Was windsurfin Gerroa yesterday and some kids came up to me at the end of my session in the evening and had a black (I think) helmet they found. I told them to hand it in to the reception of the Caravan park down by the beach as I don't know who's helmet it is? There were definitely a couple of guys sailing with helmets.
Had an awesome session down there. I also looked at the wind readings on seabreeze and it was definitely more that what it was saying as people have been saying on this forum.
RE Gerroa/the heads and the wind strength there. The place is what I like to call a 'topographical marvel'. There is no current wind meter that gives an accurate representation of the wind strength, we really need one on the roof of the shoalhaven heads surf club (I use the surf cam there to judge wind strength). The wind meter listed under 'Gerroa' on seabreeze is in the lieu of the headland in a NE'R and hence is fairly inaccurate.
Back to Gerroa/7 Mile beach Topograpohy, there is something very special about the place. I live in Wollongong (50km north) and have lost count of the times that the NE sea breeze will be ~10kts in the Gong and 25kts+ at Gerroa. The shape of the surrounding mountains, the plains out behind 7 Mile beach etc all interact to create the best 'wind bowl' on the east coast...imo. I just love the look of driving around the Kiama bends (water glassy to your left) ad then looking down the coast a few Kms to Gerroa and seeing the abundance of white caps past the Gerroa headland. It's purely amasing. but anyway I digress.
Point is the Gerroa wind meter is not accurate in any sense of the word in a NE sea breeze.
/whole post fairly off topic....hope someone finds their helmet :)
Awesome and thanks Rabs.
If it was an XXL grey Gath then its probably mine. Not many people woudl be able to claim it as there arent many people around with such a big heeeed!
After a 6am round of golf followed by 4 hours of windsurfing im surporised i didnt leave my board and sail down there as i was absoultely knackered. You may even have seen me passed out in my car when i took a late afternoon nap.
Either way, this works pretty well as i now have an excuse to head down there this weekend........
I will give the caravan park a call but thanks again.
Townie
Yeah the Gong can be weird at times. Talking to a hang glider here he reckons we suffer from temperature inversion which keeps the wind off shore. At times, like Saturday you can see it's cranking about 800m out to sea but just not getting into shore. I really didn't question the dude further so I have no idea whether he has any idea what he is talking about.
It is true though that sometimes the wind will be a lot lighter in the Gong than it is either North, say at kurnell, or south at Gerroa (well if it's NE it's almost always windy there). In situations like this it often does 'come in' late, like it did on Saturday. I think it generally occurs when the high is sitting a bit further north, meaning the prevailing winds have a touch more north in them. Gerroa and Kurnell seem to be able to still 'suck' the NE breeze in but when the chart looks like this the Gong can sometimes struggle. Could be something to do with the high escarpment here which is so close to the coast?
Yeah that's plenty to sail Ian, but after a long day down at the Heads I just couldn't quite push myself to rig up again at East Corrimal :)
Thanks Chris, was just wondering, will get a sail at Sandon Point one day, had recalled you'd thought the Bellambi anemometer was optimistic. Will continue internet surfing for a while knowing a reading of 20 knots NE is OK.
Always a mystery how seabreezes vary up and down the coast. Gerroa was windy, but with a bit more north in the wind than usual, was very gusty.
I'd say the Bellambi wind meter is spot on 95% of the time, and only really thrown off in stinking hot days like we had on Saturday.
On overcast NE days, it often blows stronger than what Bellambi says..at East Corrimal at least.
East Corrimal will get a few more knots than Sandon, but if you get good wind and waves at Sandon, it's great fun.
Ian today was a perfect example of what I attempted to describe in my previous post. Just look at the readings for this arvo between Bellambi and Kurnell. All arvo it was dead north at around 13kts, gusting to a little more. Kurnell on the other hand was NE 25kts gusting to 30kts plus all arvo. Looking at the synoptic chart the prevailing airstreams should be quite northerly except for places nears the coast where the NE'r can get 'sucked in', which today wasn't W'Gong....it was pretty damn hot. I also had a look at the shoalhaven surf cam when I got home from work and it was ballistic down there too.
It's a mystery to me if not a little frustrating, hopefully the next few days don't produce the same result. Of course if it's like that on Sat it's only a short trip down to Gerroa :)
Yes I noticed that Chris. Can report the same thing happened at Broulee, but what wind there was was NE. Was looking so promising when I left at 11.
Today was a very weird wind day down here at Gerroa.
It was blowing a Southerly from early morning up until about 11:00am here (Gerroa) and at Point P .. during this time Kiama and Bellambi had N - NE blowing. then Gerroa turned East for a while then strong NE while Point P only had a 15kt Easterly ... and at the same time Ulladulla had southerlies most of the day , apart for a few hours of light Easterlies mid afternoon when it again turned Southerly at about 7pm (When everywhere else was still showing NE)
The next two days will be interesting ....
Cheers
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