So, I drove past a garage sale the other day, and haggled with the proprietor for a sailboard/sail for $35. Everything is in used but working shape, the sail, mast and boom all look pretty good, the board is 12' long and about 3" thick. This thing is huge compared to the surf and skim boards I am used to. The board has some dings, but it is from sitting around in the garage. I don't think the setup has been used much.

Last night I decided to try it out. I watched a couple of Youtube videos and went to the local fishing pond to try it.

I started at the downwind end of the lake, and that is where I stayed. Sailing is hard! I have some questions, if any of you are windsurfers.

1) What size rear fin should I have? I have the big middle fin, but I cobbled together the rear fin with a table and jig saw right before I took off last night. It was only about 6" long. I spun around a lot trying to get going. Do you think it was the fin?

2) How hard should I have to hang on to the boom in light winds? Whenever I stood the mast up right and got the board pointing in the right direction it felt like it was going to throw me over forwards.

3) How far back on the board should I be when I am sailing? On the Youtube most of the riders are way back on tail.

Overall, I thought it was fun, I will definitely be back again. I always get hooked on boardsports, that allow for a lot of progression, and I definitely have a long way to go. I really entertained the people walking around the lake. I already came up with a new move. Trying to sail one direction and went 50' backwards, pretty quickly. I call it: Sailing Fakie.

Long time ago I bought an advanced board at a garage sale. I was self taught with the help of a book found at the library. Can't answer any questions, except it took me many times out before I "got going" in the minimum 10 mph wind needed for this board. Once you get the hang of it, it's a fricken trip. A lesson would be well worth the money if you could find one.

My board went to the dump about 5 years ago and the mast is now used to hold the tarp over my boat. Still got the 5.4 sail stashed in shed for some stupid reason.

This board is definitely not advanced. I can stand on it and it floats all 215# of me pretty easily. I don't feel much tippiness at all. It is the sailing that has me perplexed.

Board is perpendicular to the wind. The wind is hitting your back and sail is in the water downwind. Stradle the mast with foot on each side. Pull mast up with rope and grab boom with left hand near the mast. Drop rope. Wind will not affect sail yet as wind will be going through on each side. Now grab the boom with your right hand about 3 feet away from your left and slowly pull back with your right. This is when the wind will hit the sail and you will start to move. (here is where you need to figure how much to lean the mast into the wind. Depends on wind speed) You will need to adjust your feet toward the back during this last move and you will "get going".

Reverse hand holds to get back to the beach you launched. Simple!


I wished I had a begginer board when I started.

Yah thanks for the tips, I spent some time this morning looking at Youtube and realized that a lot of my problem is that I did not have the mast vertical enough, causing me to spin. The reason is that I did not move back along the centerline, to allow the mast to be vertical. I'll report back after I try a little more. Which may not be for a month, since I am so dang busy.

I've seen people using the big windsurf boards as stand up paddle boards. Put a pole holder on the board and you're ready to troll.

there is more to it that just getting the mast more vertical you actuallly want to bring the whole rig in front of your body and the mast itself will be slightly past vertical...

Basically the center of effort of the sail needs to be over the board and not over the water

That makes good sense.

I also think I may have been taking too much of a slice out of the wind. I was at the end of a long lake trying to sail upwind, and I was trying to sail at way more than 3 and 9 o clock, I should have tried a much less aggressive direction. Like just barely past 3 and 9.

All this posting is making me itch to go try again, I think I have some new ideas.

If you can find it, there is a great video called windsurfing 101. One thing I remember from the video that helped me a lot was to think of the front hand as the balance and the back hand as the gas. and be sure and bend your knees to control the balance as well. get some rod holders, fish finder and a little downrigger on that thing and you are stoked!

brewer suggests you take a drive to gorge. find one of the many beefy dyky looking chicks. ask for help. she'll bitch slap your ass on that board getcha rocken....

I'm going to stay away from the Gorge until I can ride a little better. Besides the fish attack you there.

wow the sturgeon taking out the surfer was awesome.

Went a couple more times for evening sessions this weekend. I am getting better! I learned one thing for sure and that is my practice lake is too narrow. If I get the board up and running one trip (reach?) across takes about 5 seconds. I barely get the "yee" out of my "yeeeoohh!" before I am crashing into the next bank.

Still spent 75% of my time struggling. I think the sails I have are too big for my skill set and the afternoon marine winds.

The winds were strong in the evenings 10-15 mph and when I did have it going I had to lean back hard and that big old board was really moving. Quite a rush.

I saw you heading to the lake this weekend. I drove in there about an hour or two later to see if you were still there. It was really blowing on Sat. evening. Let me know next time you give it a try, I would like to see that.

Sat evening was a little too windy for my skills, my average session is about an hour.