During the Pre-Waterstart Period, high-wind sailing was restricted to boards large enough to uphaul.  The waterstart changed that. Without the need to uphaul, smaller boards could be sailed, which revolutionized the sport by enabling people to sail in conditions they previously couldn’t, carve gybes, break speed records, and appear in beer commercials.  Sailboard manufacturers tripled their product line, and surfboard shapers started popping out short-boards.  More efficient sail and board designs evolved, which made windsurfing easier and more enjoyable.  All this because of the waterstart.

To join this revolution, you must be able to waterstart!  Can you do it? Absolutely—if you can beachstart, you can waterstart.  In fact, the waterstart progresses naturally from the beachstart, which is also how you should approach learning it.  Try the waterstart in progressively deeper water:  first thigh-deep, then waist-deep, chest-deep, and finally water over your head. Another good learning technique is to waterstart in knee-deep water, but sit on the bottom;  this provides the feel of being pulled up onto the board without the exhaustion of treading water.

The one prerequisite is sufficient wind.  You can use perfect technique until the blood drains from your arms, but if the wind is too light, you will continue to wallow in water.  How much is enough?  This is another case where you will know it when you feel it.  If you see one or two little, wimpy whitecaps, you’ll have to uphaul.  But if the conditions are in the middle of the moderate-wind range (15 mph [24 kph]) or higher, go for it!

Besides wind strength, equipment makes a difference too.   Short-boards with less flotation are easier to waterstart than long-boards with more flotation, since they’re easier to sink underwater and under your buttocks during step 5.  Use the same procedure to waterstart long- and short-boards; it’s just a little more effortless with the sinkier ones.

Sails make even more of a difference.  Large sails with long booms are more difficult to lift out of the water (called clearing the sail) than small sails with short booms.  This is also true of camber-induced versus RAF sails (the attributes of each are covered in Book 15, Equipment).  The large mast-sleeve of camber-induced sails fills with water, which makes it necessary to use the buoyancy of the board to help drain them.  RAF sails can also be cleared using the board’s buoyancy, but there’s a faster, though not necessarily easier, method that’s described in the latter part of the book.

We start with the six steps of the basic waterstart—using the board’s flotation to help clear the sail—with the rig positioned on the back-leeward side of the board.  After discussing the six steps and the mistakes made in each step, we return to the beginning with you and the rig in the water.  Here we describe techniques for clearing the sail when it’s not conveniently on the back-leeward side.  What do you do if the rig is on the front-leeward, front-windward, or back-windward sides?  These are all situations you’ll encounter, so it’s smart to know how to handle them before you face them.