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JAMES COX: SOUTHBOURNE STORM

Top UK wave sailor, James Cox, recounts some heavy sessions at his local, Southbourne, on England’s south coast, courtesy of a savage winter storm.

WORDS – JAMES COX // PHOTOS – Andy Corner

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The day prior, red warnings from the Met Office indicated something interesting was happening. Perhaps naively I had an expectation of a challenging but incredible windsurf at my local spot, Southbourne in Dorset. But things didn’t quite go to plan. The red warning meant that schools were closed, so I had my two kids to deal with. Next, the wind was ferocious – stronger than I’d ever experienced.

It became apparent, after walking to the beach, that the wind was at the upper limit of what I could manage. Traffic signs loaded with sandbags were being dragged down the road, and the roads themselves were visibly filling up with sand and out to sea, the ocean was blanketed in a continuous layer of water vapour whipped up by the wind.

Emergency measures

Back home, I dashed to-and-fro taking emergency measures to secure fences, move garden furniture, clear up broken greenhouse glass, all whilst objects and my neighbour’s rubbish flew through my peripheral vision, and occasionally bounced off my head.

By now psyched, but having found a solution to my childcare problem, I began a slow but determined march to the beach, wetsuit on with my kit under my arms having to sit down on the pavement every 10 yards or so to ride out the gusts.

Eventually on reaching the beach I was forced to find a launch location near the sand dunes, way away from the normal launch spot which had become inaccessible. The only place I could rig up was inside a gorse bush. Spikes on one side, and dog poo on the other. It took time to rig whilst avoiding these hazards, but I managed and proceeded to the shoreline.

Dumped

I launched, but every 30 feet or so I was lifted out of the water and dumped downwind at full speed. This repeated until I managed to navigate myself to the outside of the breaking waves where my brain had time to process what was happening. There was a real chance that if I crashed, my kit would be blown away from me. Off it would go – cartwheeling it’s way down the coast to a downwind beach where it would forever rest in peace.

As a worst case outcome this would be okay in one way because I am confident I could make my way to shore by swimming in. But to my mind it was too big a risk. If a good Samaritan on the shore saw this happen it would be an RNLI call-out and a very big mess. Selfishly I felt a sense of frustration that I had this reality hanging over me on the windiest day of my life, but I had to accept it as a possibility and it felt like the right thing to do to return to shore.

Coming in

Making sure I did not let go of my kit, I turned around and began my final run back in. Those two runs took as much strength out of me as an entire day session (and that is truly no exaggeration) such was the effort in holding on to my sail and controlling everything to make it back to shore. I’d never experienced anything like it. Clearly I needed a smaller sail, vindicated by just an hour or so later a 122 mph gust would be recorded approximately 9 nautical miles along the coast.

The walk back home was comparable to the windsurf in terms of levels of exhaustion and effort. After finding an entirely different gorse bush to de-rig inside, again with it’s own obligatory dog poo, I had to then scuttle between gorse bushes and drop to the grass regularly in the severe gusts for the next stage of my journey. It took me nearly half an hour to crab walk 400 metres through the roaring wind to the shelter of the beachfront houses and start the final part of my journey home.

Eventually, I made it back and I began to mourn a session that never was. A session that I planned to tackle head on, but instead beat and cut me down to size.

Take two

But as it would happen, later that day, I and one of my long time windsurfing chums, Clyde Waite, did go back to Southbourne and we did conquer it together for a good hour of glory as the wind abated, swung cross-shore and the swell became organised. Backs were slapped, songs were sung and ales were drunken in celebration as legs cramped, noses dripped and sand chaffed every joint, crevice and creaking hinge.

The main event

And so it was that I found myself back on Southbourne cliff the following day after the peak of the storm, looking at an entirely different proposition and with a score to settle. I felt that I needed to experience something that was missing the day before. What was that thing? I guess I wanted to be able to at least make it in to the ring to fight.

I watched from the cliff as lumbering giants marched slowly shoreward, peaking off the outer sandbar and breaking with great force in a fury of whitewater. I calculated I could stay out of trouble with my 82-litre Quatro Cube and my 3.7m Ezzy Wave (my go-to tools of choice). The wind direction was pretending to be side-shore, but in reality it was cross-on or if I’m being generous cross to cross-on. All in all this was a Southbourne I was familiar with, but with an extra pinch of spice.

Interlude

As a brief interlude, there are a few general problems that I have with Southbourne as a windsurfing location that I’d like to share with you, if you have the time.

Firstly, when the swell is big and / or the swell period is high, the waves break fast and hard. For my level of skill, the preferred top to bottom turns are often ‘un-makeable’. By the time you are heading down the wave face, the wave has probably already broken, sending you with it inside the lip. The wave could be described as a close-out or perhaps an enigma. Or better still a close-out with the odd exception to the rule.

The wind angle often has an onshore bias, and when the waves are big there is a high chance you will lose your kit and not be able to get it back before it hits the beach. The beach is also punctuated by large wooden groynes spaced out approximately every 60 feet, providing a convenient financial incentive not to let go of your kit. And lastly, in the unlikely event your kit manages to squeak past the groynes, there is a shorebreak waiting on the inside that might just finish it off.

Threat analysis

So the combined problems above unfortunately affect my overall experience of the place when the swell gets sizeable. The cash hungry wooden groynes are like a cold shower to my desire to hit the lip – the ‘anti-aphrodisiac’. Always in the back of my mind on a big day is the financial threat and final punishment for a poorly timed, or partially committed hit. I just can’t accept these terms and yet I have to expect them and tolerate them. Perhaps understandably on days like this I lament the council for their hubris at attempting to control the forces of nature and interfering with this remarkable stretch of coastline.

And back to the main event…

And so with excitement, frustration, anticipation and a dose of fear I entered the water that day and did what I could in the manner that I could. The wind was solid at times but could give up in the shadow of the waves leaving me wanting. There were opportunities to ride downwind but also backside upwind. At times I was forced to make multiple chicken gybes before finding a gap to drift out. At other times I had a clean sweep fully powered up for some solid time in the air.

This was the Southbourne that I knew and loved. Uncomfortable but rewarding. Punishing and redeeming. Providing me with fleeting glimpses of my own bravery and guilty moments of cowardice.

And as almost always happens at Southbourne, I am left with a strong desire to go back and experience the same baffling mix of emotions all over again and to lay myself open. Perhaps in the hope that in some way I will make better sense of it the next time round.

A big thank you to Andy Corner for taking the photos and for the camaraderie on the beach.

James Cox is sponsored by: Quatro, Ezzy Sails, Bigsalty Weather, C-Skins, K4 fins and EOS apparel.