WindsurfingUK Issue 9 December 2018 | Page 48

48 TRAVEL REP OF IRELAND As great as the light wind was, soon the evening pub talk was focused on only one thing: the storm. Now named Ali, it was spinning out of the Atlantic and bearing down on Donegal. Extreme weather warnings; the tabloids having a meltdown; a caravan that fell off a cliff; it was the normal over reaction. Except the forecast, which always mellows as it gets closer to the day, seemed to keep getting stronger. When we woke in the morning to see windguru forecasting 85 knot gusts, it did have me wondering if I may have finally discovered something too windy to windsurf. Fortunately, dad had driven the van over, and hidden somewhere inside it was his 3.3 Combat and shiny new 83. I hadn’t sailed a 3.3 since I was about twelve, but this seemed a good opportunity to change that. Especially when I arrived to see Phil Richards, of Getwindsurfing fame, rigging a 3.0 and 69l quad. uk WIND SURFING I’m going to be honest, it was nuking. The squalls literally flattening people out the back. Driving rain meant you could barely look where you were going without your eyeballs being scoured by thousands of flying needles. But you know what they say about Ireland, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll be different. That day truly lived up to the mantra. Between the outrageous squalls were some sunny spells where, remarkably, I was only quite overpowered on my little 3.3. But it had dropped just enough to let me abandon the ‘gorilla of fear’ stance and do some actual windsurfing. Moments of inspiration With that amount of power it was mostly a matter of hurling myself at the waves and hoping it was a little less windy when I finished bottom turning so I could