Sunrise down-winder.

[DavidJohn]

Yesterday a small group of us did an early morning down-winder because some in the group only had time then to squeeze it in before they start work.. There was Pete on his yellow 14' Naish.. Me on my white 14' Naish.. Jonathan on his new Starboard SurfRace.. Cam was on a 11'6" Naish and Paul used his 12'6" Starboard Pin with his GoPro mounted on the nose turned sideways to see how that view looks.

We headed off through St Kilda marina and under the pier.. Pete was off.. He was a already a couple of hundred meters/yards ahead and I could see Jonathan was keen to prove his new SurfRace was just as quick as the Naish and he was off after him.. I stayed with Paul for a while so he could get some film with someone paddling alongside seeing he'd gone to the trouble to mount his camera.

The wind and waves don't start to kick in until about 10-15 minutes into the run and they start off pretty small.. I could see Pete and Jonathan disappearing off into the distance.. I soon decided that that's enough of the camera and I headed off after Pete and Jonathan.. After about 15-20 minutes of paddling hard and milking every runner I had caught Jonathan and we were paddling side by side with Jonathan at least 100 meters/yards to my left and closer to the shore and he was hoping for better waves over there.

We paddled side by side for about another 15-20 minutes and I got within about 50 meters/yards from the back of Pete at one stage but I was starting to get pretty tired and Pete started to pull away from me.. Jonathan was now ahead of me and trying to stay with Pete.. About 20 minutes later I watched as Pete reached the end first with Jonathan very close behind him.. I finished an few minutes after them and Jonathan had proved that his new SurfRace is a good match for the Naish 14.. It seemed to surf the runners really well and it will be interesting to see how it goes in stronger winds.. We had only 15-20 knots but still got plenty of really good runners.. We did the run in about one hour.. That's not bad because we usually take about an hour 15 minutes but that's with a few stops and regrouping.

Here's the vid that Paul got from the start of our first sunrise down-winders.

DJ

 

[DavidJohn]

Yesterday we did another dawn down-winder.. It started off as a no-winder and the wind soon picked up.. Here's the first few minutes of it with my GoPro mounted on my head.

DJ

[DavidJohn]

One more short DW paddling vid from yesterday.. This time at sunset and catching little bumps on my Naish 14.

DJ

[Argosi]

DJ, great videos. Keep 'em coming.

Can you let us know how you mount your GoPro on your head?
Seems like the best place to mount it as long as it's not too awkward.

[DavidJohn]

DJ, great videos. Keep 'em coming.

Can you let us know how you mount your GoPro on your head?
Seems like the best place to mount it as long as it's not too awkward.

I found an old bicycle helmet and bought the helmet mount for my GoPro.. It works fine and I hardly notice it on my head even though it might look dorky.

I'm looking forward to the next strong wind down-winder with a few of us catching runners together and capturing it on film.

DJ