Hi. here is two videos from this spring in France and Switzerland. Anita and me, we found super strong windy conditions. I was always over. Here you could see me often with my 3.0 and 82l when bigger riders were using smaller gear. It make you wana get new gear for sure. I would have had better fun with something like a Grip 68l board ;) then a 82l...

Whatsoever, it was fun to ride and also watch some locals with there knowledges! See by yourself! : )

Cheers

Part One :

Part Two :

Good vid, good sailing, but 50 knots?

Beaufort number 10 - Storm / Whole Gale
Wind speeds: 48-55 knots (55-63 mph; 89-102 kph; 24.5-28.4 mps)
At sea: Very high waves with long overhanging crests; resulting foam in great patches is blown in dense white streaks along the direction of the wind; on the whole, the surface of the sea takes a white appearance; tumbling of the sea becomes heavy and shock-like; visibility affected
Sea disturbance number: 7
Probable wave height: 9 m (29 ft); (20-30 ft; 6-9 m)
On land: Seldom experienced inland; trees uprooted; considerable structural damage occurs

Agreed. Awesome video, great soundtrack and top sailing. But that first vid is 30-35kn at best - a gust to 50 at some time in the day does not make it 50kn sailing.
Look at the backloops with no downwind drift at all. In 50kn you get blown way downwind and even a top turn becomes brutal when the wind acts on the board..... watch the last Red Bull Stormchase video and it becomes clear this is not 50kn sailing.

I am sure he had a few 50 knot peaks in some of those sessions. We often get 55-60 knot gales in cape town, SA. Sometimes it will blow for 2 weeks solid like this. 30knots plus for days in a row.

When the BOM forecasts 30kts, they advise you can get gusts up to 60% stronger, i.e gusts to 48kts.

Hi, thanks for your questions and comments. Ok, was it 30-50 knots? For sure it was not 50 knots, buts for sure we had some gust as strong.

In the first part, at Cap d'Adge, the wind was side, side on. The wave are clean, because there is upwind of this spot some wall to brake the waves. It's not like looking at a on-shore spot. The first guy who made a Late forward was with 76l or 68l, with a 3.4 but twice my weight. I was over with my 3.0 82l. In the morning, we had some gust on the top 40... was strong.

At Carro with Thomas Traversa, I was over with my 3.7 82l, Thomas went for a smaller board, his 70l, it was also side and on the 40 knots gust for sure. Not 50 ok, but perhaps some gust were close.

At La Franqui, you could see the sand blasting. This is of shore! It was arround 47 knots steady. Was almost impossible to do something but jibe and cl fr puneta but most surviving then fun.

At Leucate, the Tramontagne wind is always super strong with liquis smoke. Ok is some gust, but it's not rare to see some gust close to 50 knots.

At Urnersee, the rock on the beach fly! :) This spot is super windy. Liquid smoke is commun there. In the video, you could see the liquid smoke. Some gust were also close to 50 knots that day. It was also some surviving conditions. Ok, nothing comparable with the storm chasse. The guys who do this competition are not only pro, they are the best!

One thing is true, there is a lot of wind there in spring and I think it take some small gear, smaller then what I had. My smallest gear was 3.0 hero and 82l Stubby wave. I think I need a 68l Grip to have it easier, to have more control when you need speed to jump the waves and to do some better turns on the wave.

I weight 62 kg, it's small-medium like Anita say! ;)

Have fun!!

There is a also this place in Canada, Newfoundland, Wreck House that could push truck aside!!

Always cool, GTJ
Keep sending them.
Great to watch people having fun, on the opposite side of the World ,while we are in the doldrums.
We need more.
yew.

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Dar said..
I am sure he had a few 50 knot peaks in some of those sessions. We often get 55-60 knot gales in cape town, SA. Sometimes it will blow for 2 weeks solid like this. 30knots plus for days in a row.

