"I find Cromer excellent for writing, surf better"

It was the tea bag that did it. I woke up on Monday morning in a van that resembled an industrial cold storage unit. The windows were coated in a thick layer of ice, the water cannister had chunks of ice floating around in it, even the duvet felt a little crispy. But the worse thing was the used tea bag in the sink. When I prised it off the draining board, it was like a rock.

To cap it all, the swell had virtually disappeared.
So I bowed to the inevitable, and headed for warmth, comfort and civilisation. But not before a hairy drive home. The VW really isn't designed for winter. No heating, very damp and a tendency to slip around on ice like a snake on skates. As the snow continued to fall, I thought I might have to pull over and wait until morning - though given the van has been my home for four months, it's not quite the same as being stranded. Just being forced to camp somewhere that has too much snow and no waves. In the end, I made it to within half a mile of my destination, which was good enough.

I fear I may have to return to Norfolk, having only surfed in Cromer, which I grew to like. Unlike Winston Churchill.
"I'm not enjoying myself very much" - a young Winston Churchill, c. 1885.

Oscar Wilde was closer to the mark, though he was still three letters out. "I find Cromer excellent for writing, surf better" is what he meant to say.So the van is temporarily a van, not a home - at least until after Christmas. I'm already missing the freedom. But not the sub-zero temperatures.

Happy Christmas! Let's hope there are decent waves in the New Year.

Too cold to surf, surely?

Ice on the inside of the van, people wrapped up like Muscovites, parents walking past pulling sleds, Radio Norfolk in snow news overdrive... only a madman would surf in these conditions.
But I know you would all have been disappointed if I hadn't. So of course, I did.

Looking forward to Christmas. Hopefully my feet will have thawed by then.

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I by the tide of Humber will complain.

And mostly I'll complain about the weather. It's vile.
It's redefining vile.

For reasons I can't quite explain, I left lovely Yorkshire this morning (again) despite the promise of big, clean, off-shore waves over the weekend, and drove down to Norfolk, which promises a howling, blown-out mess until Sunday. And from Monday, unsurfable mush. Ever the optimist, I'm hoping there might be a slim window of opportunity between the two, and I can grab a quick surf then flee the fickle, freezing fingers of the North Sea in time for Christmas.

The good news: snow is unlikely to settle here tonight.
The bad news: only because the wind howling off the sea is too strong.

Before I left Scarborough, I managed a couple more sessions. I met up with Morgan again and we surfed a big, fat wave in Scarborough North Bay on Wednesday. It was a bit frustrating - lots of water, but it was too fat and not really standing up. Caught a few ok waves, but there was a lot of paddling through endless white water.
We went to have a look at Cayton Bay. It looked ok, but not quite worth getting into a cold wet wetsuit for, so we decided against it. It's so much easier to make these difficult decisions by committee.
This is Morgan illustrating a) Cayton Bay b) the low quality weather and c) the low quality waves.

Morgan went home to nurse his cold, and I went into the surf shop where Josh, the surf-youth on duty, was sufficiently enthusiastic about surfing in general and surfing in Yorkshire in particular to make me rethink. I went back to have another look. It looked a bit better (or I was a bit warmer after being in the surf shop) so I jogged off through the drizzle to get changed. (Sorry, Morgan!)

It was OK, though not a patch on Monday and by the end the wind had started blowing on shore, which was not ideal. Plus I stumbled upon the rip just as my shoulders realised that two sessions in the same day in cold water is not written into their contract. I was happy to drag myself up the sand as the light started to fade.

Today I made my way South. Filey was blown out. Bridlington was blown out. How about Skegness? Everyone had told me it was a dump, but I decided to take a look anyway. It was blown out. And a dump. I suspect I'll never go there again. Here is the only nice view of a very nasty town.
After that Lincolnshire was lovely.

And then I reached Norfolk and the weather kicked in. It's still vile.

A Yorkshire Welcome

And we're back!

