I find that I an good at water-starting in ideal conditions (!), small
sail and high winds (~18-25 mph), but often have trouble when I am out
in choppy water with a bigger (8.5M) sail and lighter (~15 mph) wind,
some comments/questions:
-- I find that getting the sail positioned, particularly if it falls
on the wrong side or direction is the most exhausting thing...
-- The sail is big and thus heavy, so when I pull the head end up and
into the wind, it will not all clear the water, the rear luff (about
1/4) is still in the water, and then I find that the wind pushed me
downwind, thus sinking this tail and tending to upright the sail. I
try to lower the leading edge, but then am back in the situation of
not having the sail flying...
Pu****ng a big sail up with water on it is a lot of work, and pushes me
down into the water, so it takes a few seconds to recover and refloat
myself for another push up, but by then the wind is pu****ng the whole
rig downwind, and the sail back into the water.
Waves (chop) make this whole thing harder; as again since I can often
only incrementally get part of the sail up out of the water, then the
next wave pushes the whole thing downwind and thus the clew into the
water, Argh!
-- Once I fly the sail, I find that the board (155l), tends to catch
the wind and float downwind, and (naturally) pivot around the fin,
thus the board doesn't stay in a nice position while I collect myself
to put a leg up, and get ready to go...
To correct this I find I have to keep pu****ng on the fin with my
foot under-water to keep the board pointing across the wind.
I have all the DVDs on how to do it, and they sure look easy! :-)
Thanks for any hints!
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