It was quite a springy low tide so by now the reef was coming into play, catching out quite a few people. Unfortunately, after a while I was one of them. It took me a while to escape its clutches, even though it doesn’t look too bad there always seems to be a wave coming at the wrong time to push you back. Anyway, once up and away I sailed a fair way out celebrating until all of a sudden the board span out and I couldn’t get it back on track. Call me Sherlock but somehow I deduced there was something up with the fin and sure enough it was hanging off, pivoting at the back of the finbox. Thinking the bolt or nut was bust I took the fin out before I lost it and stuffed it in a footstrap, then strapped my harness to the back of the board to act as a temporary fix. Managed to sail back in to the beach but by now I was half way around the bay so had a long walk back to the van. When I finally looked at the fin I realised it had snapped off up by the bolt so I might as well have left it in the box and sailed in. Rich at Windy World later said they’re designed to fail like that so you can get back, so there’s a lesson learnt. Anyway I packed up after that so a slightly shorter session than I’d hoped for, but still fun.
At least 3 others including Simon lost fins on the reef and probably more as there were maybe 30 sailors out at various times. Some pics and videos over on Kelvin's site.
http://winsurfing.co.uk/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5444