I left Yorkshire and its fabulous reefs a couple of weeks ago and headed south, though not before meeting two mad night cyclists, Jim and Carl, at The Hart Inn in Sandsend (until recently the wife-swapping centre of Yorkshire, apparently. As I don't have a wife to swap, I just had a couple of beers.)

Jim invited me to Sunday lunch a couple of days later, with his lovely wife Lisa (who is far too nice to swap). I repaid them by not recognising them when they turned up at my place (well, the car park where I had been sleeping all week). That's gratitude for you. Alas, I didn't get a photo.

I headed south, via a quick coffee with my god-parents, who greeted my unannouced appearance with admirable equanimity and hospitality.
Actually I had to make my own coffee. In the van. So maybe their legendary hospitality isn't what it was. Or perhaps I've blotted my copybook (I knew I should have been more assiduous with my thankyou letters). Though the fact their aga was being replaced might have had something to do with it.

I duly saw Karen off at the airport. I would post a photo of her at the departure gate, but an Officious Official (the best sort) insisted I delete it. So I deleted the one that was out of focus. And kept the other one. I would post it here, but I'd probably be arrested, if the O.O. was to be believed.

(Brief mini-rant: I can't understand the prohibition of photography in places like airports and even underground stations. If you're a terrorist intent on blowing up public places, there are plenty of ways to photograph them surreptitiously. Any terrorist who can't work out how to conceal a camera is probably going to struggle with assembling a bomb. Meanwhile we have the draconian regulations restricting photography that used to apply in the Eastern bloc thirty years ago - and which used to be the source of both disbelief and mirth.)

In an unrelated incident, I went undercover to photograph Victoria station.I was en route to a party.

It's just a shame it wasn't a fancy dress party.

But if you're wondering where to get a pith helmet in sunny Hertford, the answer is Ken Weeks. They're almost de rigeur in Hertfordshire these days, I hear:
After ten days of easy-living, central heating and running water among lily-livered Southerners (and a Scot), it was time to hit the road again. I was tempted to head straight for Norfolk, but something was calling me back to Yorkshire. And it certainly wasn't the weather.

I arrived last night, delighted to be back on the road. To celebrate, today I managed to surf twice, in an attempt to shrug off my idle Southern ways. Actually I had just decided not to bother with the first session, at the North Bay in Scarborough, but Morgan, a local lad I met at Sandsend a couple of weeks ago, turned up, and I didn't want to look like a Southern wimp. Unfortunately, though, it turned out to be gutless on-shore slop, and as the tide came in, any latent power was dissipated against the sea wall. But after two weeks down South, it was just great to be in the water. A wave's a wave. Even when it's small, brief and gutless.
In the afternoon, I headed over to Caton Bay (the famous Bunkers). The forecast is for the swell to grow over the week, but I'm beginning to learn that it's better to have a decent surf now than wait for a great surf tomorrow - it usually doesn't materialise. A board in the hand is worth two in the mush, or something. And it was great - shoulder high on the sets, mostly clean, and with a gentle off-shore keeping it smooth and glassy.
All in all, it's been a great return to Yorkshire. It's just a shame about the rain. And tonight's forecast. 2º. Not ideal in a van that has already reverted to its damp status quo. The only solution is, like now, to take refuge in a pub with a real open fire, of which there are plenty. They even have a local beer named after a local break, North Bay. And it's a similar colour.

Nothing Tastes As Good As Surfing Feels

It's the Kate Moss School of Surfing: Nothing Tastes As Good As Surfing Feels.*

The smooth, calm swell on Saturday gave way to a howling Northerly gale that made Sunday impossible. On Monday, with the wind still howling, I surfed a very choppy, head high Scarborough South Bay, in rain and sunshine, and with a rainbow curving down from the castle to the amusement arcade on the quayside.

Fortunately I was back in the van by the time the hail started.

Meanwhile, Scarborough North Bay was hitting the headlines, as hapless drivers got caught in the waves washing over the sea wall.

Tuesday dawned cold and bright. So cold that there was ice on the inside of the van. Still, there are worse views to wake up to.

