I felt it was time to try and take my winging up a level, to drop down to a lower volume board and got hold of a lovely 5'4" AK Phazer at 65 Litres.
My previous board was 110L so would comfortably float at all times, so a drop of 45 litres was pretty sizeable.
I had casually watched a few guides on waterstarting sinkers, but failed to really understand how significant a leap it was before hitting the water.
I weigh a little over 80Kg, so there is probably a 20-25L bouyancy defecit once the weight of the board, wetsuit and accessories are included.
I was super keen to try my new board out, so aimed for flatwater at a local lake, at the expense of pretty gusty winds.
Wind was probably varying between 5 and 15 knots, so opted for my Shinn 6m wing, and 2000 AK surf foil.
When I first took to the water, I made the rookie mistake of not going deep enough, as the wind was onshore; after going out a little deeper I started trying to waterstart in earnest.
I tried a load of things, but actually balancing on the board was incredibly difficult - it would tip one way, and I counter that, but this would result in it going further the other, and before long I was deposited into the drink.
I tried this and variations over and over but couldnt get stable in any way. I then started to make use of the wing to aid stability, and pushing it down into the water was a real help.
I was also struggling a fair bit due to my front strap being precisely where I wanted to put my front knee; so I had to put it further forward than I would have liked.
Pushing the wing down allowed me to get to a stable position, but the next phase totally undid that - trying to pick the wing up lost my stability immediately and it was bathtime over and over again.
My next strategy was to try to pull the wing down into the water from underneath; and this actually showed real promise - I could gain the stability of pushing teh wing down, but my hands were also in a much better place to pick the wing up afterwards.
Its fair to say it was still a real struggle to get balance on the board, and I was becoming tired pretty quickly, but from having both hands on the handles under the wing, pulling it down gave me the stability to allow me to move my rear hand to a further handle, and then to attempt to get the wing airborne.
AFter a couple of failed attempts, I finally managed to get the board moving and to reach some stability on my knees; at this point the rest was easy, just raise to my feet and pump onto the foil - which was a piece of cake from here, as its something I'd done many times before.
Once up and foiling everything became easy again; it was great to be cranking along on a small board which has a surprising difference to the overall feel. When it came time to gybe, unfortunately I fluffed it, which meant starting the whole process again.
The wind had really dropped too and I could hardly get the wing out of the water, I had to concede that the marginal gusty conditions were far from ideal for trying this, so I swapped back to the 110L and had some fun for an hour or so, before I had to leave the water.
My previous board was 110L so would comfortably float at all times, so a drop of 45 litres was pretty sizeable.
I had casually watched a few guides on waterstarting sinkers, but failed to really understand how significant a leap it was before hitting the water.
I weigh a little over 80Kg, so there is probably a 20-25L bouyancy defecit once the weight of the board, wetsuit and accessories are included.
I was super keen to try my new board out, so aimed for flatwater at a local lake, at the expense of pretty gusty winds.
Wind was probably varying between 5 and 15 knots, so opted for my Shinn 6m wing, and 2000 AK surf foil.
When I first took to the water, I made the rookie mistake of not going deep enough, as the wind was onshore; after going out a little deeper I started trying to waterstart in earnest.
I tried a load of things, but actually balancing on the board was incredibly difficult - it would tip one way, and I counter that, but this would result in it going further the other, and before long I was deposited into the drink.
I tried this and variations over and over but couldnt get stable in any way. I then started to make use of the wing to aid stability, and pushing it down into the water was a real help.
I was also struggling a fair bit due to my front strap being precisely where I wanted to put my front knee; so I had to put it further forward than I would have liked.
Pushing the wing down allowed me to get to a stable position, but the next phase totally undid that - trying to pick the wing up lost my stability immediately and it was bathtime over and over again.
My next strategy was to try to pull the wing down into the water from underneath; and this actually showed real promise - I could gain the stability of pushing teh wing down, but my hands were also in a much better place to pick the wing up afterwards.
Its fair to say it was still a real struggle to get balance on the board, and I was becoming tired pretty quickly, but from having both hands on the handles under the wing, pulling it down gave me the stability to allow me to move my rear hand to a further handle, and then to attempt to get the wing airborne.
AFter a couple of failed attempts, I finally managed to get the board moving and to reach some stability on my knees; at this point the rest was easy, just raise to my feet and pump onto the foil - which was a piece of cake from here, as its something I'd done many times before.
Once up and foiling everything became easy again; it was great to be cranking along on a small board which has a surprising difference to the overall feel. When it came time to gybe, unfortunately I fluffed it, which meant starting the whole process again.
The wind had really dropped too and I could hardly get the wing out of the water, I had to concede that the marginal gusty conditions were far from ideal for trying this, so I swapped back to the 110L and had some fun for an hour or so, before I had to leave the water.
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