializing so i rigged up my new 2012 5.8m KA Koncept for the first time and got the Starboard iSonic W53 Speed that i borrowed again from Chris Bates ready with my trusty 25cm Vector Maui Fins Delta Speed fin, got into my wetsuit and hit the water.
The wind was pretty square meaning you had to slingshot and bear off into the chop but this didn't deter me and i set off down the wall for my first run locking onto a decent gust and when i reached the end of my run and checked my GPS i was ecstatic to see an new PB max speed of 38.93 which was nearly 2 knots more than my previous PB. I knew i had also probably broken all my other PB's with that run but i would have to check that later and i made my way back up the wall for my next run. The 5.8m KA Koncept felt so light in my hands and has the rock solid stability and endless power i have found in the other sizes and i know this helped me get the speed i had achieved.
I spent the next 2 hours getting in more runs but unfortunately couldn't get any faster speed but i didn't mind as i already had a PB in the bag so i came off the water as it was starting to get dark, packed up my stuff and headed up the my mates, Tristan Haskin's parents bar with Steve Thorp, John Palmer & Sam Gooch for a few celebrity pints, before retiring to my van just outside the bar for a much needed sleep.
I awoke early and got down to the lake for 8am and there really wasn't alot of wind so i went upto Morrison's to get some breakfast and got back down to the lake just before 9am to see it had started to pick up so i rigged my 2012 6.6m KA Koncept and get my Mistral Screamer 95 ready with a Vector Maui Fins SL9 Alpha Fin, got changed and got out on the water. I had a couple of runs but felt way underpowered so i came in and rigged my 2012 7.5m KA Koncept and went back out, had a couple more runs until the wind picked up so i came back in for my 6.6m KA Koncept and went back out. This was what happened for the rest of the day as the wind speed was up and down meaning changing sizes to make sure i was powered up but still had great fun. No great speeds as it was square again but still managed a 33 knot max speed and most of the other max speeds were over 30 knots so i knew i had a 30 knot plus 5 x 10 second average. I came off the water in the middle of the afternoon exhausted after a great few days at West Kirby.
Hopefully i will be a windy summer now and i soon will be bale to get another crack at breaking my PB's again soon as i'm now so close to getting through the 40 knot barrier and i know when the next big westerly hits West Kirby i will finally achieve that goal as i'm getting alot more used to sailing at higher speeds after all my practice at West Kirby.
Thanks to Sarah Jane Owen for taking the picture :-) and you can check out my PB speeds from Friday 22nd June on www.GPS-Speedsurfing.com here
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