The reef at Sandsend, which I surfed on Saturday, was too low, so I sat around and waited for the tide to come in.

When it did, it was inconsistent and irregular. I caught a few decent rides, but it wasn't a patch on the sublime surf three days earlier.

As this was likely to be the last swell for a while, and as I have to head south for a few days, I returned to Saltburn, and finally caught some waves there, for the second session of the day. I can't say putting on cold, wet swimmers and a cold, wet wetsuit is much fun.

After two long sessions in two days, my shoulders were no longer aching. They were burning. But I managed to catch a couple of nice rides in Saltburn - a beach break beside the pier which was clean, overhead and peeling nicely. Click on the photo for an idea of the scale: there's a surfer on the peak, just above the left-hand bench. It was a good way to finish the Yorkshire leg of my trip.


As if subconsciously not wanting to leave, I then lost the keys to my van. In my van. Luckily I had a spare set. And inevitably, they turned up twelve hours later. Things don't stay lost for long in a van. Except possibly surfers.


*Apart from Post-Surf Fish and Chips.

Extra Ebisu 6Hr - the Video! (aka James' Perspective)

For those of you waiting for the video version, here it is!

Many thanks again to James G. for his fantastic video skills!

Extra Ebisu 6 Hour - Rod's Perspective.

Rather than re-post all. I'll direct readers to Rod's own RacingInJapan blog. 

His post includes a lot more than just the TG-Racing event, so check it out.

Finally!

Waves, at last! And what a great session! It's been flatter than the Serpentine for the last fortnight. I've spent my time in Sandsend, watching dogs try to catch cormorants.
And ducks try to cadge fish.

But finally, yesterday afternoon, there was the first hint of something pushing in from the North. The forecast said it wasn't due to materialise until this afternoon, but I woke to the sound of activity: two local surfers getting their boards ready. I peered at them in my pyjamas. Surely they weren't going out? I got up to investigate. There was what looked like a small wave, peeling round the headland onto the reef.But once they got there, I could see it was not one of the dribblers that have been trickling into the bay for the last week but a clean, head high reef wave, peeling nicely into the bay. I didn't need to think about it twice.

And it was fabulous! After falling off a couple (too early, too late, too old), I finally got the timing right and caught a couple of fantastic rides - long, powerful, clean. I've seen the photos of Yorkshire waves, but hadn't seen much evidence of it. This was it.

The first one was good, the second was sublime! A little overhead, it rolled on and on, heading for the cliffs, keeping its power the whole way, with a clean face that made it easy to link top turns and bottom turns. It seemed to go on and on, pretty much forever. At least that's how it felt. In the back of your mind you're thinking about the cliffs ahead, but the surf wasn't reaching them, and I kicked out well ahead, a good 200 metres from where I had started. With that "what a great ride" grin all over my face. The best left hand wave I've surfed since Lagide, in Peniche. The longest, cleanest, best-surfed wave of the trip. Sublime.

It's a long paddle back to the peak, though, especially when it's this cold. And this cold is pretty cold.

I fell off my next wave, and the one after that petered out quite quickly. The two local lads got out and I made the fatal error of staying in for a last ride. But the tide was getting too high, and the backwash from the cliffs was stopping the waves from forming properly. No matter - time to head back to the van for breakfast. A very happy surfer.

Ebisu Super Taikyu Web Page

Check us out on the Ebisu Circuit Super Endurance page.

Direct Link ... http://www.ebisu-circuit.com/2009-4r-end/11-23/11-23.html

Extra Ebisu 6 Hour - Dan's Perspective.

Dear All

Wonderful guys you all , So happy to race with you all if my driving style suitable for our team &,If I have seat always I'm there.

Anyway first time I had FF Honda on circuit all the times have been with Roadster & Imprezas,Evos.

In Ebisu uphill,felt little lack of power even though 2.2 VTEC, I think prelude is little heavy compare with some same class machines. we can do some weight reduction(Lightining) on expert honda instructions.

