AVON CALLING
By midday we had scored plenty of waves and we had to make a call whether to head down to Avon, where Hunty reckoned it could be cranking on the outgoing tide. Leaving a spot that is firing and heading to another location where the conditions are unknown is a huge gamble. With nobody on location answering calls we assumed it must be going off and so rolled the dice and headed down the coast. When we arrived at Avon the conditions were a completely different story to those we had left. Without the shelter of the cliffs at Branksome the winds were an incredible velocity, gusting easily 50 knots on the water. When you see a skilled sailor like Andy Chambers totally flattened by a gust you know that it must be nuking and extremely difficult sailing. Hunty and his brother Jack, who had just arrived, rigged their smallest sails and headed out once again into the battlefield. Timo meanwhile took a rare back seat in the proceedings, and watched from the warmth of the van before committing to the water. Within half an hour, the boys were heading in battered and bruised from being slammed and hammered by the force ten gusts. Jack declared it un-sailable while Hunty reckoned it was the windiest conditions he has ever sailed in. With that info, we made the call to head back to Branksome for another session but poor Jack received an emergency call from work while Hunty had injured his foot and decided to call it a day; Timo would have to go it alone!
