MISSION TWO!
I am not one who likes to be beaten by a mere kink in the isobars or whatever dashed my plans, so I waited patiently for a mega forecast that no curse could possibly overcome. Sure enough, a few months later, one of those perfect dart board lows appeared on the charts with the whole south coast set to be battered by storm force winds. Another call was made to the Baker HQ and he was once again affirmative to give it another shot. One way or another we were going to beat the spell of that West Pier even if it meant poor Nik was going to have his arms wrenched out of their sockets in the process. Leaving the Island, I was thankful the ferry was even running, as forty knot plus winds lashed against Ryde Pier! All along the journey, the trees were clinging to their roots in the surrounding fields and reports from up the coast towards Bournemouth were that it was nuking 3.3m weather; surely this was game on! This time round we headed straight to Brighton, although Nik did warn me that at high tide the shore dump might be a little ferocious and we may have to wait. I seem to remember from back in the day of the PBA at Brighton, the infamous bone crunching shore dump took down a multitude of victims, snapping masts like matchsticks and ripping sails into shreds. I am sure Peter Hart was one of the guys caught in the massacre, although I doubt he will admit it, but either way, ask anyone what they remember about the Brighton World Cups and the shore dump will no doubt feature top of the list!
Down along Brighton shorefront after another extortionate amount for parking; Baker was indeed correct – “What did I tell you Carter, we will have to wait it out”. I suppose he had a point as we stared at a logo high, barrelling shore dump which was sending evil waves crashing onto the shingle. At least it looked and felt windy, so an hour or so for the tide to recede was not really going to be an issue. After a quick lunch Nik proceeded to rig a 4.2, attach the latest Fanatic Stubby and head cautiously down towards the water’s edge. From my angle, just even him launching was going to be interesting, the tide had gone down a fraction but the waves looked equally heavy and were still folding, sucking up the shingle and spitting back down on the shore line. After ten minutes of waiting, Nik finally chose an opportune moment, jumped onto the board and just made it through the first line of surf. The down side here was that he was barely planing on the outside, somehow there was little or no wind on the water even though it felt like it was blowing thirty knots. Half an hour later, Nik repeated the process with a 5.0, surely this time he could make it out with solid power in the sail. Another fifteen minutes of death defying antics with the shore break ensued with another fruitless mission thwarted by the lack of wind. All the time those darn iron girders of the West Pier loomed dauntingly in the background; now I was really starting to think something mysterious was going down. It did not help that while this was all happening I received a text from Timo informing me that he was forced off the water on his 3.3m at Branksome Chine because it was too windy!