Windsurfing kitesurfing at Isla Canela

Thought I'd dig out some more shots of  Isla Canela that I took a few years back (2004) on a Canon EF 70 200mm 2.8 and 2x TC and D30 body

 

 

 

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15/12/12 kitesurfing/windsurfing Isla Canela

Finally, after what seems like weeks without wind, we have had some today! a small front that I had been watching all week during a course finally arrived, giving SW 15-20kts.   Unfortunately I couldn't get near the water due to family commitments but I did get down to the beach for 15 minutes or so with my 500mm mirror lens and camera and managed to get a few shots of the action. I think I need a little more practice with this manually focused lens.  It is quite tricky to track moving objects but it  is fun!!

 

 

Point 7 ACX 8.0

My recently acquired point 7 ACX 8.0 no cam slalom sail. Bought it direct from point 7 in Italy at a great price, it arrived within a week nicely packed and boxed. It rigs really easy and looks great! On the water it feels light in the hands despite being actually quite heavy, plenty of power but I only dicovered that really after playing around with downhaul and outhaul settings... It really doesn't like too much outhaul! Quality of build seems good although the small loop at the mast tip did not last long. My main reason for buying this no cam sail was for ease of waterstarting, my 7.4m cammed sail just tires me out after a few goes but this sail by comparison is a lot easier. It has some nice features like the measurement diagram for the mast extension, mounts on a 460 mast, it also seems to have quite a lot of kevlar re-inforcing around the mast tip and along the leech. Now all I need is the ACX 6.5 to go with it:)

Soligor C/D 500mm f8 mirror lens

Ebay to the rescue again.  Been meaning to have a play with one of these for a while and spotted this one in mint condition with a hood at the right price on ebay.  So thought I'd give it a go and so far I am quite happy with the results.  It's a very solid lens and seems very well built, similar to" L" lens construction quality (not optically though!) I had to buy an extra T2 mount to get it to fit on my  EOS 10D (manual focus only)

After reading up about mirror lenses I decided to shoot first in Raw and then adjust for the poor contrast that these lenses are known for in Picassa, seems like it did the job! but you need plenty of sunlight to get the shutter speed high enough to avoid blurr and don't forget the hood.

 So there you have it..an ultra portable-economical 500mm lens, great if you're out on a sunny day and don't want to lug around a huge coventional 500mm prime or zoom (no getting away from the tripod though).



EOS 10D and Soligor C/D 500mm mirror lens



Handheld, Canon EOS 10D, Soligor C/D 500mm Mirror, RAW with auto contrast

June 24th

June 24th

Well June has been a quiet month, it has allowed me to catch up with some maintenance on C quest and also get out and do a bit more windsurfing at my local spot "Isla Canela" which has been great!

The jobs this time round on C quest have included the fitting of a new lazy bag for the mainsail , re-caulking the aft cockpit and re-mounting the hinges on the saloon table and finally re-hanging the door in the fwd heads, they all went amazingly well which is unusual for a boat!!

F2 Sputniks 290 and 275

There is also a new addition to my board collection, an F2 Sputnik 275, again found locally on totalwind.net, this one however was in some need of  tlc, Re-laminating of the nose and tail with a small amount of Kevlar and epoxy and a general clean up and polish.

Nose repair on the Sputnik 275

repairing the tail on the F2 Sputnik 275

C quest- aft cockpit freshly re-caulked

C quest with her new sail cover "the lazy bag"

April 28th Isla Canela

Should have taken the Equipe. No wind today..after I had rigged up!!

F2 Sputnik 290 WCE

F2 Sputnik 290 wce 120ltr

F2 Sputnik 290 WCE

Found this F2  Sputnik 290  on totalwind.net locally in Huelva, tried it out yesterday and it is a bullet!! more to come with this one I think!! 

Blitz, Frers one tonner

A couple shots of my old frers 40 one tonner, 1993ish

Blitz

Making the finish line with a torn genoa, we won though!

Early days

first board (Goolie) with magnum 5.7 fathead sail.
1980

A couple of photos that I recently found of me windsurfing in th 80s

waterstaring my 250cm sinker 1985

Mistral Screamer!!

Mistral Screamer 105ltr 2003

Could not resist it!! my impulsiveness has won again! nice board though from 2003 it needed some filling and repair near the nose which I will duly cover with some paint and it was at a great price!! so hopefully at some point I will get out with it!  maybe after  a few more sessions on the Equipe first though.

Finally windsurfing!!




April 12th with the 6.5m and Mistral Equipe

Finally after getting all of my kit together, repaired etc, I decided it was high time to get out and give it a go! so last Sunday I took it all down to the beach and with about 10-12kts of wind blowing I rigged my largest sail the 7.4m. I was not expecting much as I had not been out for nearly 15yrs but to my surprise I managed to beachstart the board straight onto the plane and get more or less instantly into the harness, not bad I thought! I even managed to do a tack although a bit wobbly! things were going great until finally my arms said no more! not bad though for an old duffer like me!! 

Mistral Equipe and 7.5m

So after last sundays success yesterday I decided  to give it another go, so with a new wetsuit ( the old one gave up!) and little more wind 15-18kts, I decided to rig the 6.5m sail, again straight off the beach and onto the plane, I even managed the rear footstraps this time until I wiped out! but great! the new  wetsuit was doing its job so I gave the "waterstart" a go ( it worked ! ) a couple of decent runs later I was done! the arms were giving out, but I had managed three important things, firstly the waterstart and secondly some reasonable gybes and more importantly I lasted about 3 times longer than last time. Great!!

Rigging up.

Sunday 12th Feb 2012
Mistral  equipe  raceboard out of storage !

It has been a few years since the last time I did any windsurfing so I thought it was about time to get back into it!  I still have some kit left over from when I stopped which includes a mistral equipe raceboard, boom, 6.5m sail, harness etc.

The board is in remarkable condition apart from a small hole in the bow (bottom right on photo) and some crush damage on the tail both of which should be easy to repair and of course the centreboard gasket needs renewing (usual for these boards) once that is done it should be ready to go!

I have also invested in a used 7.4m sailworks sail (ebay) and a new mast, my old mast was past its´best. So hopefully this should get me going again... until I am able to progress back to something a bit shorter that is! .Apparently these longboards are  back in vogue again so maybe with a bit of luck there might be someone else around to race with!!