Your vid seems to prove the OP's vids weren't in 50 knots. Reports of that day of your vid said that the winds that caused the cycling race to be cancelled reached 53 knots, and people couldn't even walk with bikes. If you can't walk with a bike in 53 knots, surely you can't sheet in with a sail and go windsurfing. Compare the windage of these people and their bikes with the windage of a sheeted-in sail and sailor;

I've been out on the Hout Bay road or somewhere, watching the katabatic gusts collapse down the mountain -
they are amazing, and they look vastly stronger than the wind in the windsurfing vids.

The wind in this vid from the observatory at Mt Washington, which for years held the record for highest ever recorded windspeed (an awe-inspiring 231 mph) is said to be gusting 109 knots, which using the usual rule of thumb means it's a 65 knot actual wind. We can probably assume the meteorologists in the weather station who took the vid know the real wind! If this guy gets blown around just in clothes in a 65 knotter, how can people sail comfortably in 50 knots?



It's also interesting to see that the people on the shore in the windsurfing vids are not being blown off balance at all.

I must be really lucky; five Sydney to Hobarts (including one that the Round the World race pros said was harder than the RTW race), shortboard sailing to world championship level, and I don't think I've ever had the 50 knot winds some people seem to get regularly! Mind you, in serious ocean racing the tendency is to play down the conditions, implying that you've had much worse before!

They are great vids though, and great sailing. Thanks.

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gtj101 said..
There is a also this place in Canada, Newfoundland, Wreck House that could push truck aside!!

Trains have been blown off the tracks there, as has happened in NZ in an estimated 69 knots.

I completely agree with Chris! They are great videos, thanks, and no, the winds depicted in them is nowhere near 50 knots. Conditions suggest maybe around 30Kts in most, I would be very surprised it it was gusting much past 40 knots in any.

I have experienced trying to crouch down and hold onto a board and sail in sustained squalls of 45-50 knots of wind many times at Sandy Point, (the last time was only a few weeks ago). It is quite difficult to keep balance standing and hold onto even a small rig, and the water, even behind the sand bar, was a sheet of 'liquid smoke'. I usually have to push the rig into the ground and crouc.h over it I have actually verified my observations of strong winds on the actual beach over many years with an expensive and accurate, instrument grade anemometer.

The power of the wind is very deceptive, and rather awesome to me. It increases by the square of the velocity. The difference between 35 knots and 40 knots is a hell of lot more force than the force difference between 25 and 30 knots! The difference in force between 45 and 50 knots, is many times greater!

That said, very brief turbulent gusts, can often reach 40+ knots when the average wind strength is below 30, and they may often be survived on a windsurfer, to carry on. This is a very different thing though, to 'sailing in 40 knots'. Winds off, and over, open ocean at sailing level are usually pretty steady with a smaller gust range. The 'gusts' tend to be more sustained squalls. Winds that come over even a low land barrier, or have come over land for some distance (like on inland lakes or estuaries) are very much more turbulent, and it is in this situation where one may experience a much higher, but breifer, gust range.

Anyone, like yourself, and those in the videos who sail on open ocean in 30-35 knots of wind have great respect from me.

Back in the early '80's. I was working on a oil drilling semi submersible in Bass Strait. During one shift, when I was working in the control room, were were observing 45-50knots winds, with squalls in the 60's. The sea surface was just a mass of spray! Needless to say, everything was battened down and all work was on hold. Of course the Drilling crews were regulary asking for updates on whether the winds were abating. During this storm, the exterior anemometer was damaged and we had no more readings. The control room operator looked at me with some dread in has face and pulled a hand held annemometer out of a cupboard. He said words to the effect: ' I'm not going out there with this without you hanging on to me very securely'! (Well. maybe in a bit more colourful language)

Being a little naive at the time I was a little taken aback, but as soon as we opened the door and tried to move out on the deck I was shocked at the force and immediatly understood his attitude. He was only reaching half his body out past the wall into the full force of the wind and I was strugging to hold his belt with one hand and the railing with the other!! He was yelling out numbers over 60 knots!

