Greetings All, Welcome to the 7 th Edition of The Gritty Truth Summer has been a great time at Anderson Inlet with the Club running a number of very successful events, forging new relationships with the Inverloch Surf Lifesav- ing Club, speed records broken and continued growth in membership. The committee has done a sterling job in putting to- gether an array of events that where fun and instruc- tional. Committee organised three training days over summer with combined numbers of over 120 members attending. The JP/NP Caravan of Horror was an outstanding success. A few of us got in- volved in the GippsSport Beach Disability Beach Festival with a Come ‘n Try Windsurfing day. Our final Summer event was the Australia Day Longboard fun day where I got the Jerzy Jet (Old French Longboard) out for a spin. Kato has since named this board his board of choice as he could not catch me on his One Design with the same size sail. I think it has something to do with the sailor myself! The Summer edition is looking like it should be renamed the travel log as a number of mem- bers have been overseas on Windsurfing holidays. Sit back and enjoy their tales. Ohh I almost forgot. We have just signed up our 3 rd International member who offered to write an article for us. Not sure of his creds, Tony Smith reckons he is a pretty good coach. Welcome Peter Hart and thank you for your great article that has strong rele- vance to a large number of our members – me included! Take some time and check out Peter’s website at www.peter-hart.com full of great information and tips and techniques. It will be great to get you over for a coaching session in Inverloch one day. Presidents Report The Official Newsletter of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club Inc Issue 1 /2012 Summer The Gritty Truth Inside this issue: 40 Knots on the Inlet Club fundraising 2 A Taste of Heaven 3 Road Trip South Aus- tralia 6 Member Profile 7 New Caledonia 8 Summer Events 11 Understanding Volume Part One 13
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Transcript
Greetings All,
Welcome to the 7th Edition of The Gritty Truth
Summer has been a great time at Anderson Inlet with
the Club running a number of very successful events,
forging new relationships with the Inverloch Surf Lifesav-
ing Club, speed records broken and continued growth in
membership.
The committee has done a sterling job in putting to-
gether an array of events that where fun and instruc-
tional. Committee organised three training days over
summer with combined numbers of over 120 members
attending. The JP/NP Caravan of Horror was an outstanding success. A few of us got in-
volved in the GippsSport Beach Disability Beach Festival with a Come ‘n Try Windsurfing day.
Our final Summer event was the Australia Day Longboard fun day where I got the Jerzy Jet
(Old French Longboard) out for a spin. Kato has since named this board his board of choice
as he could not catch me on his One Design with the same size sail. I think it has something
to do with the sailor myself!
The Summer edition is looking like it should be renamed the travel log as a number of mem-
bers have been overseas on Windsurfing holidays. Sit back and enjoy their tales.
Ohh I almost forgot. We have just signed up our 3rd International member who offered to
write an article for us. Not sure of his creds, Tony Smith reckons he is a pretty good coach.
Welcome Peter Hart and
thank you for your great
article that has strong rele-
vance to a large number of
our members – me included!
Take some time and check
out Peter’s website at
www.peter-hart.com full of
great information and tips and techniques. It will be
great to get you over for a
coaching session in Inverloch
one day.
Presidents Report
The Official Newsletter of the Inverloch Windsurfing Club Inc
“You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and that heaven was copied after Mauritius”.
In December just past Sue, Harry and I flew to Mauritius to get a taste of heaven for ourselves.
While we had contemplated sailing in Mauritius previously it was always quickly discounted due to an ill-conceived im-pression of the difficulty in getting there at what we thought must be a prohibitive cost. It was only when we discovered that Air Mauritius fly direct from Melbourne every Wednesday for less than $1300 (ex taxes) that it came back into con-tention big time.
Further research on the internet revealed that Peter Hart, famous for his raft of instructional videos, windsurfing prowess on the international stage, clinics and literary witticisms was holding a clinic around the time we were planning to be there. A few further inquiries and I was booked in for 10 days of instruction with the main man. Look out Mauritius, here we come!
