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Windsurfing
Getting started
The first thing you must practice is safety.
- When participating in
any water activity follow all the rules.
- Be certain that you
are a strong swimmer.
- Keep yourself
physically fit - windsurfing can be strenuous.
- Know the region and
familiarize yourself with obstacles and tides. See article "Hero
on the beach"
- Always let someone
know where you are going, or better yet take them with you to watch from
shore.
- Take some lessons and
go out with some one who can critique your form.
- If you come off your
board, the sail will topple and you can swim to your board. Rest if
necessary but not so long as to alarm those on shore unless you find it
necessary.
- If your board and
sail become separated, very unusual, stay with your board. It will provide
floatation and you can use it to paddle in or paddle to your sail. Trying
to drag you sail back to your board will tire you out.
- Wear a wetsuit,
drysuit or sunscreen which ever is appropriate for the weather or
water temperature.
- Wear foot gear (
booties) if you entry or exit point are rocky.
- If you get in trouble,
sit on your board, raise your arms above your head and then down to
your sides. This signal is the International Distress Signal and can be
used for any emergency on the water.
Methods:
- Learn to read the
wind. If you look at it as points on the face of a clock 12 O'clock would
be the direction the wind is coming from. You can use the wind anywhere
between the 2:00 and 10:00 position. In order to go toward the wind you
will need to "tack" back and forth between the 2:00 and the
10:00. Learning to determine the winds direction is best done by
watching the wave action offshore and correlating this with a known wind
direction. You will soon know the winds direction just by looking at the
action on water, and the way your sail is behaving.
- Understand how your
sail works. It is not so much like a parachute filling with air from
behind (although this method will move you however quite slowly) as it to
create a suction. This occurs because the air passing around the outside
of the sail is stretched because it has to travel a longer distance (because of the bulge) than does the air on the inside, to pass the sail.
This creates an area of low pressure there by sucking the sail forward .
See diagram:
- With your sail flat in the water you need
to point it so the tip of the mast is pointing into the wind, this will
help raise it. Next get
around to the front of the board and pull up on the mast.
- Now still holding the mast upright, rotate the board face the 9:00 or
3:00 position depending on which side you will be mounting (the wind will
likely help swing it around). You may find you are more proficient on one
side or the other just as left or right handed play sports. Most right
handed people prefer to mount from the left side looking forward.
- Along side it, lean in toward the mast while
sticking your forward leg out behind you in the water. Raise yourself by pulling straight
down on the boom near the mast and not backwards, while you slide up with your forward
leg still in the water.
- Place you aft leg onboard and into the
strap and raise up into position pulling straight down on the boom while keeping the sail full to compensate
for the imbalance.
- Begin to lean out as you raise or you will
go face over and have to start again.
This has been beginning instructions, once you are up and running you
will you will learn how shifting your weight and tensioning your legs will
help to fill the sail and steer.
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