The week may have ended with a surprise for some, but for me it just kept getting better and better, and not just because the wind kicked in. Gaastra and Tabou have been on the up for a while, so much so they’ve outstripped the current delivery system. I’ve been looking for the perfect solution and with April 1st coming up the time seemed right to have a little fun.

In the early days I was sponsored by DaKine, which was being imported by Graeme Fuller’s Surf Sales. It was one of those easy relationships that just worked, but I was hoping people’s memories didn’t go back that far as my April fool announcement came together.

After considering all the other importer options, Surf Sales was the only one that fitted the bill, and not because we had an easy past, far from it. Time had moved on form those early days to a point where we ended up as direct competitors. I was with F2 while Graeme had Mistral, and being the biggest brands we were drawn together head on.

When I’m having a good time, I like to get everyone else in on the act. We may be different in many ways, but the commitment were willing to put in is the same, so it was inevitable we’d end up butting heads a few times… ok, maybe be more than a few.

With all the windups we’d pulled on each other, April fools day seemed the perfect launch date, would any one believe it. I fired off an email to Bill Daws at Boards and left a message on the answermashine before heading off to Walton-on-the-Naze where a force 6 was blowing out of the North East.

This was the third day in a row we visited Walton, while the winds were good the waves where not. Saturday Shaun Cook and I took a look up wind in search of better conditions. After beating upwind for a couple of miles the coastline turns the corners to give us a five-mile reach to Dovercourt. We’d never seen this stretch of water, and with the North East wind it was perfect for jumping both there and back. Sunday was even windier and with a couple of extra sailors to join us everyone felt a little more comfortable spending more time so far from our start beach.

If you’ve been to Walton you’d probably seen Herby, he is the original Walton Windsurfer, he brought a windsurfer from my Dad back in 1976. He’s one of those sailors that’s travelled and seen most beaches, and despite being a fantastic sailor never found the need to compete, not that he missed out, but maybe we did.

Walton also hosts the largest coastguard station in the area, but for a real indication of the what’s happening on the beach you’re be better off talking to Ray and Rita at the café, not only will you know if it’s worth going, you’ll get a good cuppa when you come off the water.