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