I was out in BB last weekend, coming back form Towra to wards brighton.
I found a sailboarder trying to swim his crippled craft up wind.
He had a high performace race board with a fin that looked a meter long.
I told him to jump on and I will tow him in. No go. I told him to jump on and drift to the shore and walk back, still swimming.
He asked me to sail to shore and get the rescue boat, he was out a the black and yellow markers in the middle of the bay. I told him that kites dont go up wind real well, but that I would try.
So I sailed in, told another windsurfer, he didnt seem to phased, could even be bothered going to the race organisers for help. I saw a speed boat, i told them, they didnt care either. So I sailed back out, the guy was still swimming, so I said , roll up your sail and jump on board and I'll tow you in. Thinking he would roll his sail around his mast. I forgot about fully battened sails!
Still swimming.
So then I worked up wind about 500m to the starting boat and told them, they radio'd for hep, on the way back I waved down the MSB and directed him to the guy still in the water.
The poor bloke was in dispair, No,No, No he was yelling. He had stripped off his boom, and it seemed to have sunk, his mast foot was gone too, half his mast was on top of his board and he was struggling with his sail, in the water, which too sank before my eyes into the depth of the bay.
I felt sorry for the guy, the rig probably cost a bomb, I left the MSB to wrap it up.
I dont understand how you can race and not know the basics of self rescue, its the first thing you learn normally.
For those of you salvage guys there is a carbon mast and race sail at the bottom of the bay.
only so much you can do for people. the pity is that self rescue is so easy on a sailboard, especially on flat water, even with a cambered sail. no need for losing expensive toys.
by the sounds of him though i hope this doesn't inspire him to take up kiting. unable to self-rescue and unable to accept help from one in a position to give it. not welcome at my beach.
and the non-responsiveness of others to compound things. a sorry state of affairs all-round. good on you for doing what you could.
Yeah, from a windsurfer - good on you.
While it is your obligation to help someoone in distress so long as yu do not put yourself in danger, it sounds like this guy owes you a massive amount of thanks.
Guys like you couild even give kiters a good name..
its not that hard to self rescure with sailing gear, even with a cams etc. you drift a lot but then you just paddle, and paddle and paddle.
sometimes sh!t just happens.
good on you for helping
Sailboards remind me of the 80's. last century
Kiting on the other hand..., try it you will see.
Any how to answer the question he didnt ditch his gear, he was trying to save it. It was blowing 25knts, I wasn't there at the time but I think that once the pressure was off the down hall, the mast just filled with water and it sank.
As I said I thought he would wrap the sail around the mast, That just shows you when I last sailboarded, the old HiFly 700 days, with the fat head sail, what a ripper that was, they had the best girls on their magazine adds.
Its still under the house if anyone want to buy it from me, well preserved by twenty years of dust. I supppose I could use it as a stand up paddle surfboard! thats not a bad idea.
He should have read this page:http://www.boards.co.uk/articles/index.asp?ID_A=6&article_type=11
I must admit though, when panic sets in it is extremely difficult to think clearly... a couple of weeks ago I was out at Pt Moore on my wave board, the wind dropped and swung fully offshore. There wasn't much chance of being able to sail back to the point, the earliest I would have been able to make land would have been several k's away, at least an hour of slogging on a very sinky board, and there was a big wavebreak right in the way... despite having read the article above a couple of times over the years it just didn't occur to me to ditch the rig and paddle back on the board. I was considering ditching the lot and just swimming back.
Luckily the wind changed back to cross shore so I could sail back to the beach.
Probably the best thing you can do is to kite up to him, drop into the water and have a calm, friendly chat about what's going on, what he plans on doing, options for you to help, that sort of thing. It would be quite easy for him to detach his sail and give it to you to take back to the beach, while he paddled back in on the board.
Good on you for helping him out, lots of good karma coming your way 
Yeah it happens, three mates and i did a short downwinder from hillary's to mullaloo, 3 weeks ago and we rescued a swimmers hat, a pair of sunnies, a rather expensive spleene directional board, and, you guessed it, a windsurfer.
His mast had popped out of the board and he was 500m offshore and starting to swim in. The way we look at it is that next time it could be one of us, and like nebbian says its all about the Karma.
