Brogborough Lake Sees Some Sun and Wind

Over the last few weeks a new feature has been seen within the Brogborough Windsurfing community — the introduction of a new feature — the Hydrofoil. Sam Barnes, who with his wife runs the Windsurfing Club on the Lake, took his delivery of one after a long, much delayed wait.

He has been gaining experience and understanding of the handling and is impressed with how it performs, especially in the mildest of winds; once up, he can stay aloft for the length of the lake, even if the wind drops, meaning less effort and thus more enjoyment. He sees this as a boost for the numbers attending over the year, since the time that can be spent on the lake sailing rather than waiting for stronger windy weather, essential with conventional windsurfing boards.

Not content with the delays involved in waiting for commercial hydrofoils to appear in the UK, one experienced windsurfer and confident engineer, trawled the Internet for ideas on the specifications necessary to build his own, and took the initiative to build his own, and on this last weekend brought his creation along, and despite much negativity from his peers actually lifted off from the surface. Yes, he found out that reading reports and experiences of others, does not negate the research experience of others’ long hours of trial and error, but though he has a long way to go before his device competes equally with the more established players in the field, André has produced a working model! I have photographs that prove this!

Sam feels that André will ultimately consider the purchase of a commercial product, I am less certain, I believe André’s passion and determination to succeed may well win through, and I really wish him success. Perhaps André may see something from my images that combined with what he feels when on the board allows him to understand just how his Hydrofoil is performing, or underperforming, I certainly hope so.  The gallery of images from the day also has some shots of other sailors’ sequences, and a glimpse of a buzzard that for a brief moment took an interest in those below, I wished s/he had come closer, so that I might have got some better shots, but was not too disappointed with those I managed at that distance.

I am sorry it has taken so long for this gallery to reach the blog, but it is down to my over-enthusiastic shutter-finger. I hope somebody finds it worth the wait.