Surfladle

 5.30pm on a Friday night used to mean time it was time to go home but now it’s write a ramble time..  hey, at least that means it’s the Weekend!

 Is that really another week done and what a week if rain was your thing, as cripes has it rained. As for wind, well,  perhaps we got lucky..

For those who are not ‘local’ , on Wednesday I had a call from the Evening Argus wanting to know if we ran the Web Cam in Worthing, as they wanted to link to it for Thursday’s storm, called Ciaran, which was arriving in the early hours of Thursday morning. I passed them onto Gavin Baylis, who is ‘Another Hard Day at the Office’ https://www.anotherharddayattheoffice.co.uk/ and the owner of the Web Cam. I thought it odd, as it was a first to have that sort of media interest in a storm.. what did they know?? By the evening it as starting to look as though we were in for a heck of a night, with Ciaran turning up at just gone midnight. By this time, 6 hours prior to storms arrival, the forecasts were for winds gusting to 65kt (120kmh or 75mph) which on a Southerly direction can be damaging to most ‘structures’ on  the coast and trees etc. inland. Then the Met Office upped the game by issuing a Red Warning of wind for the Channel, with wind speeds of 85 –110mph..  a totally different beast,  as those poor people in the Channel Islands and France found out. They got it wrong, even with the storm being literally hours away but I guess they have to prepare people for the worst, especially after an incident a ‘few years back’. If Ciaran had hit the South of England I thing we may have called it a re-run of 1987 but as it turned out, the storm tracked a lot further South than thought and to be honest, it felt no more than a Gale in the early hours of the morning and then it was the obligatory rain and pretty much a breeze on Thursday… surf was reported as ‘good’ though and if anyone has any pictures, please do post them.

One thing that crosses my mind with ‘wind’ and perhaps it has crossed yours as well..  Acupulco, hit by a warm air Hurricane with windspeeds of 165mph gusting to 200mph, which is incredible but what if we had those windspeeds hit us, as we saw what damage occurs when the Channel Islands were hit by a cold air Storm registering 95-100mph over 3 hours..  so, is there a differential with a storm / hurricanes actual strength depending upon its location? Sailing or kiting in an Egyptian warm and fluffy 40mph wind is nothing like the same as the cold dense 40mph of power you get in the UK. Anybody know the facts on this?? Just a thought..

Getting here today was interesting, as although the winds were not destructive other than a few branches down here and there, the flood waters are now doing a good job. The Adur was flowing quite happily over the  bridge at Shermanbury and to the person who had gone and parked their car right in the middle of it, please think of others trying to get through… I jest and wonder when they got ‘stuck’.  Hope it is better this evening.

I mentioned Gavin Baylis earlier and he popped in this afternoon to pick up an Ensis Score wing (3.5m Score mk2 Soft Handles at only £499.00) right after he had been into the Adur for a winging session over the High Tide. He mentioned two things.. one was that the water temperature in the estuary has taken a big dive, due to the amount of freshwater now pouring down the river from inland ( hopefully a temporary issue..) and the second was that as the wind was from the West today,  it was very noticeable that the new buildings being constructed on the Eastern boundary of the airfield have created a large wind shadow..  which is not temporary. Anybody know if they are going planning to build further along that boundary? I suppose I could ask Google…

Not much time for further thoughts tonight, so I am going to move on to the weekends weather and tides.

Saturday, is looking wet and windy once again. Rain looks to be in all day (please note.. Met Office have Thunderstorms forecast for between 09.00 to 10.00hrs) and the wind is currently shown as 30-40kts Sou’ Sou’ East at around Low Tide, which is at  09.00hrs on a 5.3m and then swinging Sou’West  26 – 38kts during the rest of the day. High is at 15.07hrs on a 5.0m.. not that a 5m tide will affect the amount of water in the estuary at the present time!

 Sunday, is looking dry (hooray) and apart from a short blip of West’Nor’West 20 – 27kts around Low tide at 10.00hrs, it the becomes West 20 – 28kts for the rest of the day (more wind shadows at the estuary). High hits at 16.14hrs on a 4.8m.

 Sunday is also November the 5^th, better known as Bonfire night and amazingly it is looking DRY for the evening’s events.. which is a shame as I bet 90% of the organised bonfires will take place on Saturday (even Lewis is on Saturday) when it could be tipping it down. Fingers crossed for everyone that the forecast is wrong and please be responsible when igniting explosive devices, especially near animals and small children… larger children will of course be doing their own thing, with them.

 And finally, just a quick reminder that we are constantly adding stock to the new website Click Here! but as with everything nowadays, there is never enough time in a day, so if you don’t see it please ask as we may well have it!

That’s it for this week and for next week as well, as I will be in Milan viewing motorcycles.. sorry but someone has to do it.  Have a great weekend, stay warm, stay safe!

Ciao per ora! (just practising)