Heads up for those few hardy souls who like the idea of having a go at the Sandy Point speed run in good winds.
The forecasts for Monday 15th Nov. looks like we will have WSW in the 25-30+ Knots range through the good tide window from around midday to late arvo. Small slalom and speed boards territory and potentially 40kts Plus runs. Most forecasts don't predict extreme winds, so it should be manageable for most sailors.

The biggest factor to get right these days, beside 30 Knots wind, is the wind angle, with WSW being ideal. All the ,models strongly agree on WSW at the moment which is a very good sign.

High tide in the inlet is at around 10.30am, so even with a possible storm surge, we should get access by midday. Low tide is at around 4.30pm so sailing until 5pm to 5.30pm should be OK. Currently the best winds and tide conditions will probably be from between midday and 4pm.

Windguru models on Thursday evening:







Note. The ICON13 km model is usually overly optimistic on wind strength.

I'm in

Forecast still holding:

Still really good forecast for Monday.

Note: Tide times shown need 1.5hr added for the inlet.

Still looking excellent:

Sill looking excellent.

The forecast was very accurate for this afternoon. It went WSW for about an hour just as the models predicted, but that was around 5pm with the tide coming in. Tide an hour later tomorrow. WSW and 25-35 Kts was what was predicted at 5pm. Thats exactly what I was getting on my anemometer.

Gives me great confidence in tomorrows forecast. Plus all the models agree very well indeed, which is not that common.

After this build-up, I will be very disappointed indeed if I don't crack 40 tomorrow.

So... did it live up to expectation?

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cald said..
So... did it live up to expectation?

Not to shabby

gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2021-11-15&team=16

Nice

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cald said..
So... did it live up to expectation?.

Yes. The forecast was very close, just a bit more squally than desirable, but that is very common on these types of forecast.
40's were there to be had.

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sailquik said..

cald said..
So... did it live up to expectation?.

Yes. The forecast was very close, just a bit more squally than desirable, but that is very common on these types of forecast.
40's were there to be had.

I think I was slow cos I was wearing one of your gpss

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kato said..

sailquik said..

cald said..
So... did it live up to expectation?.

Yes. The forecast was very close, just a bit more squally than desirable, but that is very common on these types of forecast.
40's were there to be had.

I think I was slow cos I was wearing one of your gpss

Yes, and it was slower than yours! That proves it!

Helmet cam video of my scary run that day.

The wind was around the 35 knots but the course was really choppy as the wind was just a touch too west for flat water. There was a severe rolling chop on the course. After the run in the first part of the squall, the wind kicked up to 40kts plus so I put a bit of that on the end some you might get some idea of what it is like!

I kept expecting to see Kato or Kempster flying down towards me in the squall, but they must have had some sort of technical issues that kept them grounded

Here is the first run, immediately before the one above, on the IS80 slalom board and 5.7m sail in a very mellow 20-25 knots. Quite a contrast!!

For the totally bored, or incurable insomniacs out there, here is a very long edit of the whole session with every run, some other passing sailors and some inane, barely relevant chat on the beach. You have been warned!

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sailquik said..
Helmet cam video of my scary run that day.

I kept expecting to see Kato or Kempster flying down towards me in the squall, but they must have had some sort of technical issues that kept them grounded

That was the point I modified the sail with my knee and gave it an extra hole. Which was probably a good thing as I would have got smashed running the 6.6 in 40kts

agh, missed out