I know i have asked for advice before but i need some more of your knowledge. Over this weekend ive decided to do something about my extremely heavy gear. I spent 90% of today up hauling then falling off. I'm sick of it being so hard to learn to tack and basically do everything.
I'm going to get a 400 rdm mast 85% carbon mast from board crazy and a 5.3 sail from wherever, but i need some advice on the boom as i dont really know that much. I want to keep all the gear as light as possible. I dont want to be spending $1000's. Like $400 at most for the boom (if that's even possible)
Thanks guys
you are pretty light so most newish monocoque front end aluminium booms with a modern shape will do the job. just grab a second hand one. problem with your current boom is it's a really old school slalomish shape which is awkward and its pretty wobbly which doesn't help.
like this www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Windsurfing/Accessories/~bn874/2010-Neil-Pryde-Wave-Boom-140195.aspx?search=gvyj2BKrnvl%2fZsUI%2byyDuuVi3zx94lAw
The hardest bit is the first 10 degrees, to get the sail out of the water. Guy Cribb suggest to stand on the windward rail, so the other rail comes up and helps to lift the mast. The trick is on the web. Also i added a second rope with a horizontal handle midway the uphaul rope, and that helped as well, i would say it halves the effort required. But I think it is better to get rid of it once you don't uphaul so often.
Good luck !
Stop thinking that the weight of your gear is your problem. If you struggle to uphaul, then buy yourself an easy uphaul, cost about 20 or 30, can pull a 9.5 out of the water one handed. An 85% carbon mast and carbon boom may save you 1-2 kgs at the most. You claim to be cash strapped, so save your money, or spend it on something useful.
If you are struggling to tack, I need to ask did you ever take my advice and get lessons from Simon? If so then you should get some more. Sure swoosh and others will help where they can, but nothing can beat proper lessons for a couple of hours where the instructor is watching and following you, correcting and teaching as you go. A big difference from guys giving helpful advice, especially when they are wanting to sail as well.
Just a quick question, are you still using a go or are you trying to tack on you 90l? If you are on the little board, then I'm sorry to say you are in for a long hard road.
. In no way is this meant to be a stab at you or your comment. It's just that i know what i want. I plan to buy bits and pieces at a time and build up to get my new gear. I do appreciate your comment.
60cm wide 90 l for a learner - that's your problem, the rig weight will not make your tacks or uphauling any easier whilst you are on that board.
Maybe you should have saved a bit more earlier and purchased a more appropriate board. As I said you now have a tough road ahead, and if you think that lessons will not help then more fool you.
It is also well known that a poor man spends twice.
I know I'm bI have no interest on what you spend your money on, but you complain of being without funds, and then rush out a buy inappropriate equipment, so if you want to spend then knock yourself out. But why don't you speak to a professional who has a vested interest in getting people into this sport. Go and see simon at boardcrazy, and get his help.
The catch 22 of windsurfing seems to be that as beginners we are out in lower wind conditions or with generally smaller sails than everyone else at a particular time and place, this makes waterstarting not really possible until we are proficient enough to be fully powered up and committed to the harness.
Consequently we have to do a lot of uphauling.
I like my easy up haul a lot.
The only suggestion I could make would be to have a sail with a narrow mast sleeve, definitely not a cammed sail and make sure your mast and boom do not retain water.
My new 7M sail is 6 LBS lighter than my cammed 8M sail and the sleeve is so much narrower it retains much less water, it is very noticeable.
My old boom would fill up with water, my new one is filled with foam and won't retain any water.
My old mast had no plug in the top and water would fill it up, after I uphauled water would be pouring out the bottom of the sail and the tail of the boom.
+1 to the easy uphaul got one for my 9.5 and makes life heaps easier even in stronger winds.
Also agree with dam71 regarding learning on a 90l board, to hard. My sons probably at a similar stage as you ,he has been learning on a sup with a centreboard. Beacause the board is so easy to learn since he started at christmas he can tack it gybe it get it planing beach start in chest deep water and is now starting to use a harness in stronger winds. I think the reason he is progressing well is because he spends more time sailing it than he does falling off and uphauling cause its so learner friendly. Time spent sailing in all conditions equals progression.
