Mediterranean downwind

[yugi]

On a thread some time back on best places to downwind I called out [just east of Marseilles] La Ciotat to Six Fours. The Mistral honks there probably over a 100 days a year.

“Brutal beach”, as the Six Fours plage is better known as gets its name from Robby Naish who, when he showed up for a race in the 80’s during a proper Mistral, remarked: “Wow. That’s brutal”. Right on the beach the surf shop, Nexpa, is run by Didier Leneil who some may remember for stylishly winning the festive 2012 French Beach Race Championships. Knowing the beach he’s from that win didn’t surprise me at all, even if most of competitors were 1/2 his age.

Here’s a vid he just posted of the La Ciotat - Brutal Beach run.



What’s interesting is that’s pretty much a zero wind fetch, 18km run (just over 10 miles). So you can see what kind of waves a Mistral whips up over a 10 mile stretch.
https://www.google.ch/maps/@43.1279858,5.6937018,11z?hl=en

We got a bit of a Mistral situation going on now which you can see live here
   http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=7.59,42.32,1024

Normally it curls more to it’s left as it leaves shore off of Marseille (lining up La Ciotat to Six-Fours straight dowwind). This one is way more Easterly. We benefit from the top end of the Mistral on our lake.

[spookini]

Damn, got seasick just watching.
Bad place to break a leash!   

[Off-Shore]

Yugi... now that is DOWNWINDING.. Wo.. awesome conditions!

[SeaMe]

Impressive. 

[Luc Benac]

I am from France so I am familiar with this kind of wind. Nearly lost a catamaran to it.
This is a strong relentless wind. You do not want to go of course and miss the landing spot or you might visit Corsica or Sardinia or what the hell Tunisia....
Great run for these guys.

Cheers,

luc

[covesurfer]

Nice! The zero-fetch aspect seems to result in very nicely lined up conditions. The open water, as the fetch grows, allows the swell to really get cranking. You know the camera has flattened it out, so it is pretty impressive. The buoy shot, with the board floating off on the leash, that made me cringe. It looked like that was still far off-shore and that there was a shoal there causing the breaking waves. I wondered if the board was going to go the remaining distance without a rider.

That's a cool video, nicely put together. Thanks for posting!

[peterp]

Looks really good - looks like there is very little cross-chop - epic! I'd probably have cleared that yellow buoy a little wider myself - that looked like recipe for broken leash and long swim in that wind.

On the Millers run we have the Ligthhouse about halfway and it always causes chaos water with the bounce-back so we tend to stay well clear of it...maybe it also has something to do with it's gw-shark-cafe status.

[yugi]

He’s got to be going on the inside of that bouy on purpose, for  more swell.

Here it is (bouy is the leftmost spot):
   https://www.google.ch/maps/@43.1149636,5.7649783,673m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

Zoom out and Brutal Beach is the bigger beach due East.

…
You do not want to go of course and miss the landing spot or you might visit Corsica or Sardinia or what the hell Tunisia….
…

Six-Fours is actually a pretty good safety catch-all from La Ciotat. Head around the corner and the waves coming in to L’Amanarre are big and rolling (shallow bay), but there you are risking it and if you miss that you wouldn’t want to miss Porcquerolles.

But, yes. Almost exactly straight downwind in Mistral, 400 km further, is the Bonfaccio Straits between Corsica and Sardinia.  Look at how the sea bed rises and realize how the wind venturies through the straits. Woo hoo! A couple of decent put in and take out spots too. I happen to know that area really well. It's BIG in Mistral.
   https://www.google.ch/maps/@42.4639928,6.4984132,582172m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

[headmount]

Yep that's an unreal run.  Real lined up.  What's the water temp?  Wind speed looks like it's over 40mph at times.  We get days like that here on Maui but not often.  10 miles is good.  That's an easy logistical run especially when it's that windy.  Good work.

[PonoBill]

Cool, that's a great run, and great conditions. That crew would be very at home on a Southside run, which is also zero fetch, or a Viento Run, which is zero fetch because the river twists and kills the swells every few miles.

I was planning a trip to France this year, mostly to get some color for a book I wrote, but we decided to put it off this year. Good to know I might be able to get in a downwinder or two. What time of year is that best? I understand the Mistral blows mostly in winter and spring. It would be fun to do a Mistral downwinder. Especially significant if I ever get around to putting my old Maserati Mistral--Isabella--back on the road. Of course I named her for Isabella Rossellini. Who wouldn't?

[yugi]

Mistral can blow anytime of the year. Winter ones are strong. Springtime most frequent. Summertime (Jul, Aug, early Sep) maybe a bit less, which is fine as it corresponds exactly to when the whole Sth France turns into a bozo Makena-beach-like crowd of epic proportions. Kicks in for Autumn again.

Like any weather some seasons can flake out. Last Autumn was weirdly summer-like and wasn’t windy. At the Bouches-du-Rhone (Rhone delta) there can be as many as 300 days of local Mistral a year. I’m sure you’ve heard of the spots from the Windsurf and Kite speed records done there (Fos, Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, etc). Big Mistrals that involve the whole Rhone (up in Geneva it’s called Bise) are a bit less frequent.

Wind and car buffs are in luck as there is a Mistral that never fails. It’s on for the Geneva car show every year like clockwork. Which is on now.

[PonoBill]

More than you can say for the Maserati, which makes old English cars look reliable.

[photofr]

Ah…. C'est Magnifique !
What a cool run !!!
(makes me want to check out the South of France with my Ace GT (17'4)