Have heard some people say it does take much for them to get going in light winds on freestyle gear.
Are you one of these people?
What gear?
Cheers 
Yep, 101L Flare, 5.6m S-1, 20cm fin, and about 75kg.
But its not a gear race, I think it's all in the technique and it's about your sailing mentality. In the 10-15kt days which we seem to get a lot of at times a lot of sailors sit on shore umming and ahhing about whether to get in or not. But I usually just rig up and even if its closer to 10kts, then my kit is super light so I can float around and do some light wind tricks to entertain myself, but as soon as a gust appears, I can get planing and attempt some proper freestyle.
And you work on your early planing technique, mine still sucks, some midgets like CJW seem to get their banana rockered wave boards planing earlier than my freestyle kit, WTF!!! Even heavy dudes like Vando, when I see him on wave gear very occasionally seems to plane in barely any wind. I think the better sailors get more wind range out of their gear purely because they seem to be able to get planing in 1-2kts less wind than us average folk. But it's all good fun, and I'd rather be sailing then standing on shore!
You can get planing pretty much just as early on similar sized freeride stuff, and maybe slalom stuff too, thou from what I can tell pumping cambered sails effectively is a tricky skill to master, and sailing them underpowered seems a bit pointless.
Thanks.
I do like sailing on small gear, and keen to try a mates setup which is similar to yours.
I think you can improve sailing skills in light wind, so keen to get out, flip the rig about, practice tacks, helitacks etc... than be standing around waiting for 20 knots....
Considering a plan to drop a few kgs too :D
Using a wind meter (I'm not sure its 100% accurate), I'm surprised how windy 10 to 15 knots really is. What I used to think was 15 to 20 knots is about 10 or so and what I thought was about 30 is about 20.
I think it also depends on how consistent the wind is. If the wind is reasonably consistent in strength, ie doesn't drop to 2 knots every 30 seconds, then you can get away with smaller gear.
Some winds seem to have more oomph behind them too, or seem more solid. While other wind might be strong at times but don't give the overall feeling of power on tap.
Yeah it's not the freestyle gear that gets going early. It's skilled sailing. Those skills are developed by sailing under finned and underpowered. Wave or freestyle it's the same technique, and it's very easy to learn. You just have to put up with walking back upwind for a while.
I've had people sail my setup, and often they come back claiming it's impossible to sail, as if us freestylers are using some kind of Magic!
I haven't spent enough time learning to pump properly and couldn't get one of these boards going in this light of a wind. You can put a lot of effort in, but the technique has to be perfect or you just waste a lot of energy.
Here's another vid of Steven pumping onto a plane and between those two videos, you can get some idea of how to do it.
I'm sure its a lot of work - But I think its time well spent if that style of windsurfing compliments small board sailing. Might as well keep trying to learn new things, going out, turning around, coming back, turning around can only be fun for so long....... gotta try new things
