1st Place in the Cornwall Wave Classic!

I am stoked to have won the British Wavesailing Association UK final stop in Cornwall! 16 girls entered, which is absolutely amazing and definitely the most I've ever competed against in the UK events, I had to do three heats to get to the top! Ha ha! The conditions weren't classic down the line Gwithian, rather cross onshore starboard then port tack with very small waves, but at least it was windy! It was pretty fun sailing on the Saturday, but by the time my heat came round on Sunday evening in the double elimination, there was so little wind I struggled for speed on the wave even with Stef's 85l and a 5m sail! (Smaller boards are so much better!) We had the monsters ball on Saturday night at Sandsifters, which was really fun this year as it was a bit smaller than last year, with rum and coke fuelling the night!

Thanks to all the judges and organisers, it was such a cold weekend to hang a round in a wetsuit for a couple of hours let alone sit all day in the cold with a score sheet! And well done to all the girls, some brilliant sailing, the level has definitely got higher! Results are: 1st Me, 2nd Debbie Kennedy and 3rd Justyna Sniady.

Overall BWA champions: 1st Debbie Kennedy, 2nd Justyna Sniady and 3rd Sophia Gilje.

Images below are courtesy of Dave White, Simon Crowther, Neil Hayes and Julia Slack-thank you!

The BEST kind of day off

I wouldn't normally take precious leave for a UK forecast, as it can be quite fickle and I have a few trips planned with my 5 weeks a year, but Wednesday seemed like Gwithian was going to go off! Big swell, (with a little south in it), Southerly winds 20-30 knots, and sunny!

We left Tuesday night for a surf at Fistral, which was as always, like a zoo. Way too many people, and if you did catch a wave there was almost definitely a few people on the inside in the way. Despite this, it was big, but high springs so the waves were a bit fat. The most entertaining bit of the session was when we came in the high shorebreak, the fence has ripped away from the sand dune and a few people were getting tumbled in it as they came in. It was cold when we finished, my feet were like complete ice blocks! Unfortunately time for my boots...

Wednesday we woke up at Gwithian with high tide, and decided after a wait we would head to Mexico's with George Shillito, Mike Ellis and Jeff Scott. We had a good session, I was on 3.7 and 68l, on which I was completely overpowered sometimes and then with no wind the next, classic. It came to low and dumpy so we dragged all our kit up the massive sanddune and had an amazing atheletes lunch of burgers and sandwiches (thanks Jeff!). On our afternoon session we took turns with photos, but the wind was more offshore and more gusty, it was really hard work. We had some really nice waves though, and when the wind died with high tide, we couldn't resist running up the hill (again) and grabbing our surfboards. Amazing day well worth taking leave for!

Today we also had some good swell at Godrevy, big, 14 second period and offshore. The waves looked great but I struggled a little on my 5'10'' with speed in catching them and how busy it was on the peaks. Could have done with a 6'8'' gun today! Here are some photos:

Gwithian sessions...

Last Sunday we had a really fun Gwithian session on our new Simmers, they feel great and yet again lighter compared to last year! It wasn't the biggest waves but was still really fun. Later tin the week we had a full power 4.2 session at Bigbury, which was bolt onshore making good practice for places like Sylt!

Here are some pics from Gwithian courtesy of Paul Monnington, thanks!

Here is a tiny clip of a wave at Gwithian, nothing spectacular, but I fell with one foot stuck in the straps and got caught under the sail for a while. The way it was twisted made it hard to get out and I ran out of air thrashing around. It was only a few seconds (nothing compared to a big hold down surfing or in massive waves!) but it still shook me a little...easily done!

Yesterday we got pretty frustrated with how rubbish the surf has been down here, it was tiny. 3 of us contemplated for a while and then ended up driving to Newquay and buying an Adams board each (great deal for the 3 of us...), absolutely outrageous day! So today, all shiny and new, I tried my Adams 5'8'' shuttle and it was amazing, the perfect board in my quiver with my 5'10'' smaller board, it flies! No more complaining about small waves now, I'll just start learning tricks instead :) Surf looks good on the South coast for a couple of days too...

Mega Timelapse!

