sSs Team Rider, Russ Tetlow (a.k.a. Crazy Horse) is no stranger to balancing his passion for windsurfing with family commitments. Obviously, when the family commitment requires a trip to the south-west of england and with the wind blowing at storm levels, it would be unreasonable to miss out on a windsurfing session. Russ tells all:-
On Thursday 28th Feb. 2008 it was my daughters 21st. Nichola lives in Exeter and has a 6 month old rug rat. The missus took four days off work to go down to Exeter, but after much arranging, tooing and frowing it was agreed that the two of us would travel down on the Thursday Evening so I only had to take one day off work (we live near Nottingham).
On Thursday afternoon I got a call from Sarah at Windsurf Magazine requesting some photos for one of their local round ups. After packing up the toys in the van, I set about sorting and sending the pics. I was under pressure, once your pics start to get better, the older ones don't seem to be quite good enough. I just couldn't decide which ones to use. Then, when I tried to send them, they wouldn't go, and Sarah had to have them by Monday. Long story short, I finally put them in an envelope on a CD. which took me all of 30mins, but that was at 0130hrs which meant I had yet again stuffed up the family obligations for sake of the windsurfing, Ooops.
This was a biggy, not a laughing matter and in all fairness I felt tri-terrible about my inability to perform the computer stuff quickly enough.
Next day we left a little late, and I was intending doing a stint down at Widemouth Bay, near Bude in Cornwall/Devon. The wind was supposed to be Southerlies as I recall, and the journey was taking a little longer than I would have liked. Alison, the missus, was happy for me to sail, but the cut off point was set in concrete.
Lo and behold, there was already someone out when we arrived, but things looked a little wild. Being the photographer, I had to have some pics, so I set up the camera, rigged the 3.7, gave Alison a crash course in the camera's use and launched into the fray.
There were two other vans on the beach that afternoon, one was this yokel surfing eejit, and the other a 12 stoner who was totally over-powered on his 4mtr. He was packing up, but not before I found out he was another of these saddo's who was turning his back on windsurfing to go over to the dark side. Needless to say, even the camera couldn't tempt him to come join me, but in all fairness, it was overpowering for me at 14 stone on a 3.7.
As I launch for my first run I'm told by Alison 'you now have 30mins left'
Have you ever tried it? The place is blowing ballistic, you've never sailed there before, the waves are BIG, and there's rocks big and nasty, just were you expect to end up, should even the slightest thing go wrong.
On top of all that, I wanted some decent pics, talk about pressure to perform, and to be truthful I'm not entirely convinced that Alison had any interest in standing on a nukin beach, in the rain, under ten layers of clothing, with lets face it, no friggin idea which buttons I had just told her she had to press.
That said, I reckon she did all right, I managed about three runs before she told me it was my last run, and whilst she turned to go back to the van, I was left with that last run syndrome, you just know something is gonna go wrong.
Luckily however, the only problem was ending up a little close to the rocks after being cheeky in the waves, close, but not so's it was a problem. It was a long way to go for thirty minutes sailing, I would have been better off with three hours sailing at Exmouth, about 15minutes away from where Nichola lives.
That evening the meal cost me £260 because I broke the alcohol drought I've been sticking to since June last year, ordering far too many Sambukers to be healthy.
The following day was a blubb out, ride in sesh at Bigbury on a 5.8 wishing I'd taken the RRD 92ltr Cult I still have from a couple of seasons back. Some really nice waves, but not quite enough wind, but it was a lovely sunny day, and Bigbury is a really nice beach.
Russ 'Crazy Horse' Tetlow is sponsored by Aloha Sports, Atan Wetsuits and www.stinknp.co.uk
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crazy at widemouth
crazy at widemouth
crazy at widemouth
crazy at widemouth
watch out for the rocks
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