The start was all pretty low key, Peter suggested that we go sailing for the day so he could get a feel for where the skills were at, or not at, as may be more apt in my case. Over the course of the day Harty made a couple of gently delivered suggestions but I figured he was really saving his full and frank brutality for the coming days and surprise, surprise, I was not to be disap-pointed
Over the course of the following days we had an absolute ball. Each day kick-ing off with a leisurely breakfast and then off to the beach it was all very civi-lised and the sailing was sensational.
Although my sailing does not reflect such, I have been lucky enough to have sailed in some spectacular locations around the world including Maui, Dahab, Fiji, Morocco and more recently Lord Howe Island. Now I will say this once and only once – “Mauritius is without doubt the best place I have ever sailed”. Of course, to be fair, I am not including Inverloch in this comparison. Le Morne just has so much variety. From flat water blasting on the lagoon at low tide, jump and bump on high tide to small waves options at Little Reef, increasing to bigger at Manawa and then frightening fast and massive at One Eye. Suffice to say that the wave riding on Little Reef adequately sated my adrenaline appe-tite this trip and at no time did I contemplate the One Eye option. It offers op-tions for beginners to experts as well as all of us poor sods in between.
The water temperature was can only be described as bath like. In fact at the end of the day we would hop under the beachside fresh water shower to cool down.
A taste of heaven….
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Issue 1 /2012 Summer
Harty leading the charge at
Manawa
Club Mistral - The Kit and the Team
It’s always refreshing to not have to cart your own kit on these overseas adven-tures and even more so when the local kit is in first class condition. Club Mistral had over 75 boards and over a 100 rigs to chose from which made for easy sailing but not always an easy se-lection. Sail choice ranged from 3.0m2 to 6.9m2 as well as an assortment of kids rigs. Matt Buzza heads up the team at Club Mistral and they could not have been more helpful, always smiling and ready to lend a hand. And to see them perform on the water when surfing, sailing or kiting was a treat. Club Mistral also provides a rescue boat for safety coverage when venturing out to Manawa and beyond. I cannot speak highly enough of Matt, Laura, Johnny, Baba and the rest of the team, always there with smiles on their faces and as we got to know them better over the week the odd piss-take comment which as we know is al-
ways welcome in the world of windsurfers. Nothing is sacred.
The Value of Clinics
Sure, 10 days of consistent sailing will undoubtedly help your sailing but when it comes closely coupled with world class tuition one’s sailing improves out of sight. Instead of simply embedding your old habits (“imperfect practice makes imperfect”) Harty deconstructs and then reconstructs your technique to ensure that you get the most out of the whole experience. At the same time he is really laid back – “It’s not a boot camp” kept ringing in my ears. You can go as hard or as relaxed as you like and Harty will cater for all levels of intensity.
One of the highlights of Harty’s clinic was meeting kindred spirits, almost all of who are in pursuit of the perfect gybe, their first wave or consistent water starts. Harty’s clinic presented an assortment of characters in attendance evok-ing a terrific spirit of camaraderie. Folks came from all backgrounds, nationali-ties and ages from the mad Dragan of Serbia to the inspiring Foud at 66 and Andy at 68. These guys were out there in the surf proving that old dogs can be taught new tricks at the same time that Harry at 11 was cracking his first water-starts. Mark and Rita from Adelaide joined the program around half way through and it was quite funny to hear another Australian accent among the crew. A real cosmopolitan collection of keen sailors.
Every evening we’d gather outside Harty’s room with a few drinks watching the video review from the day. All newcomers would nervously await their mo-ments of humiliation but all credit to Peter, his editing would diplomatically skip one’s most embarrassing moments – at least for the first couple of days and then it was an open season of mirth and fun at one’s expense. These sessions were invaluable as Harty would pick up on the finer points of sailing that on the water you are completely oblivious to.
