Windsurfing Equipment

Windsurfing kit has come a long way since the board I first tried my hand on twenty years ago. I don't know what they fed sailboards on back then but those beasties were big, heavy and mean. I remember spending pretty much an entire day falling off into the water and clumsily climbing back out again. Just to break up the routine a little I would occasionally indulge in brief, clammy, full-contact bouts with the sail before going in off the other side. Should anyone ever want to recreate the lost pleasures of learning old-style windsurfing they could get a reasonable approximation by grappling with a wet sheet while balancing on an ironing board. If they ever invent a sport that involves wrestling the entire contents of a Kowloon laundry I will be uniquely well-qualified to take on all comers.

These days modern composite materials, plus the use of bracing in the sail itself, has resulted in light, taut, much easier to handle rigs and with it a much more enjoyable learning curve for the beginner and a world of possibilities for the master.

Modern boards essentially come in two different types. Long boards tend to be aimed at beginners with a lot of stability and buoyancy to help balance. Typically they will also have a dagger board - a centreline rudder that slots through the board and enables you to sail much closer to the wind. Sails come in different sizes too and the smaller the sail the easier it is to handle, so make sure you start out with the biggest board teamed up with the smallest sail available.

Short boards are better suited for choppier water and greater wind strength. Their characteristics have been pushed to the point where the highest performance boards now are only just neutrally buoyant, meaning that they require 'planing winds' (force 3 or 4 and above) in order to sail and rise above the water's surface. Typically a short board will not have a dagger board - which makes them much more manoeuvrable, but also harder to master. They will also have foot straps which, in conjunction with a harness, allow the better sailors to control boards even in quite extreme moves. Short boards essentially come in three types, defined by the three main disciplines of performance sailing.

Slalom boards are the commonest boards and the chances are that those are what those cool-looking individuals are using as they carve curves into the waves when gybing (turning through the wind with the wind behind them).
Free ride boards are the stunt boards - sort of a mutant hybrid between sailing and skateboarding that has yacht club commodores reaching for their pink gins. Freestyle windsurfing includes spins, pirouettes and skateboard moves and since it doesn't require any particular form of wave it is often practised on inland waters.
Wave boards: wave sailing is somewhere in between freestyle and surfing. The aim is to ride the face of big waves for as long as possible, just off the breaking point, before cutting up the wave face and jumping as high up into the air as possible. While they're up there wave sailors will usually while away the time with 360º degree turns, spins and anything else they can dream up.

No doubt about it, if you want to look the part then the beach start is where it's at. Start in knee-deep water with the nose of your board pointed straight out into the waves. Raise the rig and stand close to the board, slightly behind it rather than front on, looking across it. Remember that if you step up with one foot onto the tail of the board it will sink and the board will spin so balance that by lifting the rig forwards, extending the front arm while at the same time 'sheeting in' with the back. This should create a twisting force which helps counterbalance your body as you simultaneously step up onto the board, front foot near the mast base and resisting the lift of the nose by pushing the board flat.


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