The Annual Severneshop Crusade To Tiree Kicks Off
September 26, 2022 5:41 pm Leave your thoughts
Anyone who knows how Severneshop works knows we work hard so we can play hard!!! To that end we annually take the 500 mile drive to Scotland and more accurately Tiree for some proper eclectic condition for foiling and windsurfing. 2022 was no exception and we undertook the journey with 3 motorhomes and a big……very big trailer.
For the first few days winds were light allowing some Wind foiling practice in Gott Bay. My foiling is really coming on and I’m beginning to really understand how each Redwing wing has its sweet spot and how messy it gets when things get too overpowered. The 1800 wing finds its sweet spot the bigger the sail you put on it. I used an 8.0 FoilGlide with the 1800 wing and its lovely altho it overpowers very quickly, so changing down the foil can prolong your foil. I chose to keep the 1800 and reduce the sail down to 6.0 and things kept working exceptionally well, flying evenly and smoothly. I found the 6.0 FoilGlide an exception sail and more stable than the V1 FoilGlide by a small amount, but my surprise was when I rigged the 5.0 FoilGlide v1 on the Redwing 1400 and its was beautiful. I mean the smallest Foilglide was really stable even tho its a v1 – so it comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
The Alien 125 is just SUCH. a great board. I tried a 155 but I found it too wide and sticky on the water – but don’t let me put you off. Ive now met 2 people who love theirs!
We were watching as a huge great Low came in from the Atlantic due to drop on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. So the Sunday had us rock up at Crossapol Beach ( South end) for some small waves and patchy wind conditions. I’ll be really honest and say I had a shit fight that day, struggling to get my S-1 5.2 to power up as I wanted which left me exposed on the breaking waves all too often. The Monday gossip was for Baliphuil on the South side of the Island with big waves and sunshine. Wec popped down to take a look but it just looked so far offshore it was gonna be dangerous for the lesser spotted Ex- Slalom sailors amongst us!! ( you then – Ed Lol…).
Gossip then turned to THE MAZE………….. Oh bugger…. The Maze has a 500mtr walk just to get to the Beach. The wind direction meant you would then need to hike your kit up to a point that you could sail the NNW wind direction………. not really ideal!
So as we drove the convoy there I spotted Balepetrish Beach – North facing and ideal in a NNW wind – Last time we sailed it there was a lot of kelp floating about but lets see. the outcome was an excellent 5.2 S-1 well powered sail on my Dyno 85 (They are just SO GOOD – its my ‘Goto’ board and Im 89 kgs). The session finished early for me as I had picked up sand in my eye the day before and a Doctors visit was required – but my advice is Balepetrish gets ignored by most windsurfers but actually delivers a really top quality sailing experience.
And now Im sitting in the Lodge Hotel with Jacqueline serving me cold beer and great quality food ready for our final day of windsurfing tomorrow.
So without sounding premature our Severneshop Tiree 2022 trip has delivered once again giving us a chance to sail a massive array of kit and test a few products that you’ll see in the future.
Ill leave you with a view across Gott Bay on a moody Monday evening.
This post was written by James Connor