Great white shark spotted off Brighton!

This picture was doing the rounds on FB recently.  It appears to be a Great White Shark in Port Phillip Bay and was apparently taken by some fishermen off Brighton in late February 2015.

Royal Brighton Yacht Club has apparently advised all members  (and especially their Iceberger swimmers) to exercise caution and to take all possible precautions.

I don't worry about sharks while kitesurfing.  There have been very few shark attacks in Port Phillip Bay, with the most recent fatal attacks cited in 1956 (Portsea Back Beach), 1954 (Pont Lonsdale) and 1949 (no specific location) [Source: List of fatal shark attacks in Australia, Wikipedia]

The chances of being killed driving to a kitesurfing location are orders of magnitude higher than the chance of a shark attack.

While Great Whites do enter Port Phillip Bay occasionally, they obviously don't seek out humans as food.

However, shark attacks are still possible, with the last recorded one being 19 October 2011 (non-fatal) off Elwood [Source: Shark attack at Elwood Beach in Victoria, Australia]

So it is worth keeping an eye out. It is just good practice to be aware of your surroundings for swimmer, obstacles (e.g. floating logs), whales, sharks, dophins, seals and other water craft.

Breakwater to Beacon kitesurfing run, my first "race"

Session 324. I entered the Breakwater to Beacon kitesurfing run today, my first ever "race".  The event is organised by SHQ and Sandringham Yacht Club and is an informal race that intermediate kiters can enter on any board - twintip, surfboard, race board or foil board.


I was keen to have a go at something different.

Immediately I noticed my mindset was different - more like getting ready for a bicycle race.  Attend the briefing, get the bib, choose the gear.  Sector 60 or surfboard, 12m kite or 9?

I chatted with Graeme Simpson and Natalie Clark about the best gear to take.  I decided on the Sector 60 as it looked like the reach out would be upwind a bit, and my Lithium 12.

I was glad l had the 12 getting off the Sandringham beach (watch the reefs!) then puttering around waiting for the start.  I practiced a few gybes as it has been a while since I have used the Sector 60.  It is not easy to figure out when the start actually is.  The flags are only visible up close.  When the horns went I was towards the rear of the field so I started from a bit behind.

I had the Lithium on the rear knots and depowered as I tacked towards Fawkner Beacon in the distance.  I could see the foils and raceboards ahead of me but wasn't making any ground on them.

I gradually drew ahead of kiters downwind a bit on twintips and surboards.  I was also slowly gaining on one kiter on a surfboard just upwind of me and nearly passed him at the turning buoy just north of Fawkner beacon.  I turned slowly, determined not to stack, and had a little trouble getting going on the reverse tack.

Once I increased my speed the other kiter was away and I wasn't able to catch him.  The kite was nicely powered but the board was skipping over the waves and I really didn't feel comfortable going faster then I was.

My rear leg was burning about halfway so I straightened out a bit to rest it.  Getting close to finish I put on a bit more speed.  I crossed just ahead of the finish boat rather than behind it.  A fast skiff was whizzing in front of me so I slowed down a bit.

Looking around, I stacked and had to recover my board before heading into the beach.

It was a good experience - certainly different from kitesurfing waves and doing a downwinder.

We finished up with a great lunch on the deck of the Sandringham Yacht Club.

My GPS battery was flat so no track log.

 I finished 6th behind David Trewern, Graeme Simpson and Natalie Clark. My times were:

• Out: 11:33
• Back: 10:49
• Total: 22:22

David did the course in 17 minutes on his foil board, quite a bit quicker than me.

The start

Heading out to Fawkner Beacon

Turning around the marker

Return tack to Sandringham

The finish

In search of wind today but it came too late

Not really a session! Stu, Tarren, Amelia and I headed down to Rosebud early after checking out the forecast which indicated a reasonable northerly.

A large group of swans departed as we arrived. There was a little wind so I setup the Ocean Rodeo Flite 14.5 with some assistance from Stu and Tarren.

The kite was flying well and I just got going on the Nugget, but about 100m out the wind dropped.  I kept the kite flying as I  headed into shore but eventually dropped it and walked back.  A bit disappointed but it was nice to get wet.

We then setup the Lithium Zero and while I could fly it, less than 5 knots was not enough to go anywhere.

We waited for a while and watched some storms roll across Melbourne and the Baywinds observations before deciding to have lunch at the really good Tasting Station.

We headed back to Melbourne, stopping at Gnotuk Avenue (no wind) then on to Brighton, where there was also no wind, but quite a few keel boats getting along further out, some with spinnakers up.

Its not often that we miss out entirely on a session in Melbourne, but this time we did.

Then during the evening the forecast gale force winds did arrive - gusting above 55n knots!

We will hopefully do better tomorrow.

Kitesurfing T-Shirt from Travel Kandi

Check out this nice kitesurfing T-Shirt that Matt Codina from Travel Kandi sent me recently.  Thanks Matt!

I like the design and the quality of the Tee is very good.

Its not easy to find a great kitesurfing T-Shirt - I can recommend this one.  If you like it you can get one here

You can also follow @TRAVEL_KANDI on Twitter and they also have Facebook page.

Nice kitesurfing in Brighton northerly but there was some drama

Session 323.  Early reports of the northerly at Rosebud were not too good so I decided to wait and see how the wind at Brighton was.  There was a good northerly in the mid morning so I picked up Mr Styles and we headed for the beach.

It was around 20 knots with the familiar wind shadow close to the beach, so I decided to take out me 12, which turned out to be a good choice.


There were a couple of guys on the beach getting dragged about among sunbathers, presumably trying to learn how to kite by themselves.  Not cool.

Getting going on the Nugget was easy and I was well powered once I got out 100m.  Nice runs on a hot day, but no backrolls.  The prospect of crashing, tangling and self-rescuing in a northerly is still a bit daunting.

I did some nice jumps though, and a couple of speed runs.  The Nugget is such as stable platform so riding out lighter winds is easy.

There were up to a dozen kites out, and Stu is going well on his nugget (surf style).  Coming from a strong surfing and windsurfing background he loves the directional board and is already quite accomplished.

Another kiter crashed and inverted his kite about 200m off the beach.  I stopped to check how he was going.  After several attempts he couldn't relaunch his kite so I took his board to shore and told him to wind in his lines and self rescue.  I kept an eye on him as he drifted down to Green Point.  I looked like he might not make it to shore so I came in, landed my kite and got my handheld marine VHF radio.

I spoke to the Coast Guard on channel 16 to advise that a kiter might need rescuing south of Green Point.  Fifteen minutes later he showed up on the beach which was a surprise.  He had just made it to shore then someone gave him a lift back to Brighton, so I advised the Coast Guard that all was OK.

Its handy to have a marine radio for these situations. I will post some information on types suitable for kitersurfing.

I called by at The Zu Boardsports to pick up a Naish Nalu 11m inflatable SUP - more on that will follow.

GPS Log