<< Back to Nuking at the Gorge  |  Wind Log, Summer 1999

Every windsurfing video I've ever seen starts with somebody tan and beautiful flying off a wave in Maui. Nobody shows you the first two years, which look like a wet person standing on a board, pulling a sail out of the water, falling in, and doing it again. So here is my version, year by year, with nothing left out. If you're thinking about learning, I hope it helps. If you already sail, I hope it makes you feel better about your own first summer.

The orange bar is how good I thought I was. The turquoise bar is how good I actually was.

A friend from PT school talked me into a two-day beginner lesson on a lake outside Portland in July. The board was enormous, about the size of a door and twice as heavy, with a daggerboard sticking down the middle to keep it from sliding sideways. The sail was tiny. The instructor was nineteen and very patient.

Day one was learning to stand up on the board, grab the uphaul rope and pull the sail out of the water without falling in backwards. I fell in backwards about forty times. Then you learn that you steer by tilting the whole sail forward or back, which makes no sense at all until it suddenly does. By the end of day two I could sail across the lake, very slowly, turn around, very slowly, and sail back. I was so happy I cried a little in the car.

I spent the rest of that summer renting gear on Sundays and sailing in the beginner cove at Hood River, in light wind, watching the people out in the river and thinking I'd be out there by August. I was not out there by August.

I bought a used board and two used sails out of the classifieds for $650, which was most of my savings and all of my good sense. Then I learned the two things that made it fun.

The harness. You wear it around your waist, and there's a hook on the front that clips onto two loops of line hanging off the boom. Once you're hooked in, your body weight holds the sail instead of your arms. The first time you do it, it feels like falling. Then it feels like flying. Before the harness I could sail for about twenty minutes before my forearms gave out. After it, I could sail all afternoon.

Planing. In enough wind, the board stops plowing through the water and lifts up and skims across the top of it. Everything goes fast and quiet and smooth, and your feet go into the footstraps, and you hear yourself yelling. My first real plane was on a Sunday in August of 1995 and lasted about eight seconds before I fell in. It is still the best eight seconds of my life, and I have been chasing it ever since.

I also learned the beach start that year: standing in shallow water next to the board, sail up, step on, go. It's how you launch without uphauling, and it's the first step toward the water start.

The water start is the gate. Without it you're stuck on big boards and light wind forever, because a small board won't hold you up while you pull the sail out of the water. With it, you can go anywhere.

Here's what you do, in theory. You're in the water, holding the boom. You get the sail up out of the water, swim it around until the mast points into the wind, get the board pointed across the wind, put your back foot up on the board, push the whole rig up high into the wind, and the sail pulls you up out of the water and onto the board.

Here's what I did, all of 1995 and half of 1996. I swam. I got the sail half up and it fell on my head. I got my foot on the board and the board sailed off without me. I got all the way up and fell off the other side. I practiced in water up to my waist at the end of the cove so I could stand up and reset, which I highly recommend, and which still took a summer and a half. Then on a Saturday in July of 1996 it just worked, three times in a row, and I have never had trouble with it since. Nobody can explain this to you. Your body has to figure it out.

Once you're planing, you want to turn around without stopping. That's the carve jibe. In order:

1. Sail along fast, fully powered.
2. Unhook from the harness and move your back hand back on the boom.
3. Take your back foot out of its strap and put it on the inside edge of the board, the edge you want to turn toward.
4. Bend your knees, way more than you think, and lean the board onto that edge so it carves a curve, like a ski.
5. As the board comes around through downwind, let the sail flip around the front of you.
6. Switch your feet, grab the boom on the new side, and sail away, still planing, looking cool.

That's six steps, and every one of them is a different way to fall in. I tried my first one in May 1997. By the end of that summer I was making about one in ten. In 1998 it went to about four in ten, which sounds bad until you realize that six in ten means you're swimming in front of the whole Event Site, every few minutes, all summer. I counted my falls one Saturday in 1998 to see how bad it was. It was 61, and I stopped counting at 3 o'clock because it was making me sad.

What finally did it, for me: looking where I wanted to go instead of at the sail, and committing all the way to the turn. Every time I chickened out halfway, I fell. Every time I meant it, I came out the other side. There's probably a lesson in that for the rest of life, but I'm a physical therapist, not a philosopher.

This summer I made about seven out of ten jibes, eight on a good day, and on July 23 at the Hatchery I made ten in a row and caught my first real air off the swell (it's in the wind log, and I'm going to talk about it until I die). I sail the small board on windy days and I'm not scared of the Hatchery anymore, just respectful. I still can't do a loop and I may never. That's fine. There are people out there who've been sailing twenty years and still learn something every weekend. That's the best part.

1. Take real lessons from a real instructor. Not from your boyfriend. Not from your brother. I have watched a lot of couples on the beach and I stand by this.
2. Start small. Big board, small sail, light wind, flat water. A lake is perfect. The middle of the Columbia on a 30-mile-an-hour day is not.
3. Plan on falling. A lot. Think of it as swimming practice. Everybody you see out there flying around fell in thousands of times to get there.
4. Learn to self-rescue on your first day, while it's calm and you have an instructor. You'll need it someday. Ask me about June 26.
5. Get the harness as soon as your instructor says you're ready. Your arms aren't strong enough to hold a sail all day, and they're not supposed to be.
6. Practice water starts where you can stand up. Saves energy, saves tears.
7. Don't buy new gear the first year. You don't know what you like yet, and used gear is everywhere in Hood River in September when people upgrade.
8. Sail with people who are better than you, and watch what they do. Then ask them. Windsurfers love to explain things. Sometimes you can't make them stop.
9. Never sail alone. I said it on the front page and I'll say it here.
10. Come in before you're tired, not after. The last run of the day is when people get hurt. I treat them on Monday.

Professional opinion, for free, and you should still see your own doctor or PT if something hurts.

• Forearm pump (when your forearms turn to cement and you can't grip): you're squeezing the boom too hard. Hook in, loosen your hands, and let the harness carry the load.
• Lower back: keep your arms long and your hips forward and up. Sitting back with your rear end hanging out puts it all on your back.
• Shoulders: warm up before you rig, not after you're sore. Arm circles, a few gentle stretches, five minutes. Everybody laughs at me on the grass. Everybody also asks me about their shoulder in August.
• Shins and feet: booties. The rocks are sharp and the fins are sharper.
• Sun: sunscreen, every two hours, even when it's cloudy. The river is a mirror.

That's my story. If you're thinking about trying it, do it. Come out to Hood River some summer Saturday, sit on the grass at the Event Site with a sandwich, watch for an hour, and see if your heart starts going. Mine did.

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