TIMO MULLEN
“Black Monday was a storm I didn’t need the Met Office to predict, in fact I could have told the Met Office and ‘Magicseaweed’ 3 weeks ago about this storm as around that time I had made a prior work commitment for Monday 8th Feb, attending a trade show at the NEC in Birmingham. I hate commitment, I love the freedom that windsurfing gives you, so making any sort of firm plan kills me but work is different. I can block out windsurfing at work as if I didn’t work I wouldn’t be able to windsurf!
However as I saw the first signs of Storm Imogen on its way I could tell immediately that the Monday I would be in the NEC Birmingham, 150 miles from the nearest beach, was going to be the best day of the year….typical! As luck would have it one of the girls I work with needed to swap the day she was at the show, so like a flash I offered to work Sunday giving me that vital life line to leave Monday free!
With the logistics now in place we needed to decide where to hit – Ireland, Cornwall, Wales or stay close to home on the South Coast. The big issue with this swell was the wind, or more precisely the abundance of wind!! Cornwall looked to have the biggest waves but West wind is pretty much onshore everywhere and any of the reefs that work in a West wind would be too windy for down the line. Ireland was showing epic swell and wind but I believed the swell was too SW to wrap into the primo spots that work in a West wind (reports afterwards confirmed it was epic but not huge) and Wales looked again too windy. So reluctantly and happily I decided on staying local to tackle this beast. My home break near my house in Poole is Branksome Chine, a pretty fun beach break that always delivers the goods, nothing too radical but being 5 mins from my front door, I’ll take it!! It is also dead side shore in a SW wind and pretty much handles any size swell.