Again So sorry about under str. & front Left tyre wear toomuch as first Driver so discomport will do some good alignment & shocks works-So sorry not a technical guy but just love cars,speedy driving even My Roadester I have pit crew two Japanese for even practice days in Tsukuba.So much lack of Tech. expertise on cars-sorry.

Thanks Miguel your Managment & Technical advice for all of us

Thanks Sumisan for very tired organize works, all paper works with Good Gyjins

Thanks Tom,Rod,James & Mike for Be a wonderful guys to me & my car crazy Son you all so kind super gyjins in Japan.

Finaly Thanks Tom, Invited me to such a great times with Great bunch looking forward to see you all in very near future.

Kind Regards,

Dhammika Silva (dan)
 
p.s- all the photos sent by my Nikon D70- My son's camera has lot send later
 

Ebisu 6 extra hour - Tom's perspective

I've driven all 3 races with the Prelude now. The 12 hour on the original Aragosta suspension setup, the 6 hour on the Tein and now the last 6 hour on the new Aragosta rebuilt suspension with uprated damping and springs. Each race saw an improved the car and faster lap times.

Thinking back to the original race, I think tires have made a huge difference. My original first session was done on RE01s where as the 2nd night session was on a vastly grippier tire, the Z1 star specs. Unfortunately, I found night driving a real visual challenge and was not able to drive as fast as I should have been able to drive to really get a feel for the Z1s but I could sense that they were faster. The next race, we had 8 new Z1s and after a practice session, everyone who raced was confident of the extra available grip and raced them harder leading to improved lap times. Personally, I preferred the first suspension over the TEIN setup we had due to a very slow initial roll rate. I personally think tires as well as cooler weather made me faster.

This last race, the car was vastly different again. A new suspension, gear box and LSD among other things. The gearbox got rid of the reverse problems, but it does have some syncro trouble I think between 2nd and 3rd. The LSD gives us vastly improved traction out of corners which feels amazing. I really enjoyed that. Its a one-way LSD setup. The suspension immediately felt amazing on practice and gave me a lot of confidence to try to go faster.

During practice I pitted a few times to try different damping adjustments and was really amazed by the difference they made. The first setting I tried was quite good everywhere except for the chicane where I felt, if we could get easier neutral turn-in, we could improve our lap time. The next few settings were definitely a step backwards until finally, I got something I liked and went out and got a 1'11.4 in one lap before I came back in again satisfied. What I liked though was how different it felt with every twist. Thanks Miguel and Sumi for working with me on the adjustments.

Before qualification, we found the crack in the rotors. I was in two minds about what to do but decided to believe in the brakes and get on with it. On new tires, I headed out around the first corner and lost it completely sideways though the chicane. I managed to get things back under control and pointing down hill again but it was quite a scare. I had completely forgotten that these were brand spanking new tires so they still had to get through a layer of skin before getting down to actual proper rubber compound. I did 2 slow laps to get the tires prepped and on my first hot lap, I scored a 1'10.5. The next few laps, I made the mistake of following the super 7 around which affected my time as I had to lift or brake earlier to avoid him at times. I felt we could have gone faster but it was time to save the rotor/tires and car and come in. A 1'10.5 is the fastest the car has been and it got us 8th on the grid and 2nd in class - ahead of the Super 7 I might add :-) Looking at the TM data, I note that the best virtual lap time for that session was a 1'10.0 so we can get into the 1'09s for sure.

Dan started the race for us and I mostly watched from the pit as I kept an eye on things. Dan is new to the team which made starting the race for us a lot more stressful on him then he might like to admit. It's always hard to know what your team mates are thinking, you are worried about starting from 8th and ending your session last and not living up to expectations, you are worried that you haven't driven the car so much before, nor done a rolling start. You are worried you might mess up and kill the car before anyone else gets to drive. You want to bring the car back but you want to make your team proud too. I know this feeling from my first endurance race when I started the race for 7 others that I didn't know and I was starting from 2nd on a grid of about 28. Pressure!

