Don’t know what happened to the wind; maybe be it knows its were getting to the demo season. The season’s openers were Quayside Windsurfers and Robin Hood, different sides of the country and looking at the forecast it was going to take a fare amount of luck to see any one planning. I can’t be in two places at once, so Simon Moore helped me out and looked after the boys at Robin Hood.

Simon’s been helping me out for years, and when it comes to demo days it s hard to find anyone who work harder. There arn’t enough weekends to cope with all the demo requests, and so when Robin Hood picked the same weekend as Quayside Simon jumped in to the rescue.

Quayside have always held their demo days early in the season, and with eight out of nine being held in strong winds I’ve always looked forward to them. That said, I was shocked the first time I went.

Based at Wells-next-sea’s beach café, I was taken aback not to be able to see the sea, and when I did walk over the hill for a look, I really started to wonder why I was even there. It was low water and when Wells isn’t at its best, when the tide goes out there is little more than a small river left.

High tide is another matter, add any wind with a touch of Northerly in it and it’s a fantastic place for all standards on the same day. Being only a two hour drive from my place, I’ve taken the boys up there on several occasions when the winds in the right direction.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in to speed or waves; Wells has a place for it all, and more. Once the tide starts to come in, the waves start to show at the river mouth while the bank at the side shelters the water to make a perfect speed strip. If you score it right, you get some great jumping waves coming down the river separated by large smooth sections of water. Further up the river the sea covers the beaches with shallow waters perfect for gybing or just learning to windsurf.

Unfortunately this weekend wasn’t to be anything like that. Wells can be sailed in any direction, but the worst direction is South Westerly, which is what we got this weekend. There was an hour that looked like it held some promise, and while some did give it a go, it was very shot lived.

As true windsurfers we still managed to fill the day with past windsurfing stories, which continued well into the night. Neil had organised a few motor homes for us to stay in, not that we gave them a good testing, my head had hardly hit the pillow before the sun came up.

Simon scored the wind a little better than us, not great but with people planning most of the day he didn’t get much sympathy from me.

Looking at the forecast, this coming week doesn’t look much better, though there is a good chance of hot air on Thursday in the Worthing area. Peter Hart and I are booked in with Worthing Water Sports for an evening chat.