The “Hart” of the Matter
When asked back home “how was it?” the easiest answer I can give is that we would go on another clinic with Peter Hart in a “heart beat” and the same can be said for Mauritius. Peter’s encouraging style, wicked sense of humour and
A taste of heaven…. continued
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The Gritty Truth
Team Club Mistral
laid back approach to tuition is extremely effective and he is a veritable Wikipedia of windsurfing knowl-edge. While he valiantly attempted to knock off a few of my very rough edges he was most effective in get-ting wife Sue from a 144 litre board down to 95 litre and Harry to water starts and helitacks. Harty is also an extremely generous fellow and I am sure if a group of club members were to sign on for one of his clinics he would have no hesitation accepting the “Inverloch Windsurfing Club - Peter Hart Clinic Discount Voucher – 50%”. I am in the process of printing up several hundred of these vouchers in my office as you are reading this travelogue. A great instructor, motivator, sailor and a bloody good bloke to top it off.
What to do in Mauritius:
There is no shortage of activities on the island. While you can chill out by the pool or beach at Le Morne with a good book there are lots of other things to consider.
Windsurf to your heart’s content with a great selection of kit. Being able to just walk back up the beach and change kit depending on conditions just makes sailing all the more enjoyable. Surfing SUPping on flat water and in the surf at Little Reef Kitesurfing – Club Mistral offer lessons and rental for kitesurfing should you wish to taste the dark side Swimming with dolphins – we did this one morning before sailing. Swimming with pods of 20-30 dolphins was awesome Scuba diving Snorkelling trips Horseriding Golf
The team just off the water at the end of another great day of sailing
The Final wrap…
What more can I say, it’s now February and we are already planning our return trip to Le Morne and an-other Harty clinic. Best windsurfing holiday we’ve had. If you get a chance come and join us in December 2012. Amazing setting, consistent winds, warm water, lots of options for sailors and non sailors alike, world class tuition and of course Harty’s a great guy and great fun. Book now and avoid the end of year rush!
A taste of heaven…. continued
Page 5
Issue 1 /2012 Summer
Two of our club members from the Western Branch headed to Lake George in South Australia to do a bit of speed sailing
and they survived to tell the story.
Beachport – Lake George: A Cremaster perspective.
You’ve probably seen a few posts recently
regarding Lake George South Australia. In
these posts sailors talk about this almost mysti-
cal place of endless flat water and amazing
conditions. And believe me – ITS ALL TRUE!!!
Beachport is a solid 6+ hour’s drive across the
border into South Oz. Fair distance for a road
trip but half the fun is the drive itself. Jacques
and I have done road trips before and this one,
although being a bit longer in duration, still had
plenty of laughs.
Lake George is located just behind the town of
Beachport. Beachport itself is a beautiful little
town with a great pub, coffee with a view and
good accommodation. A really nice place to
stay for a holiday (this was added by the non-
sailing spouse)
The lake is large and divided by a long sand spit that splits it in half. The secret to the lake is a layer of weed that sits just
under the surface that acts as a buffer to chop and gives endless kilometres of smooth water. The beauty of this place is
that you just sail wherever you want too. Gust coming? Bear away for some speed! Wanna crank an alpha? Just gybe any-
where! Wanna rack up the kilometres? Just keep sailing!
You’ll need a weed fin and as the water level drops this become even more important. The lake is fed by run-off from
surrounding areas and has a channel that is opened during King Tides to fill it up. Apparently the water level is getting
pretty low at the moment so we may have to wait till next spring for the lake to get enough water to see a repeat of the
record breaking conditions of this summer.
The Lake is fast becoming one of the “must-visit” windsurfing destinations where endless smooth water awaits and believe
me, It took me weeks to get the smile off my face after a session there. Hey – It’s no Inverloch/Swan Bay/Connewarre but
still highly recommended!
Editors notes.
The one thing that Red forgets to mention is the mud you have to walk through to get to the waters edge. Much the
same as Swan Bay – no wonder they felt at home.
These boys where blasting on the Lake
Please note Red told me to say that he
taught Jacques all he knows.
ROAD TRIP – South Australia
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The Gritty Truth
Jacques
2 Sec peak - 45.5 kts
5 * 10 Sec average - 43.2 kts
Nautical Mile - 39 kts
Red
2 Sec peak - 40.2 kts
5*10 sec average – 38.7 kts
Nautical Mile – 32.6 kts
Belinda MacCauley
How did you get into windsurfing?
