You can practice in the bay next to Manly harbour.

I would love to!!!!!! but i can't, mum has the car and is out shopping (so she will be about 4 hours... ) But i am planning to go sailing tomorrow.

Aussiex said...

On top of that i have a new board that i haven't even been able to have a good go on.

Mate, took me 7 months of waiting before I managed to get my new wave board down a decent wave.... And that was on the other side of Oz!!!! haha

Aussiex,
You dont have to wait until high tide at WP. Yes it is better but if you went down today on the jetti side you would of seen about 10 people out thereat low tide.
Just be carefull

Hey mate, I spent an hour today learning how to waterstart at Manly at mid then onto low tide. Its a great spot as both in close and out wider is shallow so you can touch the bottom. It makes it easier to try to waterstart. Today was my first real go at it and I was stoked to only use the uphaul once.

Hahaha lets not call it success, I was touching the bottom all the time. Success to me is when I can do it without needing to the touch the bottom. I'll tell you what, firstly Im no expert, just a beginner and maybe an expert on this site can comment, but although it sounds strange to me it was much easier to let the sail lift me out the water than uphaul a sail and have it flapping about in the breeze and trying to grab it. I think today I saved my legs and back a heap of work. Good luck tomorrow. Great morning tide for Manly tomorrow.

manly is a good spot, just be mindfull that you have to head out away from land ,
WP you sail along the shore and dont have to head out to deep water.

back in the day, i got this book [there wasn no internet, let alone youtube]

www.awesomebooks.com//fake-url/default.aspx?q1=book&q2=9780746001950&q3=the-usborne-book-of-windsurfing

it has alot of step by step pictures of alot of the basics. The water start section is very good, and even has tips for light wind starting.

G

Waterstaring is one of the few things you can practice on the beach, yes i know its not the same but if your desperate, lie on the beach put your foot on the mast base, let the wind lift you up.....................i appreciate theres no board movement etc but if your desperate it does work

Yeah swoosh suggested that, But i think the next time i go down i will get it. I've never been one for learning things the easy way :)

Water starting will make everything easier once you have everything else right. Until you are comfortable with the harness, the straps and blasting back and forth I would not stress about it too much. Uphauling is a part of the sport that you can't forget about even at an advanved stage. In wave sailing, in light conditions there may be a need to uphaul on a small board and in breaking waves, You need to be fast and spot on with your uphaul technique so make sure you take this oppourtunity to slow down a bit and nail a fast uphaul procedure.

......Don't get me wrong you still need to practice water starting any chance you get, As once nailed it will enable you to waste less energy as well as get out in stronger winds and rough conditions. There's a dvd out there called "The ABC's of water starting" try and get hold of it, After watching it once all it took was a few hours in the water and I was sorted. If you can't find a copy send me a PM and i'll lend you mine. I was at least a year into the sport before I was water starting and probably another few months before I was getting 100% of my starts, It will take time.

.....Just learn to fly the sail first, Once you have this sorted the worry about trying to get onto the board.

A few tips

1.Start in chest deep water, Fly you sail and move your board around you in a complete circle while you stay in the same spot. Do it clockwise and anti-clockwise, This will get you use to what the wind will do to the sail at different angles and prepare you for the rig flip when in deeper water.

2.Keep the sail as low to the water as you can untill your ready to power up, pull only on your front hand untill your ready to go as pulling with your backhand sheets the sail in and you will power up. If you feel the sail getting away from you, sheet out your back hand and give you front hand a quick sharp pull to depower the sail.

3.As others have said, Learn to body drag with the sail. Get the first 2 points sorted then just get dragged through the water and get use to putting the power on and off. You need to be able to get your self dragged in a straight line without rounding up into the wind or getting the rig pulled right out of your hands.

4.Once you get 1, 2 & 3 sorted then try and get on the board, Just remember when you pop up onto the board to give the sail a quick sheet out to dump the extra power. This will stop you getting pulled right over, It's very quick though....Power off/on other wise you might just fall back in.

There would be hundreds more but I think if you do these everything else will fall into place, Where we waste energy is in swimming the rig into position, trying to release a sunken clew or getting a sail loaded with water to release and fly. So down the track you need to think about how to quickly swim you kit into the right position, How to swim the kit free when sunk and how to even crash in the right position for a quick water start.

Anyways, Lots to still learn but from what I read your doing real well and will soon have it mastered, Keep at it

pardon this if this has already been mentioned - this is what works for me

once you get the sail out of the water;

if you put your rear foot in the rear strap while you are floating on your back, it gives you control of the board (stops it drifting about) and it will allow you to lever yourself up more effectively in extra light winds

while doing the above, point the front leg straight down and tread water with it to give you extra lift in light winds. This also helps prevent everything drifting so quickly down wind

in general;

be patient when swimming the equipment around into water starting position, let it drift around, otherwise you usually just over exert yourself for nothing

if the sail sinks itself deep into the water (mast pointing down), grab the boom head, lay on your back floating, and gently push your feet against one of the longer sail battens. be patient and it will usually slowly come back up - if it hasn't sunk to far, push the rear of the board under the sail to help lift it back up to the surface

try and learn to waterstart in the direction the sail has fallen, even if it's not the direction you want to go.

try to learn to waterstart clew first, then flip the sail once up (this will come later, and useful in the waves, especially on the gold coast / sunshine coast where u often don't have much time to mess about with waterstarting)

Thanks for the advice mate.