No talk of Elliott Hds on the speed scene. It's a well-known spot for slalom, and has a great speed bank as well as tons of wind on SE's, but no-one seems to be interested in it for speed.
THe river has a lot of sand intrusion and it's less than an NM for sure, but for 2-10 sec peaks as well as enduros, it has a lot of potential. It has an open fetch to the SE trades and a long sand-bank in front of the speed bank, so the wind really picks up speed.
No stingers, warm, and not remote.
I will be taking a GPS there this season for sure, as soon as a SE forecast comes in.
i'm sure that they do have some sort of comp there during the year, i've checked it out as well and it looks good.
it used to be one of the stops on the windsurfing qld race calender. a long time ago.
every easter we would hit elliot heads for slalom races with camping. was a lot of fun.
it's more bump and jump these days as the runs are short. however JC did some crazy speed up there on a super wide slalom board about a year ago so it has some speed in it.
personally i think burrums better for speed. longer runs, better wind and closer to brisbane.
elliots more fun for bump and jump/wave though.
Yeah, the run is short, but I'm not sure that the wind is better at Burrum.
EH is much more open to the SE trades than Burrum.
Who is JC ? (Apart from the obvious guy with a rep for walking on water)
What speed did he do ?
It used to be the venue for a couple of big events, butt that all died during the 90's as racing really faded.
yeah the big events were fun. jc is a brisbne guy.
yeah, elliot has a longer fetch in the ocean but you are in the river for speed so the wind lifts more due to the land.
burrum is out in the middle of nowhere with nothing upwind or downwind to disturb the flow.
Sure, but if you look at a map, Burrum is tucked way in behind Fraser, blocked by Pt Vernon.
EH is further north, and while still behind Fraser Is, the island curves away heaps opening up and letting the wind build up speed again.
It's much more open to a southerly too.
Not trying to be argumentative. I guess I am biased to EH due to the number of times I've sailed a 4.0 there.
Burrum is certainly longer, no doubt about that.
Run is a lot shorter than burrum this video was a few years ago speeds around 36
Jc is John Critchley President of Windsurfing Queensland
That was a pretty low tide. With a bit more water, it's still dead flat, but you can go a lot further down.
That vid does show that it gets pretty crowded with kites these days with not a lot of room, but if you hang around until late afternoon, they all go home and the wind kicks in an extra 5 kts. The strongest wind there is nearly always really late afternoon in summer. Get the tide right and you have it all to yourself in ballistic conditions.
Yup, and enduros. It's easy to plane for an hour non-stop there.
I was going to suggest, if there is an ideal forecast, if you fly up to Cooly or Brisbane, I can pick you up and drive up there.
Just need to bludge some of the right gear, but I'm sure we can manage that.
Couple of things on the boil at present to make that worthwhile for me.
Ordered my GPS case from Kato today, and will pick one up soon. Should have the rest of a speed rig by Xmas, though if I get teh sack from my job here, I might even make SP, so might need some stuff sooner.
I was there about 2 weeks ago there is more sand then water. Not sure when you saw it last but i don't think there would have been enough room to gybe at the end closest to the camera in that vid. Its sanded up a lot from when that vid was taken.
I was there in March. Yet, lots of sand intrusion.
Always seems to be low tide with no water in winter too, for some weird reason.
2 weeks ago would have been new moon spring tides so low tide would have been very low, down to inches deep, even in the main channel.
The video bund107 was taken easter 2007 , and I agree has silted up heaps since then , i reckon it has something to do with sand bags on ther far side !!!! as in image below from google earth
^^
I have to disagree with that. The guy was allowed to place that groyne becasue of the loss of land that had occurred over the years.
When I strated sailing there in 1994, there was still a large point over there. IT has slowly disintegrated. The sandbags have only been there for a few years.
Originally, there was a spit covered in trees connecting teh south side to the island.
An old guy built a fishing shack ont eh far side, and then cut down trees so he could drag his boat through rather tha paddle around, starting erosion and teh eventual destruction of the spit leaving it a small island.
IN 1970 when my family moved there, tehre was still a swimming hole and a diving baord where the toilet block now stands.
It was all mudflats and mangroves in the river.
There is now some impressive sandbanks out teh front which makes for great waves, gybing and jumping too.
I've seen constant change since I started gong there in 1994.
The number of trees that has washed off the dunes at Coonar is staggering.
There used to be a distinct point you had to get aournd to sail along Coonar and we had to dodge the old sh1t pipe from teh old shack, but that's long gone now.
Big cyclonic swells have just accelerated the dune degradation. I think there was a big blow a couple of years ago that did a lot of damage to Coonar, which may account for the acceleration you have noted. There had been a big sand build-up near the dunny block which was just washed away then. It was teh same clonic that chaged Currumbin so much I think. When I moved down here 4 years ago, the sand came right up the groyne there, and now it's a ten foot drop and has been since that swell.
The sandbag thing has created that new channel on the south side which was not really there before. The tidal run out through there is fierce now.
Yes they where big tides at the time I was there. There was no wind anyway but i wouldn't have sailed the low tide, fins cost to much. Personly I prefer Burrum but I never got to sail EH, just stood on the bank waiting for wind.
Yes, I favour short fins, thruster/freestyle etc for that reason. Lots of sandbars everywhere in many sailing spots.
