STORMY SATURDAY
Saturday in contrast dawned cold, cloudy and all a bit dreary…. which is incidentally how I felt after one too many beers the night before. At the beach there was enough wind for foiling and 100’s hit the water to silently fly around. There was an attempt to run a mini ‘foil’ Défi but the wind shuts down as soon as they put the buoy in the water. Suddenly the wind goes from onshore 10 knots to zero. Then starts to pick up from the opposite direction. The PA announces to batten down the hatches because the storm is coming and sure enough in less than an hour it’s 40 knots, accompanied by driving rain. With the forecast for the next day predicting strong winds we had already made the decision to pack up as much of the stand as we could, but still the weather caught us out and we battled away trying to fold up inflatable tents and derig sails. By nightfall it felt like the wind was peaking at 60 knots and rain that puts the UK to shame. But the promise of racing tomorrow meant everyone went to bed happy… except maybe the poor souls camping in tents around the site, whom I suspect had a very rough night!