Windsurfing: Yea, It's as cool as it sounds

[milliondollaz]

Here's what I'm thinking. How about a general discussion of windsurfing?

The goal is to learn more about windsurfing, and more importantly, to get more people to try it out. It's extremely fun, and easier to get started that most people think.

Please share your windsurfing stories, windsurfing advice, or ask/answer windsurfing questions.

[milliondollaz]

Here's my story. I just started windsurfing last month. I still suck at it, but it is fun as hell.

How I got started: My roommate has a lot of random stories, and one that stood out is that he spent a summer in Hawaii working for a windsurfing rental company, basically working for them, and in his spare time, windsurfing. I have seen pictures of this stuff before, and it sounded cool, but I never really knew what it was about. He told me that they offered lessons locally, and based on how cool the name sounded, I signed up.

I live in Mountain View, CA, which is 5 minutes away from Shoreline Lake. I took a two day lesson, from 9-1pm on Saturday and Sunday for $185. If you live in the bay area, this is worth the money and the time. Shoreline lake is a man-made lake, and the only real purpose is to learn how to sail and windsurf. The water is warm, there are no big waves, and they rent everything from beginner to advanced equipment, all at reasonable rates. Add it to the list of awesome things about the bay area.

http://www.shorelinelake.com/aquatic/aquatic.htm

Fun for all skill levels: The great thing about windsurfing is that it is really fun, no matter how good you are. Windsurfing as an amature is totally different that windsurfing as an expert, but they are both kick-ass.

How a beginner windsurfs: The basic set-up is a board that looks like a surf board, with a sail attached to the middle. The mast (that has the sail attached to it) is attached with a joint that basically allows for complete rotation and movement through the entire half a hemisphere that is in the air, if you imagine the middle of the board as the center of a globe with a radius of the mast length. For a beginner board, like I use, the board is pretty big. Big enough that you can climb onto it while it is floating in the water, and stand up on it pretty easily. You get started by climbing onto the board and lifting the sail up out of the water with an attached rope. When you actually move, you move perpendicular to the wind, which might counter-intuitive to most people. You don't just go directly down-wind, you move back and forth, at a 90 degree angle to the direction of the wind. If you have any sailing experience, this sounds like kindergarten, but it's worth bringing up.

So you lift the mast and attached sail out of the water, and turn your board perpendicular to the wind, so the wind is at your back. Check the diagram. [Sorry it sucks, I was drinking double greay goose and sodas tonight, and the bartender hooked me up. I'm hammered.]



The sail is facing downwind, so it is basically acting like a flag, and not exerting any force. You start going by grabbing onto the handle that is connected to the sail, and twisting it back towards the back of the board, rotating the sail so that the wind hits it. This basically squirts you forward, perpendicular to the wind, and the farther you pull the sail back, the faster you go. There is a center board sticking down from the board, kind of like a keel in a sail boat.



Remember that you completely control the mast, forward, backward, side to side, everything. So if you want to turn upwind, or up toward where you back is facing, you lean the top of the mast backwards toward the back of the board. I can get into the physics later if anyone is interested, but trust me, this makes you turn upwind. The opposite is true, if you lean the sail forward, you turn down wind. That's how you steer! So you twist he sail back to go fast, and position it forward and backwards to go left or right, then turn around and go back the other way. Simple as pie!

How an expert windsurfs: A board that goes fast is small, with as little drag as possible, so an expert board is not buoyant enough to support the weight of it's rider. So instead of climbing onto the board, and lifting the sail out of the water, an expert will chill in the water, and pop the sail up into the wind, let the wind catch it, and pretty much let the wind lift him up out of the water, where he then lands on the board and in one slick motion plants his feet and gets the board moving. Since the board is moving and skimming on top of the water, he doesn't sink. Going fast enough to basically skim on top of the water is called "plaining" not sure if i'm spelling that right. But instead of holding onto the handle on the sail with his hands, the expert has a harness around his waist and basically ties himself to the sail, so that he can keep the sail twisted back (so he can go fast) without having to even grab onto the handle. He also doesn't have a center board (cause it creates drag that slows him down) and steers by a completely different method. He goes fast enough to actually carve through the water like a snow-board, and uses his feet to move the board around and steer using the rear fin and the actual side of the board.

