The training day last week did not happen due to some pretty bad weather. It was raining really heavily and the sea state was not ideal for the boat to get out so we had to postpone.
We had a really perfect day wind and weather wise on friday 21st so Fraser and I set off to Silecroft. It's 22 miles as the crow flies. The direction was SW so it involved some tacking to get beyond some of the points and scars along the coast. You can see the GPS track information in the images. We covered a total distance of nearly 40 miles. If we had the time we would have attempted to get back which would have been much easier and we'd have been heading more downwind. That would have been about 70 miles or so. Anyway 40 miles is the furthest we've done so far and it went almost without incident and this is the first time that anyone has kited all the way down this section of coast. Again, its cool to be the first people to ever do something! We tested the Aquapac dry bags and they worked well. The life preservers are not ideal as Frasers inflatated accidently, not good. I think buoyancy aids should suffice. As far as fitness goes this was not problem, we really need to be getting up towards 80 miles to see what the effects are. Personally I think we could have went further to the edge of the Duddon estuary with the time we had. This route is ideal for training in a South Westerly. Hopefully we'll get some more opportunities to do this route and complete it there and back. This was the first time I'd flew the Gin Nazca II 15m in anger and I have to say I was very impressed. Its fast turning and like the others has a very good wind range. When we got to Silecroft the Haverigg guys Patty and Kevin had been on 9m and 8m kites, they are lighter than me but still I was comfortable on the 15m. Its fast turning for its size also and I think this will be my kite of choice for the trip. Its nice to be well powered in the lulls to save having to work the kite.
Yet more wind is forecast for this week so more kiting to be done :-)
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