When Dan pitted, I checked tire pressures and checked the tires. We had a problem. Our front left tire was showing a lot of degradation and was ripping apart on the outside. Tire pressure was down also to 220kpa (a slow punture perhaps?) and we sent Sumi out on it hoping for a safety car so that we could change it without losing too much time. That was a terrible judgement call and I'm quite embarrassed over agreeing to it but it was driven by 1 silly reason; the fact that this was only the beginning of hour 2 and we had only 4 worn tires left (one of which itself was blistered although not too badly) - would we last the race... Would I be able to drive the car back to Tokyo on our race rubber? Deja-vu from the last race.

Anyway, Sumi was out on badly worn tires but doing quite well with lap times of around 1'13 ~ 1'14 so all didn't seem too bad. Back in the pit, we thought about the problem and decided to change the tire if the chance arose. 30 minutes into Sumi's session things were looking bad as he was lapping around 1'30 and we decided to bring him in albeit a little too late. He had a puncture and was coming in anyway. With the tire changed, Sumi did a few more 1'16 laps before bringing the tires back in pristine condition for Mike. Apologies Sumi! You did a fantastic job! I hope you learned as much from it as I did.

Mike was in charge of hour 3 for us and he promised to drive hard but without pushing under-steer. He lapped a mixture of 1'13s with some 1'12s and 1'14s in the mix. He got our best lap of the race which was a 1'12. Well done Mike! When Mike pitted though, the tires were showing blistering again although no-where near as bad as when Dan first came in. Still having learned from the puncture, we decided to give Rod a "new" left tire.

Rod was only out about 15 minutes when the safety car came out so we dragged Rod in and decided to raise the front suspension. Miguel and Sumi worked their magic and we had Rod out again before the safety car ended. He noted that the car under-steered more with the new setup but he drove a pretty clean race and finished our 4th hour with decent rubber left for James. I need to check up on Rods times but think he drove very consistently at 1'14s. Nice driving Rod!

James was in charge of hour 5. We'd two old front tires left should we have needed them for the last driver which was me. James was very mindful of the tires also and lapped with average lap times of 1'15. Thank you for being so mature James! During James run, I noted that we were only 1 lap down from car 39 which was a white roadster. We were sitting in 10th willing James on to wind that lap back when the safety car went out at around 14:40 and the decision was made to fill up, bring James in and send me out. This made sense race tactics wise but perhaps not so much for James whos session was cut about 15 minutes short. Sorry James! I hope it was worth it to get 9th place!

Before I got in the car the guys put on the old front tire from the practice session on the front left and off I went just in front of car 39 who was trying to up the count to a 2 lap lead. I drove slow enough around during the 2 safety car laps much to the annoyance of the 2 cars behind me who kept flashing me. I suspect they wanted to pit again for more gas before the safety car would come around but I was in charge and they didn't have time to pit before the green flag came out and the race was back on as I missed third gear up the hill and let the cars get too close to me. The faster NB got up my inside on the chicane and I slowed to get a clean line around it when he also slowed in front of me thus letting car 39 through for a 2 lap lead! What just happened? Was that team tactics? I smiled to myself at the cleverness and chased conservatively for the next 3 laps. Having a 75 minute session left and worrying about excessive tire wear, I wasn't going to push the tires just yet. I'd save them for when I needed them.

Car 39 pitted about 4 laps into my session and I looked at the petrol gauge only to see that I'd just around 7/8 of a tank and about 70 minutes to go... Hmmm. From that point on, I decided to be intelligent about fuel also so as to avoid having to pit in and lose laps to car 39. About 40 minutes to go I passed car 39 on the uphill section and new that we were safely either ahead on the same lap or 1 lap ahead. All I had to do was keep the tires, keep the fuel and stay on the track and we'd keep our new 9th place. The orange light came on with about 10 minutes to go and I started changing up even more actively and not using all the throttle on the downhill sections. It became a race for survival.