We were completely shut down and riding high at storm draft for over 24 hours!

Verrrrrrry excellent

Hi, thanks again for your comments! It make me get other arguments. I know that a video could hardly show reality. I also know what strong wind his. I sail since almost 15 years in windy place like Lake Arenal in Costa Rica. We could often see some strong wind with liquid smoke, close to 40 kts.

I wonder if the temperature of the water change something with the liquid smoke. If the water is cold, the wind might perhaps be higher so you have lest wind on the surface and less smoke1?

Anita and me, we went close to the water at the Wesh Center, with a wind meter and we saw some 45 knots on the shore, it'S quite possible to see more wind a bit further.

When your are there, you could feel so over even before the liquid smoke appear. The temperature of the water there is not hot, you have some snow on the moutain arround.

I think it is too easy to say Ha it's not more then 30-35 knots! : ) Talk with the boys from Leucate, 30-35 knots is not strong wind for them! : )

Some guys told me that the wind is often more strong at La Franqui ( see part 2 ) then Leucate, wesh center.

For the videos we could see here with the guys that could hardly walk, I would say it's over 50 knots for sure. And, for those who say It's not possible to ride with control in 50 knots, I would say, It's true, it's just surviving, you jibe and you ask yourself if it was more fun then scarry! : )

Whatsosever, it's super fun to try at least and to talk about it for sure! : )

We are so lucky to have fun with the best sport.

I grew up in the south of France, and used to sail Marseille (Epluchure), la coudouliere, carro, camargue and Leucate.

And yes, winds down there often reach the 45+ knots mark; especially in winter. There is a reason for it - The Wind comes from the north and through the river "Rhone" with the estuary north east of Marseille. The wind accelerates through the river because there're moutain ranges on each side and the river is unobstructed for a few hundreds of Km in quasi straight line. It's a natural accelerator. When the wind reaches the estuary and hits Carro or Marseille, it often peaks at 50 knots. The wind is called "The Mistral" and it is cold and strong; in winter, it is icy cold and you get frozen fingers. The good thing about it though is that it clears the sky and when it blows it, it always sunny with blue sky for days on. This is an awesome place to learn windsurfing.

On the video though, this is not "The Mistral"... In Carro, in the video, it's an easterly, which can be strong too but usually not as strong as the Mistral. So, i doubt the wind was 45+ knots, even though you may have likely experienced gusts up to there.

When 45+/50 knots, you can barely walk against the wind and you have to secure your board to prevent it from flying away. On the water, there's a 30 to 50 cm above water surface layer of water just being blown away. I remember needing a 3m to be able to windsurf in those conditions; I used my 3m 4/5 times a year in winter usually. In Marseille, my most used sail was a 4.1m2 and my 3.7 a favourite.

When i arrived in Victoria, people used to say "you're going to love summer, we have some strong seabreezes etc."... I hate summer... Seabreezes barely reach 25 knots on a good day and i don't particularly enjoy windsurfing in anything below 25 knots. I tend to spend my time kite foiling in summer and waiting for winter swells and depressions to kick in to really get excited about windsurfing again.

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gtj101 said..
Hi, thanks for your questions and comments. Ok, was it 30-50 knots? For sure it was not 50 knots, buts for sure we had some gust as strong.

In the first part, at Cap d'Adge, the wind was side, side on. The wave are clean, because there is upwind of this spot some wall to brake the waves. It's not like looking at a on-shore spot. The first guy who made a Late forward was with 76l or 68l, with a 3.4 but twice my weight. I was over with my 3.0 82l. In the morning, we had some gust on the top 40... was strong.

At Carro with Thomas Traversa, I was over with my 3.7 82l, Thomas went for a smaller board, his 70l, it was also side and on the 40 knots gust for sure. Not 50 ok, but perhaps some gust were close.

At La Franqui, you could see the sand blasting. This is of shore! It was arround 47 knots steady. Was almost impossible to do something but jibe and cl fr puneta but most surviving then fun.