As you get better, the displacement of your board goes down, and the size of your sail goes up. For reference, the sail is measured in square meters. The smallest ones are about 3.5 square meters, and the pro's use like a 12 square meter. I'm a humble 4.5 square meter guy. There are endless combinations of sails and boards, so it's best to rent for a while until you figure out what you want. Plus, as you get better, you will want to use better and better equipment, so if you buy something, you will either outgrow it, or start off with something that is way out of your skill level.

You should definitely look up windsurfing in your area, and give it a shot. If my roommate wasn't already a windsurfer, I probably would have never gone, and that really sucks. So I'm trying to convince you guys to try it out, cause it's not that hard, and it's really fun.

[GTL]

for someone who is drunk, you described the physics of windsurfing very well. i have a small amount of sailing experience and i have always wondered how windsurfers control the sail and board. now I know. definately want to try it out.

[TheWorstPlayer]

I went for a few years every summer in Martha's Vineyard. Very awesome sport. Strongly encourage even non-athletic people to give it a go. As long as you have reasonable balance, you should be able to stay up with a little practice. So if you're not that adventurous, you can just go back and forth and treat it like a one-man sailboat. If you are more adventurous, you can really go fast and do tricks and stuff which is all very fun.

Amusing anecdote, in my first lesson my instructor broke his board trying to do a 'rail ride' where he turns the board on it's side (so flat side of board which is normally flat on top of the water is now perpendicular to the water and you are riding on the small edge of the board). Apparently he got his pay docked, but didn't really care cause he was just there to have a good time. Very cool dude.

[NoahSD]

How often do you fall off when you're just starting out?

[milliondollaz]

How often do you fall off when you're just starting out?

A good bit. As you are rotating the sail back to increase your speed, if you are not leaning back into the wind at the exact right angle to balance against the force the wind is exerting on the sail trying to blow it over, you will fall. So there is a lot of balance and constant re-calibration involved. gusts are very tricky too. So if you only twist the sail back a little bit, the gusts effect you less, so you will stay up longer, but you won't go as fast.

The first two days, I fell all the time. The third time I went, I sailed back and forth probably 3-4 times before I tried to get tricky, and lean way back to go real fast, and fell in.

The worst part about falling in is definitely having to haul the sail up out of the water with a rope. That gets old after a while.

[MusashiStyle]

Ummm... "strongly urge non-athletic people to try".

this is not a good idea. believe me, I took a trip to the DR strictly to windsurf, and I could not even get on the boat despite being in reasonable shape after 2 weeks practice. though the winds on the north coast are probably crazier than anything inthe us, you need to have pretty persistent mindset to try to learn this or else be in fantastic shape.

[milliondollaz]

Ummm... "strongly urge non-athletic people to try".

this is not a good idea. believe me, I took a trip to the DR strictly to windsurf, and I could not even get on the boat despite being in reasonable shape after 2 weeks practice. though the winds on the north coast are probably crazier than anything inthe us, you need to have pretty persistent mindset to try to learn this or else be in fantastic shape.

I think a good analogy for this is trying to learn to ski on a bunny slope, or a black diamond. Shoreline Lake, where I learned, has pretty mellow winds, and no real waves. Bunny slope. Open ocean is pretty much a black diamond, and I can see a beginning skier trying to learn on a black diamond getting hurt, or not really learning what it's like to ski.

I know nothing about DR, but if it was open ocean, and very windy, I would probably not even be able to stand up, much less go anywhere. However, I am able to sail around anywhere I want on Shoreline Lake, and it's still fun for me.

So if you are "non-athletic" or just a beginner in general, I think you should try to learn and get the fundamentals down on a bunny slope, before you step foot on a black diamond.

[unbluffable]

here is a funny story

I live in the Dominican and I was just chilling at the pool with a friend of mine. The pool is rightr next to the beach. I see an old dude waving his hands at me, obviously needing help. I come out, and he's kite surfing and he needs me to help him launch. I oblinge. We get to talking and I tell him that my dad is windsurfing right now. He says that he's a 2 time world champion on windsurfing, wrote a book and invented a bunch of moves.

Funny stuff

[boomshakalaka]

I windsurfed once at summer camp. It was tons of fun but I honestly prefer sailing and surfing on thier own.