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Intro

Up until now you’ve started off by wrestling the rig from the water by uphauling it. The task of starting off can be made a lot more efficient by beachstarting. This puts you on the board in the sailing position. You will be calling on the skills learnt in this move in your quest for the waterstart. The waterstart is a progression of the beachstart but guess what, no beach! This move opens up strong wind sailing, smaller boards and too much fun!!

Foundation

Having an efficient sailing stance will greatly assist you in this. So apply the relevant fundamentals to your stance and add in these practices:

• Sailing kneeling down
• Rigless beach starts
• Dragging your front foot in the water
• Sailing one-handed

On terra firma get into the physiology of it by stepping up onto a chair, note what your legs do and how your body moves.

Fundamentals

• Look where you want to go - Firstly to assess your sailing line and then to assist in steering. We need to move forward and in so we look at the mast foot to get up and away.
• Rig away - In order for the rig to have the leverage to pull us out of the water, the rig must be kept away through extended arms that are shoulder width apart.

Ideal Conditions and Set-Up

• Wind direction: Cross-offshore, cross-shore, and cross-onshore.
• Strength: Force 2 – 4
• Water: Flat and a gently shelving beach from knee to waist depth.

Key Stages

• Board Positioning/steering. Bringing the board across the wind in a suitable position to get –
• Up and away. Exiting the water and arriving in the sailing position.

Key Moves

• Steer the board with front arm pressure
• Position the board across the wind and place heel on
• Pull board under arse with bent back leg AND extend those arms WHILST Looking at and eating the mastfoot
• Keep back leg bent
• Into your stance

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