At Leucate, the Tramontagne wind is always super strong with liquis smoke. Ok is some gust, but it's not rare to see some gust close to 50 knots.

At Urnersee, the rock on the beach fly! :) This spot is super windy. Liquid smoke is commun there. In the video, you could see the liquid smoke. Some gust were also close to 50 knots that day. It was also some surviving conditions. Ok, nothing comparable with the storm chasse. The guys who do this competition are not only pro, they are the best!

One thing is true, there is a lot of wind there in spring and I think it take some small gear, smaller then what I had. My smallest gear was 3.0 hero and 82l Stubby wave. I think I need a 68l Grip to have it easier, to have more control when you need speed to jump the waves and to do some better turns on the wave.

I weight 62 kg, it's small-medium like Anita say! ;)

Have fun!!

Is Cap De Age the nudist place should you have been letting it all hang out!

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gtj101 said..
There is a also this place in Canada, Newfoundland, Wreck House that could push truck aside!!

@ around 59 seconds in is what we called spindrift in Ireland, a sure sign of force 9-10 winds, I don't believe I've ever seen it her in Australia. Cold hard dense air. Seen water spouts and killer squalls easily gusting to 45 or 50 knots but a sustained over 40 knots is a different ball game - you can not stand up it will literally flatten you and everything round you.

Here is a typical Irish weather girl, no glam frock there!

www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-35028471/storm-desmond-teresa-mannion-s-rt-report-goes-viral

Love how she is commenting on hellfire and brimstone and some lad casually wanders behind her off down the beach wearing just his hoody and has a wave to camera!!! Got to love Ireland.

Sorry... I forgot to say....awesome videos and moves gtj !! Thanks for sharing!

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gtj101 said..
Hi, thanks again for your comments! It make me get other arguments. I know that a video could hardly show reality. I also know what strong wind his. I sail since almost 15 years in windy place like Lake Arenal in Costa Rica. We could often see some strong wind with liquid smoke, close to 40 kts.

I wonder if the temperature of the water change something with the liquid smoke. If the water is cold, the wind might perhaps be higher so you have lest wind on the surface and less smoke1?

Anita and me, we went close to the water at the Wesh Center, with a wind meter and we saw some 45 knots on the shore, it'S quite possible to see more wind a bit further.

When your are there, you could feel so over even before the liquid smoke appear. The temperature of the water there is not hot, you have some snow on the moutain arround.

I think it is too easy to say Ha it's not more then 30-35 knots! : ) Talk with the boys from Leucate, 30-35 knots is not strong wind for them! : )

Some guys told me that the wind is often more strong at La Franqui ( see part 2 ) then Leucate, wesh center.

For the videos we could see here with the guys that could hardly walk, I would say it's over 50 knots for sure. And, for those who say It's not possible to ride with control in 50 knots, I would say, It's true, it's just surviving, you jibe and you ask yourself if it was more fun then scarry! : )

Whatsosever, it's super fun to try at least and to talk about it for sure! : )

We are so lucky to have fun with the best sport.

It's true that videos sometimes can give a somewhat false impression of wind strength, but those who know what to look for can still see important signs.

Water temperature makes no difference to spindrift as far as I have experienced. It gets very cold here in late winter too.

It's great that you have actually attemped to measure the wind with instruments. How long did those 45 kt peaks last. Minutes or a second or two? Also note that many cheaper, 'sold for windsurfing and kiting' annemometers are not very accurate. What do you have?

The video showing the spindrift lifting high into the air can be deceptive. In that case it is vertical rotating turbulence, caused by the surrounding mountains that it lifting it so high. That certainly is very windy though! In flat terrain coastal locations, the liquid smoke is horizontal, and lower to the surface.

I have seen a lot of videos from Leucate andLa Franqui, and correspond regularly to some of the sailors from there. They certainly do get very strong winds at times with big gusts. Offshore winds will always have a greater gust range due to the turbulence, but the highest gusts will tend to be briefer. In some of the videos seen from there it is clear the winds are over 35-40 knots a lot of the time, so gusts to 50 would probably be there also.

