After two seasons I finally decided to get one lesson. Today I learned to beach start (water at my harness) in 2 hours!
This is just an advice to all the juniors like me, guys do your homework's, get a lesson and learn water starting before anything else, it makes your windsurf life much easier that you can't even imagine!

this is what I try to tell a lot of people, (especially young ones) but it's surprising how much resistance there is to this method.

OK for the risk of looking silly I'll bite. How do you get on when you can beach start but haven't yet learned to water start???? Wouldn't it be better just to learn to up-haul first and then progress from there?

Was struggling with my carve gybes, had one 1hr lesson and made all the difference! Good to have someone to watch you and tell you whats going wrong and tell you what to practice.

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Pel said...

Was struggling with my carve gybes, had one 1hr lesson and made all the difference! Good to have someone to watch you and tell you whats going wrong and tell you what to practice.

If you can't get a lesson a video of you gybing + a reference video like Guy Cribb helps..I got videod on Tues and can see what I'm doing wrong/what now needs improvement.
grr I'm going bonkers watching that b jumping elephant...

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Iceman said...

OK for the risk of looking silly I'll bite. How do you get on when you can beach start but haven't yet learned to water start???? Wouldn't it be better just to learn to up-haul first and then progress from there?

If you haven't got sufficient shallow water, you learn to waterstart first of course, and preferably on the coming in direction!

I start teaching it on the beach, learn to hang off the sail first (in both directions).
Then lie alongside board and get the sail to pull you up.
That teaches rudimentary sail control fairly quick.

Next step is how to control rig and board in the water, using the wind to do the work.
Then it's body drag time, learn to use the rig and foot pressure on the board to maintain a 90deg attitude to the wind.
Again on both tacks!!!

When there's good competency in that, waterstarting can be attempted. I prefer to start in light to medium winds, so that the sail isn't too powered up.
Just concentrate on not pushing with the feet or pulling too early with the hands, and maintaining the 90deg orientation. Getting the sail as high as possible and pulling the tail under your bum.
If your young fit and keen and there's enough wind, doesn't take long at all.
But it's certainly not easy without instruction, none of this stuff is intuitive, the body instinctively wants to do it all wrong!

Decrepit, you obviously know what you are doing. What I'm on about is this. At Wellington Point (near the jetty) one day I was watching what was obviously a beginner trying to beach start. Fair enough but he was on a small board probably 90 or less litres and luckily he didn't succeed. At that beach once you get out a bit it is all deep water and with that size board he would of really struggled to even up-haul to get back in. I just think that if you are going to learn by your method, make sure the water is shallow for a fair distance and I would recommend at least have a board that you can up-haul if you have to.

That's a great point. There's nothing worse then floating helplessly out to sea.

Up hauling seems to consume a lot of energy in the early stages that could be better spent on on more important things.

yer up hauling is a pain but it does teach you to balance and the basics of using the sail.

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Aussiex said...

That's a great point. There's nothing worse then floating helplessly out to sea.

Drowning is worse

i don't know..... drifting out to sea thinking about sharks. Then drowning or starving to death.

sorry we got a bit off topic

I think there has been a little of misunderstand about my post. Of course you need to know how to tack and jibe (basic) and you must absolutely know how to up haul your rig.
What I meant was that almost after 2 seasons I figure it out how to water start and I personally believe I should do it a long time ago as it makes my like much easier and I can keep energy to stay longer in the water.
I would never suggest to any junior to learn water start before tack and up haul. It would be a suicide in depth water

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raffaeu said...

I think there has been a little of misunderstand about my post. Of course you need to know how to tack and jibe (basic) and you must absolutely know how to up haul your rig.
What I meant was that almost after 2 seasons I figure it out how to water start and I personally believe I should do it a long time ago as it makes my like much easier and I can keep energy to stay longer in the water.
I would never suggest to any junior to learn water start before tack and up haul. It would be a suicide in depth water

I had to learn to waterstart my Mistral Maui longboard in my 2nd season as the 6m rig was too heavy for me to uphaul without doing my back in.I never went back to uphauling if I could help it.

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raffaeu said...

<<<< you must absolutely know how to up haul your rig.
>>>>>>

Hmmmm, well the guys I've taught to water start first, went straight to boards too small to uphaul and tack, until they got very very good at windsurfing.
And I'd only recommend this way when that's the case.
People here don't use uphauls in the waves, just one more thing to get in the way.
If the wind drops out so there's not enough to water start it's going to be a swim in no matter what.
Just don't go out too far when it's light!

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decrepit said...
Just don't go out too far when it's light!

Uh, technically you can't get too far when it's light, prob. you meant make sure it won't get too light if you get far.

Sorry for the bad pun, too much eggnog here and couldn't resist...