I have wanted to give it a go for years, after seeing an old 1970’s era
sailboard in my father in-laws shed. The in-laws bought a holiday house
down at Inverloch 3 years ago & that first summer I hassled Glen and
Russell to get out the old girl and teach me.
It was great fun learning how to sailboard, the rickety old boom held up
by ropes certainly took time to master. After that first summer I was
totally hooked & thought I must upgrade to something just a little more
modern.
Describe the first time you planed.
Can’t remember if that was outside the angling club or at Area 43?
(Old age getting to me already!) I think it was outside the angling club
and I was struggling to get up on the plane. When I did, it only lasted
for about 3 seconds. I think I learnt after that, not to use the centre
board.
Best session?
Crisis moment, have you ever wanted to give it up?
Yep! Definitely had a crisis moment! It was after I bought my Starboard
and hadn’t been riding long. A couple of other windsurfers with heaps
more experience convinced me to go out in what Glen thinks was 20 knots and I think was a hell of a lot windier,
at least 25 knot winds!
Beach start went smoothly and I absolutely cained it out towards the sandbar (which was underwater at the time).
I hadn’t yet learned water starts, so attempted to drop the sail and up-haul.
Only problem was I couldn’t get the sail out of the water with the roaring winds. I ended up drifting with the in-
coming tide and exhaustedly SOS signaled my kiteboarding husband on the shore to come rescue me.
The boys still rib me about being rescued by a kiteboarder.
What plans do you have for your future as a windsurfer?
I hope to expand my quiver which is currently as small as 1 sail, 1 mast, 1 boom and 1 board.
I’m keen to do some freestyle, learn how to gybe and ultimately wave sail.
Oh and lastly, clock a time for 2011 as part of the speed team (And to refute Dan’s dig at me in one of the past
newsletters, I have been off on a knee injury, hence why I haven’t clocked a speed this year!).
GPS is still sitting unused in its box!
What attracted you to IWC?
I actually did a bit of searching around on the internet to see if there was a social sailing club in Inverloch that I
could join. Funnily enough, there was. The club had only just started up! I’m so pleased to call the people I have
met in the club friends and it always makes me smile to see them, catch up and have a sail.
Gritty Truth Member Profile
Page 7
Issue 1 /2012
There’s some things I like about getting old….complaining about young people and their lack of respect, letting everybody know how much better it was in the good old days, and boring the socks off all of your non sailing friends when they mistakenly ask “how was your weekend?”….
But there are some things you do when you get older that you would never con-sider as a young whippersnapper….
Let me give you Exhibit A….
Yes, well last year over Christmas (and before the Costa Concordia made it an extreme sport), my wife, Shaz and I took off on a cruise around the Pacific Islands. I still maintain that it was purely coinciden-tal that our travel itinerary took in the windy island of New Caledonia, and I reasoned that since I was there, it’d be rude and downright disrespectful to not sample the local wind and wa-ter.
Now for those geographically chal-lenged, New Caledonia is a series of small islands about 4 hours flight from Brisbane. The main city, Noumea is nestled on a series of bays and inlets and there’s PLENTY OF WINDY PLACES TO GO AROUND!
It may surprise some of you to know that seabreeze.com.au can be used for more than stirring up trouble. In this case, before I left I made contact with Sean Hogan (seabreeze: seanhogan)- a local sailor from New Cal. This what I love about the worldwide windsurfing community…people who are complete strangers are bonded by the love of wind and water, and they unselfishly go out of their way to show off their home beach. After a few emails to and fro, Sean offered to meet us at Anse Vata beach, and suggested to hire some gear from Laurent at SP8CE NC.
OK, something we learnt pretty quickly…the locals appreciate it if you have a crack at their native lan-guage- French. After arriv-ing at port, we decided to catch the number 1 bus to Anse Vata beach. Unfortu-nately, the number 1 bus never appeared (we later found out that the number 1 was actually the number 8!) So we decided to walk up to the market and take a taxi. There aren’t too many cabs around, so after a half hour wait, we finally had
success. In jumping into a cab I asked, in my best year 8 French if the cabbie spoke English, to which he replied (in rapid French) the equivalent of…”no, I don’t you arrogant knob”…Luckily the last things you forget about a second lan-
New Caledonia
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The Gritty Truth
guage is the swear words, so I managed to muster up the statement “ainsi vous aurez juste à endurer mon français, ce qui est de la merde”…translation: “well you will just have to endure my french, which is shit”. After about a minute of laughter, the cabbie, in per-fect English asked, “So are you guys from Melbourne or Sydney?”. About 15 minutes later we were sitting of Anse Vata beach, ready for a day of sailing…
One slight problem…several days earlier Cyclone Fina had sprung up and shot by the New Cal coast, taking away the dominant South Easterly trade winds with it. What was left behind was a fluky North Easterly but since when did the lack of wind ever stop my windsurfing???
Sean arrived and immediately made Shaz and I welcome. Af-ter about 10 minutes, a massive rusting blue truck pulled up and out jumped Laurent from SP8CE. To those uninitiated, Laurent Gauzere was known as “the animal” in the Speed World Cup of the 90’s, took a few years off to recover before representing New Caledonia at the Defi Wind of 2010-11. To be in the presence of such a great sailor was awe-inspiring. After a brief chat, Laurent cursed for the lack of breeze and said he was deeply sorry that I’d travelled all this way to be so bitterly let down for the conditions. And you know what, he was genuine! He actually took responsibility for the weather! I ex-plained that it really wasn’t anything he could control (or could he??) and I’d be happy to jump on a big floaty board and just cruise. At this point, he opened the back of the blue truck (pictured right)….
OMG…The latest RRD boards and Loft sails in every combina-tion!!! Woo-hoo!
Before too long I was out on a big board, just cruising around the Bay and taking a look around.
Now, local authorities in Australia please take note…At Anse Vata there is a WINDSURF ONLY area, where no kites are allowed. The Bay itself extends a few kilometres with a reef at
New Caledonia continued...
Page 9
Issue 1 /2012 Summer
the South East end and several islands to the South and South West…and its just for windsurfers… The water is crystal clear and tropically warm. Although the breeze wasn’t great on the day (it was cross to offshore but getting dirtied up by the hills to the North), once you got out from shore there was enough to plane- briefly. On one run back in a giant dugong surfaced near me, then swam just ahead of me, cruising towards the reef. A truly magical experience- just the wind, waves, the Mother Nature, and me.
After a few more runs out to the reef (about 2k’s away), Laurent and a few younger guys joined me for a bit of New Cal Freestyle- man, could these kids defy gravity and physics on their boards in next to no wind…great to watch.
After trying to copy their moves, and spending more time in the water laughing, than on the water sailing, I decided to come in.
Laurent once again apologised and said that he was ashamed of the wind on the day. He refused to take any money for the gear hire because we’d come so far, only to sail in “these terrible conditions”. Any protests were futile, and I gratefully thanked him and his crew for a fun day out regardless of the weather.
My wife, Shaz, in the meantime, had spent the morning on the beach with Sean, chatting to the locals and having a look around. After packing up the gear, Sean offered to take us around Noumea and show us the real sites. A fantastic day was spent exploring the Inlets and waterways that surround the city…so many things to do and more importantly so many places to sail.
After a beautiful lunch at one of the best French restaurants, we headed back to the ship. A few hours later, as we left the port I pledged to come back, spend more time sailing here, and build on the friendships I had made.
So would I recommend it? Absolutely…a great location, great sailing (when a cyclone isn’t around) and plenty to do for non sailing partners…One suggestion though…make sure you brush up on your French swear words before you go!
One last cool thing that I learnt about- the guys from SP8CE (and any of the other 2 main shops in Noumea) spend their whole day on the beach, then go back and open the shop for only a few hours from about 6pm-9pm at night. Local sailors pop in after work for a chat and catch up and there’s a really strong social aspect to the retail sailing scene. Not a bad life, I reckon!
DETAILS:
The main sailing beach is Anse Vata, about 15 minutes from the centre of Noumea.
There are several hire outlets- JP/ Pryde and Starboard are found along the beach but I would thoroughly recommend Laurent at SP8CE- [email protected] Phone: Noumea 788 667