It is also 'too easy to say' "oh yeah, we sailed in 50 knots today" when in reality, it was either no where near that and it was just a wild guess from out of control and freaked out sailors who had no way to actually measure the wind, or there was indeed very occaisional and brief gusts to 50, and likely, in beween the times anyone could actually sail. I have seen both many times.

I would not go so far as to say it is 'not possible' to sail in 50 knots, but it is near that. I have seen people trying to do it on very small sails on quite flat water, and it is definitely impossible in a sustained squall at that strength. It may be possible to survive brief gusts to near 50 from say 35-40 knots when in ideal conditions on the right gear, but I have my doubts.

There was a memorable occasion here in 2009 when we had sustained 40 kts plus winds during a speed even where some of the best sailors in the country were gathered. Gusts to 60 were observed, and sustained squalls around 45-50. A lot of the day most of us could only stand around and wait for lulls between squalls to try and get a run in some semblence of control. Those Lulls were around 40 (sustained), gusting 45+ knots and many still could not survive a run on flat water and well off the wind. A couple of world class big guys manged to do peak speeds of 49 and 50 knots. Tony, who was around 6'7" and 110KG was on a 4.4m cambered speed sail did 49's. Spotty at similar size managed 50 on a 5m sail. I believe both were wearing significant extra weight.

Here is a wind reading taken during this session. Note that the caption is incorrect. The average wind strength reading is below 50, but the gust here was 55 knots. (Hint - play back at 1/2 seed to get a better look at the readings)



Pictures of those two guys sailing when most could not. Bear in mind, even this was well below the strongest winds that day. So probably around 40 knots:

Cmon now guys! Gtj101 video title sez 30-50kts. Pretty sure he doesnt say constant 50kts. His videos obviously show winds(30+) stronger than we have here in Oz at the moment.
Give the guy the credit he deserves. Great effort id say. He also posts wind skate vids. So is a super keen sailor id think.
Good on ya GTJ101!
DONT BOTHER WITH ALL THE KNOW IT ALL BS.
Youre out there doing it.
While we are sitting around waiting for some decent wind.
KUDOS TO YOU!! RIP IT UP...

^^^ Going off that I have done 30-50 a lot

No I have not. I have done 30-35 kn in winter, with maybe a peak of 50kn for 1sec....... once during the whole day and it flattened everyone
Thats not a 3-50kn sesson.

I have done 40kn solid, no gusts or lulls - continual 40kn for hours - and everyone was on 3.2 to 3.7 ........ and very fit state level wavesailors only did 20min then they were fkd. I was hospitalised lol.

When we talk about wind strength it needs to be the average, if talking about peak then the "once during the day" peak is not valid.

If wavesailing, the downwind drift in aerial moves is very telling. Those backloops are in 30, not 50. Again look at the last Redbull video and its very very different.
I'm mentioning it not to take anything away form the poster, but rather to really admire those who actually sail in a few mins of sustained 50kn and do a loop in that.

I'm with sailquik and Chris.

^^:Agreed the Red bull gig is RAGING in comparison. But he doesnt say it was constant 50. 30-50 is just that, somewhere in between. Im no guru n even i can see its about 35kt. But nothing sez there weren't peaks of 50kt. Think its just pickin hairs. (bored windless aussies)
Good on em ALL for getting footage of the on edge things theyre doin n posting it here.
I realise there are a few guys here with HUGE ability n knowledge. No disrespect to them.
But GTJs conditions are up there n above the norm n would be testing of most sailors ability.

Yeah, sorry Oldskool. I get a bit touchy about 40 and 50 kts sailing claims. That does not mean I do not appreciate the videos and the sailing they depict, mislabeled as it is. As I said before, I love them.

But I feel compelled to question the 40-50 knots stuff so people are educated against these sort of exaggerated claims.

BTW, I have the same, but opposite, issue with surfers who call a double overhead wave 6 feet! They are just trying to be cool, tough and cliquey in the opposite way.