Here is our 2-3 month Ford Transit van conversion project in just over 3 minutes, it has taken a lot of time and effort but so worth it now and just in time for the Autumn! Sweet!

NWF, Simmer Icons and Surfing!

We had an amazing weekend at National Windsurf Festival on Hayling Island last weekend, the wind didn't play ball but everyone sure made up for it in the party! Of the 3 or 4 NWFs I have been to over the years this was definitely the biggest! I was chuffed to get picked by Jenna in the night windsurf too-so we covered ourselves in glow sticks and raced with all the other kid/pro combos. Unfortunately there was no wind at all, really glassy, so for me it was more of a paddle race than a night windsurf! Really fun though...

Images courtesy of Dave White,this is day 1, good to see so many keen people on the water!

I thought the best fancy dress of the night was definitely the Smurfs!

We also have our new Simmer Icons! They look awesome and I can't wait to try them, we haven't had any wind in Cornwall this week but as soon as we do I'll get some pictures out. We did have a 3 surf weekend and a good surf Saturday morning though-finally a bit of size to the swell, but still waiting for a bigger swell to come this winter!

Crantock night shot courtesy of Julia Slack

Perranporth Surf Triathlon

So I did it! I had a time of 2:47:35, which was 160th out of 250 entries, and 13th in my class (females up to 40). I didn't really know how fast to take it, especially as I had a lot of people saying Perranporth was the hardest one in the South West and 'a bit tough' for my first one! I had various advice such as powder in my socks, sweets and energy bars taped to my bike, how to take my wetsuit off as I ran (which really didn't work as I was wearing an overhead zip surf suit-which would probably explain my 'lunch break' long transition time!) and don't start the swim at the front or you will get swum over!

I heeded the advice, and I took the swim easy, however what was meant to be an 800-1000m swim surf dependant, was announced to be 1500m as the surf was so big it was breaking too far out! We swam out, round a buoy, across to another buoy and back to the beach, running about 500m to the transition area. The swim was my strong point, and I was fairly comfortable with the surf, though it was a lot harder with everyone kicking around you and being out of breath whilst being held down or body surfing on the way in. 40-50 people dropped out on the swim straight away and were rescued thanks to the RNLI.

The 38km cycle was better than I thought it would be despite my really tasty energy sweets falling off my bike before I had any! Ha ha! There was one big killer hill at the beginning then the rest was up and down, big downhill into Perranporth and then another lap. My chain came of twice in the bike due to the bumpy roads and changing gear.

The 7.5km beach run was the worst. I started with a double stich and immediately was put off by the rough sand. We had to run up over the cliffs, back down and then to the end of the beach and back, which was luckily a lot harder flatter sand. I took a bit long on this due to my double stitch but ran it off towards the end!

Overall, an amazingly organised event and I was pretty proud to have finished in the time I did with about a week's training. Next time I will train harder, as I have to say the Triathlon bug has bitten!!

Nervous grin!

Warming up...

Dream team!

The start line

Pretty relieved to finish

Uh oh...I have signed up to a Triathlon!

Hellooo!! Just a quick one this time. Since my last blog, I have signed up to a Triathlon! I have wanted to do one for a long time at some point in my life and the Perranporth one seemed to pop up as a few friends are doing it too. After lots of indecision and hoping I wouldn't miss a good forecast in September, I finally put my money where my mouth is and paid to enter! Its Sunday the 2nd September-yes next Sunday!! I am a little worried I haven't trained hard enough as its been windy and there has been a bit of swell-and I am not going running if I could be on the water instead! I figured it would be super hard, but you only live once and it will get me in shape for the season! So if you are in Perranporth area next Sunday come and cheer me on from 10am, I will be beasting myself round a 800-1000m surf sea swim, 38km hilly bike and 7.5km dune run urggghhhh!! Any tips let me know-I will need them! :)

In terms of sailing-we had a really good surf at Whitsands on Friday and three windsurf's over the bank holiday at Marazion and Gwithian. Not amazing really, much less windy than forecast for the Saturday and pretty small waves but we had loads of fun with friends! Looking forward to some proper swell coming...

A sequence from Gwithian: