Pic: Steph Hilder. 

Storm Creates perfect Wave Riding for South Coast Sailors

Winds gusting up to 85mph combined with spring tides had a group of south coast sailors bunking off work, ignoring coast guard warnings and heading down to Avon Beach in Bournemouth. The morning was cross shore and nuking with high tide leaving little of the beach left to launch from, this did not stop Spot on Water’s Mark Agg-Jones and some Southampton and Portsmouth students heading out in the survival conditions. Mark paid the price of taking on the storm force winds and lost ALL his gear. After wiping out in a wave his kit was literally blown away, the combination of high wind and strong currents dragging his kit out and down the coast, apparently it has not yet been found! If you find any brand new JP/Neil Pryde gear washed up east of Christchurch, please get in touch with Mark by phoning the shop or emailing, [email protected]

The waves grew all day and by the afternoon when the wind swung to cross-offshore, Avon beach transformed into a spot more like what you find on the west coast of Ireland, with clean peeling waves asking to be ripped apart.

Thank you Adam Cropper for sending up these photos of himself and the rest of the Avon sailors who sailed in the afternoon, these included James Cox, Jamie Hancock, Gregg Dunnett, Ian Leonard and Rob Nunan.

Adam is sponsored by Tushingham/Starboard and is the founder of the TurfDog land windsurf boards, www.turfdog.co.uk.

Check out our forum here for more awesome pix: http://www.boards.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=19831&PN=1