No go...but a visitor from the frontline drops in!

The wind ramped up a bit quick yesterday (31/03). It quickly built to 25 knots so we pretty much focused on more prepping of the boat. We went over the electronics and carried out some minor repairs from the previous days little incident.

The sand was blowing in and the wing was shaking around under its cover.

The wind really was strong so we decided to cool it until tomorrow.

One interesting visitor to our camp was a fellow who announced himself as a speed sailing Kite boarder. He said that his best speed so far was 52.4 knots!!! There was only one person I knew who has supposedly been that fast. I asked his name and surely enough it was Tilman Heisig. He wondered if we had heard of him.

We had... of course. It's part of our job to know what the 'others' are up to. That was Tilman's peak speed and not his average over 500m. He managed it in inch deep water where a chop doesn't have the depth to build up any height.

He hadn't heard of us.

It's interesting how single minded and focused these guys are. Just like the sailboarders. They don't care about anything else. I think that it is a mistake not to at least be aware of what other camps are up to and what they are achieving.

Timan was very interested in what we were doing and what we have achieved. He had his own ideas on what we were trying to do. He doesn't think it is so good to be running into the wind when the whole kite boarding speed sailing mentality is to run with it...and lots of it.

He might be right... but so might we be.

It will be a matter of who is right first in the race to 50.

We went home before sunset for the first time since we arrived over a month ago.

Munyana perhaps.

 

Paul Larsen
Mobile: + 44 (0) 794 684 1929
E-mail: paularsen1@aol.com
www.sailrocket.com