Coming over the finish line, I was blissfully happy and shoved my arm out the window as if we'd won. What a race... There is something about an endurance race, the complete team effort, the awe at the car making it so far that draws you in wanting more. It turns out I didn't really have to worry about tires either as they were pristine like I wanted them as I had to drive back to Tokyo on them :-)

In hindsight, it would have been worth swapping data cards in the TraqMate to check the first sessions video while Sumi-san was running to see if we could identify if tire wear was down to the driver or the car. I've since reviewed some of Dan's footage and am pretty sure that he destroyed the tires in the first 20 minutes or so of his session. The remaining 40 minutes he actually drove really well as he found his lines and braking points. Nice driving in the last part of your session Dan!

In my opinion we are killing tires primarily in two places.
a) downhill braking and turn in area followed by under-steering the exit.
b) exit of the last corner
Here a) is the primary killer.

Thinking about this further, I think we need:
a) pre-race driver education on how to drive our car and what not to do.
b) more camber on the front - we need to use more of the tire under load. this will help get more speed uphill also on the exit of the last corner as well have more tire patch in contact.
c) more setup testing to better understand what we have and how to change it.
d) different tires which are less prone to break up under a little abuse. The RE11s for example have a much wider outside thread like an s-tire and might be worth trying. Other Sports-radial suggestions welcome.
e) improving downhill braking. A lot of problems seem to stem from braking issues down hill. RE11s also brake quite well in my opinion. Maybe worth trying a stronger pad on the rear (as it doesn't need to be an endurance pad on the rear). Another thing which will help that is reducing weight which has already been mentioned.

I would tend to shy away from harder springs right now and leave the suspension as it is. I think we have a lot more we can improve on before we need to go firmer. Camber might be just what we need to go even faster.

Hmmm. That is rather a long post without any photos but I'm sure my team mates will forgive me. Again - thanks to all for a great day and some great racing. Thanks especially to all who worked on the car preparation!

Scarborough Fair. Whitby Poor.

I'm growing more frustrated by the day as the flat spell continues. There was a calf-high wave dribbling into Scarborough this morning like a pensioner on a day trip. Even that was almost tempting. If it wasn't grey, wet and cold, I might have gone in anyway, just to remind myself what wet feels like. (I know what grey and cold feel like. My van).I've even had to change the screensaver on my computer. For several weeks it was one of the photos of Thurso East (here), But it was too depressing seeing it on my screen, so I've replaced it with one of Tynemouth (here). It's still depressing, given current pond-flat conditions. But at least, if the waves pick up, it's still only an hour up the road, unlike Thurso which, at the speed my van travels, is about 15 hours.

Thankyou to all of you who used the blog to send me birthday wishes. So that's you, Nu. It's nice to know I have one friend out there.

My extremely industrious sisters worked out that what I most needed for my birthday was a bath (probably why I've only got one friend out there.) So they very generously booked me into a charming self-catering chapel. Fortunately while the vicar wasn't looking, someone's transformed it into a comfortable holiday cottage, though they've kept an altar-like island kitchen unit, in case the congregation return. It was fantastic! Running water, a proper bed, TV, microwave. All the mod cons you're unlikely to find in a van (and I certainly haven't found in mine). Karen came up and we cooked another pheasant. Not road-kill, this time. Gun-kill, presumably, judging by the lead shot. Either way, it came ready-plucked from the butcher at Proudfoot (like Tesco, only nice).The smaller one keeping it company is a partridge, in case the pheasant wasn't enough. It was, so I've been eating cold game since Saturday. There are worse things to have in your fridge.

We went to Whitby, home of the Synod, Dracula and Captain Cook. It's probably lovely when the sun shines. The sun didn't shine and it wasn't.In a town with the highest proportion of fish and chip shops per capita in the UK (a statistic I have conveniently invented for literary effect), we managed to stumble on the absolute worst. Even the seagulls stopped flocking round when they saw where we'd been. Whitby, home to the pickiest scavangers in the UK.
So now I'm kicking my heels in a grey, wet Yorkshire, waiting for the waves to pick up. End of the week, possibly. If not, I'm selling the van and buying a one-way ticket to Hawaii. There's only so much flat water a surfer can stare at before he/she goes mad.