Weather- and storm warnings couldn’t stop Julien and Titouan Flechet braving extratropical cyclone Darragh in the region of Audierne, Finistère. The wind was gusting at 140–150 km/h during the strongest moments on December 7. It was a super wild day with a lot of rain, clouds, which made the wind super unstable – ranging from 10 to 50 knots – and air temperatures around 5 degrees only.
Windguru was showing full dark purple—around 50 knots all day on the first line—and it was only because of the north wind. The spot is on the rocks in Audierne. I’ve already sailed there with my father and brother a few times in super light conditions with good waves at high tide. At this tide, it’s really close to the rocks, but the wave is really clean and already pretty hollow. Due to the strong wind the spot where we normally sailed was completely destroyed. I saw that wave upwind and so I gave it a try! The tide was much lower as usual, and the waves were really hollow and pretty sharp, but they were cleaner and safer than other reef spots. I was alone out there at the beginning. Two windsurfers joined me for 10 minutes, but quickly left, because they were scared of the rocks and couldn’t handle the overpowered conditions. I was fully powered up on a 3.7m sail and a 68l board. After two hours I stopped and my brother Titouan went out. The wind picked up a lot. He was on a 3.2m sail, fully overpowered, but managed to ride a couple of good waves! At the ” Pointe du Raz”, just upwind… . Julien Flechet about riding the storm Darragh in December 2024
