first shortboard help

Question
Hi, I have been windsurfing for about 3 months, and have progressed from a massive board to a 140ltr fanatic, and now just got a second slightly old/second hand 100ltr fanatic. I was out on the lake today and it was fairly windy, so me and my friend decided to try our shortboards, so if we fell off we would have to nail waterstarts! well most of the time it was a complete disaster story but every so often I got up and going, and on nearly every occasion, bar 2 times, mostly from beachstarts, the nose would turn upwind and that would be that attempt over. After moving my front foot forwards to try and push the nose away from the wind it would just sink and not alter the direction, so I would fall off. Also at this point the board was not flat on the water so wondering if that has something to do with it? Also Im using a 6.5 sail, which is kickass fun when the wind really picks up, but still didnt help with my current problem of heading into wind, well the sail wouldnt turn into wind, but the board certainly did. Hoping you can give some guidance to get me level and moving gracefully on the top of the water, not submerged up to my shins looking ridiculous!

Best Regards

Oli

Answer
Hey Oli,

Rounding up into the wind is a very common problem when first learning shortboards. Remember your original lesson that tipping the mast forward pulls the board offwind. You are right in getting the front foot a bit forward to push the nose of the board offwind. To get the sail more forward, straighten out your front arm and sheet in a bit. This will give the sail more pull offwind and help pull the board offwind.

Quite often we are trying to keep the nose from sinking and tend to be a bit too far back on the board. This body position tends to pull the clew of the sail back and thus turns you upwind. Finding the right spot on the board to get moving on a beam or broad reach is more difficult on a shorter board. This is because the balance point between upwind and offwind is much tighter. The same as front to back is a narrower space, the side to side space is narrower too. Just keep working on the balance and try the pointers I've suggested.

Also, check out www.windsurfingmag.com under instruction. Read beginner through advance and focus on the waterstarting and shortboard techniques.

Hope this helps.
Keep on sailing,
Windlover