Sitting at home...bored, procrastinating about doing uni work, then i look at seabreeze and suddenly the easterly forecast for today and tonite and tomorow had dissapeared and been replaced by a crankin seabreeze direction wind.
I send the message to a mate, half joking, saying why dont we go windsurfing, then i actually realise that its a great idea and so we talk about it and decide to go, it was already 9:30pm at this point.
We went to peli point, its a nice 22-25 knots, rig up the 4.2, and mate has Cyalume Sticks, red and green so we put them at the back of the boom and there you have it, safe-ish pitch black windsurfing. Even landed a couple of vulcans in the dark haha
/images/misc/forum-image-missing.gif
awesome fun and crazy wind! 
Awesome!! I like your style Mike. I remember sailing a dinghy alone after dark in Albany when I was 16. I got totally ripped by my Dad when I got in, but it was worth it- there's something really thrilling about skimming through the waves under the stars.
I've been thinking about this lately as some southerlies come through at night and in the off season I can't afford to be too picky about when I sail.
A good waterproof LED bike heard-light strapped to your head/helmet. Two Red LED bike tail lights with the fixed-on mode, and replace one set of LEDs with green hi-intensity LEDs should do it. LED lights should give you many hours of sailing time.
The main problem I would see is the insecurity of sailing by yourself.
The only time I've sailed at night is at around 4am when the wind woke me. Only problem was the water was lit by a floodlight behind a tree, which made nice moody lighting and I had to dodge between bouys that I couldn't see until 2m from them. The thrill increased too because if I was caught I'd loose my job. Silly rules.
Forgot to mention it was only like 12-18 knots... man I was desperate.
cool. Thought about it, never done it (except on boats). All you need is an all round white light on top the mast. bit worried about sharks thou in Moreton Bay.
yeah, even though it was on a massive sandbank i was thinking bout sharks when i fell in haha, im a wuss though
Check this...http://www.boardseekermag.com/moves_and_movies/MOVIES/_023/Fat_Face_Event_Movie512K_Stream.wmv
(or this one for mac users):
www.boardseekermag.com/moves_and_movies/MOVIES/_023/Fat_Face_Event_Movie512K_Stream.mov
The video is about 16MB so it might take a little while to stream...
Its from the FAT FACE Night Windsurfing Event run in the UK last year sometime. Racing in pitch black in 2m waves with 25-30 knots of wind. Just with glow sticks on the buoys so you could see them.
The first part of the movie shows them warming up with some wave expression sessions in the late afternoon, then its fully pitch black at night and they begin running 2-lap SuperX races...
Pretty cool. Must've been f'king FREEZING sailing there... guess they don't have sharks in the UK.
its no joke. that was our second attempt at night sailing and he did land a couple of vulcans. it was so hard to pop though without being able to see the water or the wind and water starting was a bit difficult. There was also a small amount of moon light which mean visibility was about 1 to 2 meters or something.
long time ago I remember sailing till after dark one night with Chris Torchler (NZ Speedsailor) in Currumbin Estuary...not a real long run there so lots of gybes. Wasn't too bad back then though cause the pub was still on the hill over looking it and the lights from that gave us enough to sail by.
Never mind windsurfing in the dark; I would like to see a lot more kiters going out at night, especially in strong onshore winds...
Mike, Bracko where was my phone call
Although I was gonna go to Mullaz
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36762