Were at manly (rqys) every Saturday, while I race he trains with the view to start racing technos next season. I would be happy to give you a go on the sup you might be surprised how good you actually are when using a easier board. Also could meet a lot of people your age who sail technos and just check out the scene.
ok aussiex ,
Need some facts to help you out
How much do you weigh
how long have u been sailing
whats is your gear exactly
If yout board is only 60cm wide and your are a genuine learner , it is way to small . People forget what it was like when you are learning .
The reason you might be upahuling so much is the boards makes it to unstable, so you fall in all the time,
I teach at manly every two weeks, all of my rigs are NON Carbon mast and student have no issues at all . Some dont even fall in !!!!!!!!!!. the reason is the boards are wide and stable which make every so much easier .
. In no way is this meant to be a stab at you or your comment. It's just that i know what i want. I plan to buy bits and pieces at a time and build up to get my new gear. I do appreciate your comment.
Many people on this forum learnt with old dacron sails, fiberglass masts and super heavy booms, now this was heavy. The gear you are on right now seems to be a vast improvement from that. I wont comment on the board as I have not seen it or you. If you are a very small person maybe that board will be ok for you.
Seems simple at this stage mate, before you go investing a few hunderd dollars on new gear redirect those funds to a minor investment in a lesson. I'm not sure what a lesson costs these days, but i'd guess for well under $100 someone could spend a couple of hours with you and really help you use the gear you have, and allow you the use of a school board where you will see if the board you currently have is also hindering your learning.
This will likely save you heaps in miss directed spending and give you a good leg up on technique.
Stick with it, windsurfing is not as easy as some other popular water sports, but the personal rewards once you get it right make every minute worth it. And I think many would agree that the days spent as a beginner in the sport was some of the best fun we ever had. Don't get fooled into thinking you have to jump a wave or fly across the water at great speed to have fun.
As a new comer (been sailing about 20 times total) there's some great info in this thread
Now, Evlpander, you said, "Tacking is HARD. Most people on this forum can't tack as well as they'd like. Most always gybe. Am I right or am I right?"
By "Gybe", you mean full planing stuff, or just slow cruise, spin the sail type of deal? I actually find it easier to tack, even on a joggly ocean. Those slow motion gybes give me the death wobbles. My (new) board is 116 lt and I'm only 75 kg and shrinking- previous board was 152 lt. My approach for tacking is two steps- and super quick. I figure it gives less time for stuff to go wrong... Seems to work fine for me.
As for up-hauling Aussiex, after the first 34,000 times it gets easier Seriously, I'm just learning like you, and weight stuff all and have a dodgy back, and I don't find up-hauling hard at all. Sure, it's annoying, but not hard on the body. I've got the old 30 percent standard diameter 4.3
mast and sizable alloy boom (probably filling with water) and 5.2 mid 90's sail. Maybe it's a technique thing??
PS- Hey if ya wanna buy all the good gear, go for it. That's my plan even though I really should be playing around on huge boards and old gear to get the basics more sorted. But I figure I may as well get proficient of good gear, as that's the direction I want to head- But that is however, assuming the modern small gear is not going to set me (or any newcomer) back too far in the process... But so far so good on my new smaller board. And my new sail, mast and boom are all put away just waiting for me.
I think evlpanda hit the nail on the head with his technique. uphauling can be a real challenge if you race straight in to uphauling without allowing the board and sail to position itself right first. I havent mastered the water start yet and need to uphaul as well and you can tell the difference when you doing it wrong. some times it comes out off the water with no effort other times it feels like its got an anchor. i would try technique before spending too much money. at least you wont be dissapointed when you have the same problem with new gear, in other words whats the worst that could happen.
Boom advice - Prolimit or Severne alloy booms (they come out of the same factory).
