Who seriously feels comfortable wave sailing both tacks? I've surfed forever (25 plus years, sponsers, comps etc) and as a goofy footer feel totally odd trying to sail right handers. It kinda sucks, as winters s-westers mean some pretty epic conditions, but my abilitly heading right (face to the wave) is simply shameful... Backhand fine, but as a natural footer- hidious.
Anyway, just rambling and dreaming of nor-easters and left handers, but wishing that comfortable and relaxed feel on lefts would magically appear on rights... Hats' off to Kauli and other who look so at home on both tacks.
I found the best way to overcome such a problem is to spend a month in maui. Sailing right handers everyday for a month and you will feel right at home. NSW winter conditions arent reliable enough to ever get used to southerly conditions.
Stop whinging Phil,
Anyone who can tack like a salsa king can sort out the legistics of starbytack surely . Patience, persistance, practice. You have arguably one of the most epic starboard tack wavesailing spots on the globe right out the front door
Happy easter 
having surfed for such a long time it probably feels arkward.
Me never surfer so just got used to both tacks with wavesailing.
i would say a few really good sessions at starboard tack wavesailing and you will be sorted.
Fair call guys. I really need to hit the surf in s-westers over winter, and simply put up with looking like a gumby till it all starts to click. Oh the shame...
So in 25 years I'll start to feel comfortable right...
It doesn't take that long. I'm a natural footed surfer and learn't to surf sail in SE winds on the east coast of central QLD. I.E. wave riding with my preferred left foot forward. I then moved to Newcastle, when there summer seabreeze is NE. It took me less than half a season to make the adjustment.
A few thoughts on this: From personal experience I don't think you ever feel 100% as confident on your non preferred surf stance tack if you've come into wave sailing along time after you started surfing.(23 years surfing before windsurfed)
Using a SUP in light cross off winds in some reasonable waves on my gumby side certainly helped me out with timing and bottom turns.
still have gumby moments (especially jumping right foot forward) but feel happier to throw the sail forward and push harder off the bottom and hitting the white water - but give me a northerly and my natural foot side any day. (P.S Avatar is on my gumby side)
Good thing about SA is you get a lot of variation between both tacks - especially over winter months - after a while you almost forget which is your favoured tack
I'm happy on both tracks until about head high, then I much prefer to be on my goofy side because that's almost all we get above head high here in wa,
I have mastered forwards on one tack and can barely land a jump on the other. Have had similar exposure to both tacks. Taken me over 20 years to even go for a loop on the 'wrong' tack. Wavesailing is about even tho...
There are some in SA that seem to be immune to this - or maybe they are just annoyingly good sailors!
Select to expand quotegmitton said.. I have mastered forwards on one tack and can barely land a jump on the other.
I remember reading a few years back, that people have a natural tendency to turn/rotate one way - meaning that when they need to turn the other way it feels unnatural. Maybe this could also be the case with looping? I can't find the article, but this little snippet may help "Professor Bruce Etnyre (of Rice University) tells me that right-handers tend to turn left and vice versa.He provided me with a reference to Schmidt and Lee (4th edition, pages 110 and 257)".
As for regular/goofy - I think regular stance sailors in NSW are lucky as they get to practice all summer in how to sail goofy and then when the real big swells and winds of winter come, we can revert to our preferred regular stance.
You guys are no doubt are much better sailors than me, so cheers for the tips. For me, it's all early days and bottom turns on the gumby (right) side is comical. Top turns, well, I'm happy to get to the top and make it down... But put me on cross-shore head high lefts and I forget I'm even sailing and will try any of my surfing moves. Maybe I can just get good at backhand wave riding on rights...
Funny Gmitton mentioning the jumps. I'm fairly confident to start trying (and perhaps landing...) back loops on my "decent" tack. But even jumping small chop feels scary on the opposite tack. So much to learn in this sport, and there just doesn't even seem consistent enough conditions (on the East Coast anyway) to get things wired with in my lifetime. It's a cruel sport.
You might want to try a semi-old school trick to feel more comfortable.
You say you come from a strong surfing background, that's great, then you may be able to easily relate.
When surfing, you generally like to be standing where you feel like you're up on the board, in other words, forward enough to where you're flying across the wave with plenty of power, so you can crank some hard turns, with plenty of power. The same holds true for windsurfing, but sometimes the foot straps feel like they are in the wrong place, as compared to when you were surfing, too far back.
Here is what many of us do, we locate the front foot strap all the way forward, on the wave riding (heading towards shore) side, and we locate the going back out front foot strap, all the way to the rear. This is assuming that your board is like most wave boards, with several foot strap position options. That results in about a 3" offset between the two front footstraps.
Whether you are riding backside or frontside, on a wave, your front foot will be farther forward on your board improving your speed on the wave, making it easier to crank bottom and top turns much more natural feeling. And on the way back out, you will be farther back, for some speed planning going back out, and making your jumps easier to boot.
