HURRICANE LEE

Towards the end of 2023 the remnants of Hurricane Lee hit England's south coast, setting the stage for an epic south coast session as Nik Baker, Lucas Meldrum, and Sarah Jackson took on nature's fury. John Carter was on hand to capture the action at Shoreham, but as always with JC, things didn't go quite to plan!

- John Carter, Nik Baker, Lucas Meldrum & Sarah Jackson

STORM BREWING

After being away for two weeks at photo shoots in early September, 1 had four days at home before my next assignment for the PWA in Sylt. I had managed to completely miss the Indian summer and arrived back at home bang on cue with a monster storm, the remnants of Hurricane Lee, which was set to hit on the 19th of September. My first thought was to stay at home and avoid any possible travel chaos that is usually associated with such wild weather but then after a message from Sarah Jackson, saying she was assembling her Duotone troops to face up to the wind and waves at 'Shorekipa', I felt drawn to head down to document the occasion. After all, I am never particularly happy when I miss shooting epic windsurfing in the UK and then seeing all the pictures and videos afterwards, FOMO they call it.

CHAIN OF CONSEQUENCE

Looking at the tides it seemed the prime conditions were going to be late in the day so, I decided to head east bound in the early afternoon, which would still give the guys and gal, plenty of time score two wave sessions at Worthing and then Shoreham on the dropping tide. The wind was forecast perfect west southwest gusting over 40 knots for most of the day. With that strength wind waves should not be a problem. I carefully studied all the timetables to make sure I would have a smooth passage of travel and in my estimation, I reckoned I could be from my front door to Worthing in around 2.5 hours.

If you don't know about some of my previous missions along the south coast, I have a very particular set of travel skills which I have acquired over a long career. Skills which have made such journeys nightmare for myself and all involved. I specialize in missing ferries, losing keys, travel chaos and generally having a miserable time! Sure enough this trip did not disappoint.