I'd like to get into shortboard freestyle a bit more, but it seems to be so gear and weather dependent, and a bit risky if you're in your 40s, that I can't see how to do it. There's not enough good days for small gear as it is, and as others have said if the wind's good and you're at the coast why not hit the waves?

You can understand how it would be different in Europe, where guys go away for a 2 or 3 week vacation in a windsurfing spot and sail all day every day.

The injury thing can be a problem. It's easy to talk tough but they leave you with problems; I'm off work and off sailing yet again at the moment because of an ancient injury from the days when none of us knew how to loop safely. You can lose so much sailing from one crash it's not always worth it. I'd be INCREDIBLY pissed off if I lost a season on the One Design because of a shortboard freestyle injury.

Surgery would be nice; mine's chronic and caused by the fact that they couldn't put my face back together properly the first time I went under the knife.

The rotator's my only other problem, but the great thing is that Laser training is just like a harder version of physio and it fixes it right up. I'm going to try to get a new boat on prescription soon.

A bit of oldschool or light wind freestyle is cool and anyone can do a lot of that stuff without risk of injury, except a bad back from uphauling too often if it's really light. But to take it to a high level, yeah, it must take a special kind of person...

Most of us get hooked on windsurfing because of planing, and then I guess riding waves brings the thrill of surfing into it...serious freestyle might not be worth it on a basis of the risk versus return factor...

I'll be happy when I can pull off my heli tacks, duck gybes and, heck, regular gybes more consistently, and maybe a few other things...it all helps improve your sailing, and as we all know, a good sailor is a happy sailor!!!

Freestyle has reached the point of ridiculously difficult, and for what? ...... a little momentary skip above, or slide across the water?

There are so many other options for young aussie kids to do with their free time that would be a hell of a lot more fun. I think it is the same reason aussies are pretty crap at soccer by world standards. There are just better ways to spend your time. Also, freestyle boards are expensive.

AUS1111 said...

Maybe we'll find the truth if we do a poll among we Aussie windsurfers.

Why don't you freestyle?

Vulcans, Spocks... I don't like that Star Trek ****.

Brien said...

Freestyle has reached the point of ridiculously difficult, and for what? ...... a little momentary skip above, or slide across the water?

Huh??? Freestyling, or just trying stuff and having fun, is not getting more difficult. And heli-tack (say) is no more difficult now than 10 years ago or in 10 years, bar a few equipment changes. You must mean that achieving the top level is getting more demanding, but we're talking about trying moves, sometimes succeeding, having fun.

And that is neither difficult nor more difficult than ever. In fact it is more fun than ever, as there are more possibilities due to the Internet. And more possibilities than 20 years ago: Bonaire-style, old-school for below 15-18 knots, the waltz-stuff for 15-20+ knots and the jumping waves stuff for those fortunate in waves.

The skip across water is not temporary: once you freestyle, the thrill gets in, you do it all day. Not freestyling or jumping (i.e. planing) is skipping across water all day, which is just as fine by the way, no prob here.

Are you telling me you can do these things and that you're bored? Really??

Brien said...
Expensive equipment.

Again, you must mean at the top level. But for the purpose of trying stuff, having fun, screwing around, then any 5yo gear will do. In fact, I prefer slightly older gear (3yo Exocet here) as damaging it is less heart-breaking. So again, not sure what you're talking about.

Brien said...
There are so many other options for young aussie kids to do with their free time that would be a hell of a lot more fun.

You mean about windsurfing? More fun such as what?? I've never seen someone succeeding at these things and getting bored.

Again, nothing wrong if someone doesn't wanna, just saying your arguments here... wow.

(If you mean windsurfing in general is boring, then you're in the wrong place.
If you personally do find windsurfing boring, then go kiting mate.)

evlPanda said...
But really, I've not even been sailing 2 years and I get more of a thrill out of landing a gybe than going fast... I think. Next step is Spocks and Vulcans.

Great that you're having fun, mate! Only comment would be: do not head into a specific move right away, however fun it may look on the Tube. Go on the Web, list many moves, concentrating on the easy ones, draw a short list. Try a few at a time, mix'em.

For instance, from the thrill of gybing, you can naturally work on duck gybes, tacking (various flavours), what they call heli-tacks, sailing front-to-back, that sort of stuff. What I'm saying is: it's not obvious that spocking should be very next after gybing.

Have fun!

Hey FlickySpinny,

I love the enthusiasm - stay strong!

but when it's horizontal, you would love it to last for ever

oops, i thought you said folk dancing