Here is a good exercise. What would you call this wind measured just a month ago? It is a typically, extremely gusty NW wind here that comes off the low hills along the coast:

Hey Sailquik, id call it very gusty. Haha.
Mostly its at or above 30kt. So id call it solid 30kt gusting to 40kt.
Real Grunt.
Double overhead to me would be 2x6ft = 12ft. Then its also gotta be questioned are we talking face of wave or from behind?
Ive surfed most of my life n could NEVER fathom why some would talk from back of wave. Its the face of the wave that youre riding. Whats the back gotta do with it?
All good mate i get where you are coming from n appreciate youve actually been there n done that.

I just came across this thread..

I remember the good old days of windsurfing at Elwood (Melb) and having 50+ knot squalls hit.. I was smoke on the water and the big waves went flat..

Anyway I fell after a fall from a jump and my board and rig flipped away across the water and it stuck just long enough for me to swim to it..
I grabbed the mast tip just as another gust hit and the board went up into the air at about 45 deg and stayed there like a kite rocking side to side and pulling me across the surface of the water so fast my body was almost plaining.. I knew if I let go my rig would be gone with no chance of catching it..

The gust backed off enough to get things back in control but waterstarting was not possible unless you were hooked in before lifting the sail which meant being under water at that point.

Jeeez those were the good old days.. Some of the best memories of my life.

Re my post above.. Shame we didn't have GoPro's back then.

I do have a vid.. Sorry it's sup and not windsurfing but those who love strong winds might enjoy it.

We were crossing Corio Bay (Geelong) and you can see in the vid how quickly the wind went from a light breeze to 50 knot gusts.

Unfortunately the wind hit us at an angle sending us 90 deg of our planed course and would of pushed us out into Port Phillip Bay unless we self-rescued ourselves.

Official BOM wind observations from automatic weather stations.
Wind Speed, knots = 10 minute average from the standard height of 10 metres.
Max Wind Gust, knots = Measured over 3 seconds from the standard height of 10 metres.
Based on these calculations at ground level, the wind speed would be hard to calculate in Sailquick's vid but it did peak at 40+
I think a lot of people over estimate the wind strength .

Nice video David! Thanks for sharing. Great to see that you had a strategy to get back safely.

Looks like it was fun surfing downwind on those waves. Sailing with just your body area!

Looking at the water surface, that wind was definitly 30+ in the squall. And given that video invariably makes it look less windy, I have little doubt it could have been gusting to 40ish. Much more than that, and you have been laying on the board and hanging on grimly, being blasted with 'liquid smoke'.

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olskool said.. >>>>>
Double overhead to me would be 2x6ft = 12ft. Then its also gotta be questioned are we talking face of wave or from behind?
Ive surfed most of my life n could NEVER fathom why some would talk from back of wave. Its the face of the wave that youre riding. Whats the back gotta do with it?
>>>>>>

Ha a kindred spirit!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I think it's reverse macho coming into play, the more you downsize the wave. the tougher you are. But it conveys no information about the size of the face, that just becomes guess work.

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olskool said..
Double overhead to me would be 2x6ft = 12ft. Then its also gotta be questioned are we talking face of wave or from behind?
Ive surfed most of my life n could NEVER fathom why some would talk from back of wave. Its the face of the wave that youre riding. Whats the back gotta do with it?

That's the Hawaiian way of measuring. Since they pretty much invented the sport, you can take it up with them.

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Paducah said..
That's the Hawaiian way of measuring. Since they pretty much invented the sport, you can take it up with them.

Well maybe, but I very much doubt that BS was in use when surfing was 'invented'. That seems to be a more modern twist, and one could just as stongly argue that, for all practical purposes, Australia and the USA had just as much influence on the later development of surfing.

In any case, it is BS and we dont have to repeat BS if we choose not to.

No surfer is interested in any way in the back side of a wave!

Readers may have gathered that I dont have much tollerance for BS!