Light and tough and approx $250 - $300 brand new. I give them quite a lot of abuse and they generally last two seasons of hard sailing for me before the grip comes off them (because of my peculiar way of sailing) and I replace as I figure they don't owe me anything.
Good kit, good price.
In other news, if you hate uphauling then do what my gf did.... she uphauled five times and decided that she hated it so much she'd learn to beach start. She's never looked back. Strongly recommend you get a lesson to learn how to beach start to steepen the learning curve.
I think we are getting a little off topic. I can water start, beach start and i know how to uphaul. I only uphaul though when there is little wind. Ben is a great teacher, im sure the a professional would be great, but unneeded. I know all you guys had it much harder when you had to learn then i do. and i know i sound like a baby. I wanted to get a new rig, not the board because i could buy bits and pieces at a time (like buy boom, then wait, buy mast, then wait) with a board its the full price straight away. The other reason i thought my gear was to heavy was because as soon as i sheet out and loose the power in sail i struggle to hold up the weight and that doesn't happen when i used lighter gear. There is some logic behind my insanity.
PS. Thank you for your post FlickySpinny
Have you considered that maybe the lighter gear you used, because it was lighter, twisted off more in the head? Therefore when you sheeted out on your heavy gear the leech was still powered up, as the mast is heavier/stiffer and on the lighter gear it twisted off easier as you sheeted out, and thats why you struggled to stay on? I'm probably wrong, just applying yacht racing thinking to windsurfing 
...also as someone who learnt to tack before gybing, maybe just gybe first because it really is easier and funner when you get the hang of it.
This thread is hilarious. Aussiex has asked for advice on a light cost effective boom and every resident expert has chimed in with thier advice; board too small, you won't notice the difference, you don't deserve light gear because I had **** gear when I learnt, yada yada yada. Of course he will, we all would! If anyone thinks there isn't a massive difference between having a light rig and a normal to heavy weight rig is surely taking the piss, the difference is massive.
Knowing some of the back story to this and knowing that Aussiex has sailed Swoosh's gear, which is very light, I think everyone should agree that he knows the difference between what he currently owns and light gear and has decided that the advantages are enough that an upgrading is warranted.
So to cut out all the ****:
- 400RDM, check - get one at all costs.
- 5.2-ish, check
- light boom - check.
Firstly I'm going to do some brand pimping here, i'll qualify this by saying that I am in no way sponsored by this brand, I buy all my own gear and in my opinion currently it's the best stuff on the market, particularly in bang for your buck.
Secondly I don't know how much you have to spend but I'll start buy saying that second hand sails are a false economy, particularly if you want to get into the more technical aspects of windsurfing; freestyle, wave sailing etc. As an example when I learnt I was in the same boat as you, was young, didn't have much money and as such bought second had sails at $250-350 each etc. Once I started getting into waves/freestyle I destroyed about 6 of these over a 2 year period, this is more expensive than buying new.
With that in mind let the pimping begin.
Sail - Get a 5.2 Severne SWAT. Best performance/bang for your buck on the market by a mile; grunty, super light, tough. I sail them so they must be awesome ^_^
Mast - Severne Gorilla 400 RDM. Decent price, tough. Might be hard to find second hand if you are determined to do so. I actually run an Ezzy RDM in my SWAT's and S1's as the bend curve is very similar to the Severne masts (ezzy is just slightly softer in the tip) but it will work ok. So with that in mind if you can find an Ezzy or powerex (same this) 400RDM it will work ok, if only 95% ideal.
Boom - As Flicky said get a Severne ally one or a prolimit, as he said same factory (I think Aeron as well?) Good price, nice thin grip, decent weight.
Depending on what sort of deal you can get I reckon you could get all of that new for around $1300-ish or if you can get a second had mast and boom way under $1000. In my opinion if you have to wait a little bit in order to save to get the new sail and the right 400RDM do it, don't take short cuts, ,it will cost you more in the long run and you'll have sub standard stuff.
