I'm teaching my wife a bit of windsurfing. Its going okay. I'm using my Tabou 140 and an old 3.7 wave sail. She can stand on the board fine and uphaul the sail. We are at the point where you grab the boom from the uphaul in a controlled way and also keep your balance.
I can borrow an old Mistral longboard. Is it worthwhile doing it? I am going off my own learning experience years ago and I think the Tabou is so wide its not too difficult to get your balance on and then practise sail handling.
Perhaps the sail hampers her more than anything else? I used it and found it fairly twitchy. It would be better to use a softer sail so if anyone has an old small soft sail for sale or to borrow in Sydney please let me know. Something under 4 meters would be good.
An old family friend (who I got in touch with via Seabreeze!) has a Starboard Go we can borrow. Would it be the go?
Its funny when you are learning you are looking for light wind so this weekend looks good for windsurfing!
Borrow the GO. Don't worry about the longboard as most likely progression will go backwards as you have to concentrate on balance first and what you are actually doing second.
Maybe go a little bit bigger with sail to stop the twitchyness or yes find a soft sail.
Wider is easier to begin with.
Yes, long boards do glide easier, but that assumes that you're still standing up.
The Go would be a good option - I've taught people the basics on a Bic Melody (Old/long), Go (wide) and Start (wider still - 1m), and tried with a Techno (comparatively narrow). By far the most success has been had on the Start and Go. They're just that much more stable, and not so worried by the chop or little waves. The Start particularly doesn't care much where you put your feet either.
The 3.7 might be better if it's baggier - i.e. no outhaul. I use a 4.2 wave sail and set it pretty full. Seems to be light enough for the smaller girls, and still has enough shape to make it perform like you would expect.
If it's really light wind, I find that sometimes the weight of a slightly bigger/less carbon rig can help with balance as there's more inertia in the rig to use in the wobbling act. That comes at a cost of easy uphauling though.
It's worth making things as easy as possible - teaching ones partner can be a very trying experience even with the best of gear!
Yeah I know teaching one's life partner can be trying. However I am a trained and experienced school teacher so I have a bit of patience. Also my wife enjoys it as she can concentrate on trying to windsurf. This is great as she has a high stress job.
The main reason she wants to do it is we have met a nice bunch of people in Sydney through windsurfing and we have seen some females sailing. So she is keen to get into it a bit.
In the long run I hope she enjoys it and perhaps either she likes the Tabou and uses it, and then I buy another board for myself or we get something a bit larger like the GO. However I want a board with a powerbox finbox.
Well, I'd say it depends on the place you're sailing and what the beginner wants to do. If they are learning in a very choppy place and just want to sail in strong winds - and have the flexible time to do that - a Go may be fine.
If you're sailing on flatter waters or a smaller bay or want to sail in all conditions, a longboard with a good rig is excellent. We get just about every one of the many people we've taught (she reckons it's about 200+) sailing on day 1 on a longboard; everyone from the kids, to many uni students, to the mother-in-law.
The longboard is tippier from side to side, but you don't slide away to leeward anywhere nearly as badly. It's much faster in the normal breeze than a shorter board. It introduces them to a sport they can do all the time, not just on the comparatively few windy days.
Many of the uni kids we trained have gone back home overseas, but over the last couple of years guys we've introduced to the sport on longboards have done the ISAF Youth Worlds, are preparing for a tilt at the 2012 Games, have bought their own boards and sailed at Nationals, so learning on a longboard can't be all that bad.
The most important thing is the rig; learning with something small but moving to something bigger, and sometimes to the small rig for a session; and the teacher. We use lightweight kid's sails for the under-12s, and Barracouta 3.5s and 4.5s for the older beginners. As you point out, their depth and twist makes them a lot better than a flat wave/high wind sail. For the life of me, I can't work out the multi-battened beginner sails; why have all that extra weight when the gust response is inferior and the sail is not used in conditions when draft movement becomes an issue??
Good luck!
[}:)]
The Go will make things easy. I started windsurfing for the first time at xmas. Got a 155lt Go. I started with a 5.8 KA Kult and didnt really have a problem with it. I have progressed quite quickly and am now in the GPS Team challenge (Connewarre Cremasters) and although I am yet to get past 25 knots, I am very close.
On a slightly different topic...I am looking another board now... between 90 and 120 litres. I want a damaged one that I can experiment with and try a few ideas I have. (plus I dont want to spend a lot of money yet as I have just bought a new sail and fin)
www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Windsurfing/Wanted/~zak_/Damaged-Modern-90-120-Litre-Board.aspx?search=j30I502Bca3LI4MiLa4%2bOA%3d%3d
I'd love to own a longer board. Unfortunately I live in a unit and we can't have a board much longer than 2.7 meters. I realise in Sydney's fickle and variable winds you will five times the sailing on a long board as you will on a shorty. However we can't own a long board. I can't even keep it on the roof of my car permanently. My van is about 2 meters tall and if I stick roofracks and a board ontop then I can't park in shopping centre carparks.
It would be nice to be able to store a long board somewhere for a reasonable annual fee.
I do a lot of lesson's on a starboard start, it's a 07 model, these things are the best thing to teach on, i just use a 4.5m wave sail for girls and rig it flat so it rotates eazy, i usually get students sailing in 2 hours, thats someone who has never touched a sailboard before and not just uphauling and moving, but actually sailing for about 100m, usually a bit upwind, being able to tack with a rope turn and not falling in and sail back to the beach.
Go the start or something similar you cant go wrong, one word of advise to anyone teaching someone, teach them to do 360's before you teach them to sail in a straight line, then they can tack or gybe and get back to the beach, and you don't have to swim after them.
