TIMO MULLEN
“East winds are normally seen as an evil curse to windsurfers on the South Coast, generally they fail to deliver what they promise or can blow tantalisingly close to the planing limit for us wave heads. However there are some golden spots if you know where to look. As I live in Poole I find that every time I see any east in a forecast I find myself heading towards Overcombe, Weymouth, where it seems not only does the east wind get accelerated but also it produces a short period localised wind swell that can offer some pretty tasty waves, sometimes even down the line perfection that would not seem out of place in Cornwall.
The best wind direction to look for is any thing from NE, ENE, E or ESE. The ultimate combination is a strong E wind backing to NE. East wind is side shore with a hint of cross on and north east wind is perfect cross offshore. You really need a strong east wind to build the swell, but most importantly you need a lower tide to expose the sandbars that cause the wind swell to break. You really need quite a big swell or neap tides for the waves to break on a high tide. Weymouth Bay has a lot of great spots, generally Overcombe is my first spot to check, if the waves are small then I venture further down the bay and launch from the beach opposite the Sea Life Centre car park, or if you can get a space you can try launching from the bandstand in Weymouth town centre. When parking at Overcombe be mindful of the charge, as the owner of the café is pretty hot on anyone not paying, so have plenty of spare change ready! Making the switch to port tack from the usual starboard tack conditions we have on the south coast is pretty natural for me as I love to sail both tacks equally as well. When I grew up learning to wave sail it was bred into us that to be good at wavesailing and succeed in competition you had to be able to perform equally well on both tacks. I guess events like Tiree, which was the most prestigious wavesailing event at the time, the conditions could equally be port or starboard so we all trained with that in mind. Thankfully that now means I’m not bothered if it is starboard or port tack, I just want it to be windy and waves!
This particular day at Overcombe the wind had been blowing hard ENE all night so I knew there would be waves. The wind backed to NE which meant we would have perfect down the line, unfortunately the wind was pretty light, but my motto is always be prepared, so armed with my 5.3 Severne Blade and my 104L Quad I can pretty much sail in no wind. It turned out to be a really fun session, sunny, fun sized waves lining up for aerials, goiters and some super long rides! A few guys from the Witterings made the drive on my call and fortunately they scored and left with happy, smiling and sun kissed faces!”