Windfilled Sails at Brogborough

  The sun and wind were the portents I appreciate, as when the two come together the chances of activity at Brogborough Lake rise, and despite this being on a weekday during Lockdown, the numbers at the Windsurfing Car Park indicate I am in luck. The gates were open, so I drive in and park to decide whether my luck is in.

Fortunately, the opportunity for the taking of photographs of the action on the water was good, as the numbers and activity both onshore and out on the water meant I was fortunately not going to have to leave disappointed. I returned to my car after taking in the scene that greeted me, and readied my camera. The camera for this day's visit was once again the small, but trusty, LUMIX 10002.

One of the first images was of one of the hydrofoil boards used by the Wingsail enthusiasts; to me the most notable feature was the large height that the hydrofoil had compared to the earlier hydrofoils I had seen on the fixed sail versions. The clouds overhead from the start really caught my eye as they were very striking, and as a result feature strongly throughout the ensuing gallery of images. For this reason many of the images show much larger expanses of sky and correspondingly minute figures within, but fortunately the quality still remains due to the high shutter speeds that I was able to employ to capture the images at high quality.

I will also apologise for the delay in putting this gallery up on the blog, as the large number of shots I took at the time due to my settings of multi exposure bursts as the fastest way to work with this camera. It has the downside of having to work through more images, and with a fast filling of my hard drive, which will soon force me to buy another to give me more space!

I am a fan of cloud structures as they offer excellent backdrops for greetings cards with ample space for messages, and certainly to me, inherently carry a happy feeling to convey greetings for birthdays and successful milestones, when used as backgrounds to the textual messages. Clouds set in blue skies always convey happiness and goodwill, never gloom.

Sunny Afternoon at Broglake

On this particular afternoon, my younger daughter brought her two children over, and having fed and watered them at my place, was going to join me over at the nearby Brogborough Lake for a short while, prior to taking them back home, where she was due to meet up with another family close to home with the two youngsters and meet up with other school-friends at their home.

I had to verify there was somewhere to park, so I set off first, and soon arrived — but surprisingly, her two must have been keen to set off because, I had barely parked before they joined me!
On this occasion there was a good number of people who had taken the opportunity to visit, and my two young grandchildren were soon very close to the water's edge to catch sight of all those already out. The time they spent was all too short before they were back in the car, and I was waving them goodbye. I was sad to watch them leave, but I consoled myself with the joy of seeing them despite the brevity of their stay. I then turned back to the lake, and started capturing the varied activity that was in evidence this afternoon. There were many more present than my last visit, and the activities ranged from paddleboarders and kitesurfers to windsurfer's, with and without hydrofoils.
It was sunny, but typically the wind strength was varied, due to the various hills and wooded areas that surround the lake's location, which tends to surprise the unwary. However, I do feel this does add to the skill levels of those who train for these skills on our inland lakes when the more steady winds of the Coast are not available.
Understanding the wind's variability surely must add to the skill of reading the wind.
I made a point of trying to take shots which captured the differing choices of  kit on the water, as well as following the individual genres to point up the variety. The atmosphere was very relaxed in that there were several groups grabbing the opportunities offered by the warm water and sun, to remain close to the shore and chat while remaining in the water.
There appeared to be more small groups taking advantage of meeting once again after such a long time and catching up, so the gallery has hopefully captured the renewed ambiance of life on the Brogborough Lake with the loosening of the lockdown restrictions, and the slow return to some resemblance of normality.

Brogborough Lake Activity

 

I drove to the lake at Brogborough, and parked opposite the entrance to the surrounding lakeside path, off which are several Anglers' Swims. The gate to the Watersports gate was locked, so after locking the car, I walked back to see how many cars were there to ascertain the likelihood of Windsurfer's taking to the water. Seeing there were at least four, and there being some wind, I returned to the car and got out my EOS R, and added the Tamron 100-400mm lens, which I had considered was light enough to use handheld, and walked to the second swim to see what activity there was on the water. There was none!
I then walked further round the lake keeping an eye out for dragonflies and damselflies; damselflies were present, but because it was warm, they seemed happy to fly, only very occasionally landing; for less than a second! In such a situation the odds were not favourable, so I returned to the car to improve them, and mounted the camera on my monopod to help shorten them. I did manage a few shots of damselflies and a cricket, but they do not appear here, because I now heard the distinctive crack from a sail being snapped in the wind, and I turned my mind to windsurfer activity.
The first shots were of someone using a wingsail with a hydrofoil board, and from that moment, since there was not a lot of insect activity, I changed tack. Soon the number of sailors on the water rose, but even after my time there had ended the number remained in the lower single figures, but it was good to be using the EOS R again, and also using the light Tamron zoom for the first time this year. Using the monopod and the Tamron is handy as I can move around with ease, yet get reasonable stability, and not wear myself out lugging a heavy tripod.
This day was the first time I had seen more than just Sam using a wingsail and hydrofoil, so it will be interesting to see how many will take to it. The height out of the water was interesting to note on occasion this particular afternoon, in one case I actually caught sight of the aerofoil itself partially clear of the surface! I also noted an almost clear gybe with a good height on the hydrofoil — I wonder whether I will catch sight of a jump with a foil?! That is a shot I would delight in catching.
Overall, considering how few were on the water on this particular afternoon, I certainly I felt I had got my fix for the day, and it is only other circumstances that have resulted in this gallery arriving late.