NOT TO DO CATAPULT FALLS – PART 3

Antoine Albeau on the tail

Sailing in the right way is the third most important thing to prevent falls. You might wonder what I mean with that. Well, if you read this you are probably not a beginner in windsurfing. You have done thousand of laps forward and back at your local spots. But have you tried to use a 7,8m2 sail in 30 knots of wind and going downwind in 140 degrees for 500 meters? Important is to choose where to let go. It is simply not a good idea to let lose in 100 cm chops. At my local spot we don´t have a reef or sandbank, we sail in a bay in the shallow water. More or less choppy, still we run in almost 40 knots speed.

But I don’t go for downwind speed if the wave-chops are over about 70 centimetres. And if when sailing in chops, look at the surface 50-70 meters ahead. Then you have a few seconds to react. The most common mistake that make you get a catapult when sailing is when you get a gust and don’t fight it. If you chicken out, it’s most likely that the tail will raise and you will fall. Therefore; GO! 


(But there are guys that do this the opposite way, Magnus Bengtsson, one of the best Swedes, always hook out when going really fast downwind…!)