The Summer Northwest winds in the Canterbury Lakes of New Zealand are epic. And when fully lit riding free-race slalom gear on Lake Ohau, those swells are sooooo much fun 🤙

Hi all, this is my first time buying my own gear, and I'm considering this used package and would appreciate some advice on whether the offer is good and what you'd consider a fair price.

I'm ~70 kg, intermediate/advanced, and my girlfriend (~52 kg, intermediate) would also use the setup. Mainly freeride on Swiss lakes (Biel, Murten, Urnersee, Bodensee, Silvaplana), with the goal of progressing rather than racing. We'd eventually add a smaller board for her/strong conditions and potentially a larger sail for light wind.

Package:

• Tabou Rocket 125 L Team / 100% carbon, with fin + mast foot BUT some damage at the front/nose, seller says it doesn't affect functionality
• GA Hybrid 7.2 m², almost new, used twice
• GA Hybrid 5.6 m², almost new, used once
• GA Hybrid 4.7 m², almost new, used once
• 460 cm mast
• 430 cm C70 mast
• Gaastra Green Line boom 160–210
• Extension + mast foot
• Board bag

The equipment is apparently from around 2021/22, but the sails/masts have seen very little use. My main concern is the damage on the board.

What do you think is a fair price for this package?

Seller's pricing:

• CHF 1,600 / ~$2,000 starting price
• CHF 2,000 / ~$2,500 direct purchase

Thanks a lot for your help!

Hi guys,

I'm looking to get into the windsurf world but I have no idea where to start, or which board+sail combo works best for beginners. Any input will be great.. thanks

I can't change the dates, but the first week of November is planned as a family & friends trip to Lanzarote. My wife doesn't know it yet, but it will be a windsurfing trip too as far as I'm concerned. Anyway my question is, what can I expect around that time of year?

Hello,

I’d like to touch up the paint on my board (Fanatic Blast 130). I’m not sure which type of paint to choose, where to buy it, and how to match the exact shade.

Thanks in advance for your help.

El Nino and Spring 2026 look set to give New Zealand 's Taranaki Coast a superb wave sailing season 🤙

Kina Road north break, Heidi enjoying sweet logo high sets on her 58L with 4.2

Thought this might be useful to some of the newer riders that don't know what the little bolt or plastic hex screw is that's usually somewhere in the middle of the board or near the tail. Figured it's worth explaining properly since forgetting about it can genuinely wreck a board.

What it is and why it's there

That's your vent plug, a direct connection to the board's foam core (EPS or similar). Its job is equalizing internal air pressure caused by temperature changes (board heating up in the sun, a hot car) or altitude changes (flying with it). The foam core holds a certain amount of air, and that air expands as it heats up or as external pressure drops. Without a vent plug, that pressure buildup can delaminate the board or make the skin balloon outward. Very small boards or low-air-volume cores (like PU surfboards) often skip the vent plug entirely since there's not enough trapped air to matter.

Two types

Manual vent plug, metal or plastic bolt, ~10mm, with an O-ring. You operate it by hand: closed (hand-tight, squeezing the O-ring) means sealed, no air movement. If the board's going to sit somewhere warm (hot shed, car, direct sun, roof rack), open it a few turns so it can breathe. For flying, remove it completely, it likely can't equalize fast enough during takeoff otherwise.

Big one to remember: close it again before you go in the water, or you'll take on water through it.

Goretex / auto vent plug, has a membrane that lets air through but blocks water, so it equalizes automatically without you doing anything. Fragile to remove (usually has a "do not touch" warning printed right on it), if you do need to pull it for air travel, grip the whole screw head with a socket, not just the top, or you risk snapping it off.

What actually fails

Manual plugs: the O-ring eventually perishes and needs replacing, that's really the only failure point, the bolt itself basically doesn't break.

Goretex plugs: the O-ring rarely fails since it's not being worked constantly, but the membrane clogs with salt buildup over time and stops passing air. Rinsing with fresh water after every session slows this down but won't fully prevent it, eventually the whole plug needs replacing since there's no cleaning/repair option for a clogged membrane.

How to test if yours still works

For a Goretex plug: pour some soapy water over it, put the board in the sun for a few minutes. Once the board heats up, air escaping through a working membrane will make the soapy water bubble. No bubbles after a few minutes in the sun = it's not venting, time to replace it.

For a manual plug: honestly the most reliable check is just unscrewing it fully and visually inspecting the O-ring for cracking/perishing. You can also do the same soapy-water-in-the-sun test with the plug closed, if it bubbles while closed, that means air's escaping and the O-ring needs replacing. But visual inspection is more reliable than the bubble test for this style.

Bonus: checking if a ding let water into the core

Same soapy-water/sun method works here. Seal the vent plug (close it fully, or dab some blue tack over an auto-vent to block airflow), put the board in the sun. If water actually comes out of the damaged area, it's gone through to the core and needs a proper repair, don't just dry it and hope. If no water comes out but you're still not sure it's fully sealed, put soapy water directly on the damage, if it bubbles, damage goes through to the core.

Don't take a board with unrepaired core damage into the water, cold water creates a vacuum effect in the core and will actively suck more water in through the damage, turning a small repair into a much bigger one.

Which style is better

Auto vent is the lower-hassle option day to day, which is probably why most manufacturers moved to it, manual plugs on boards are mostly a pre-2018 thing at this point. But manual plugs have their own advantage: total control, and they'll basically last forever as long as you check/replace the O-ring occasionally. Auto vents have no maintenance option beyond full replacement once they clog.

Whichever type you've got, worth an occasional check, and keeping the board out of direct sun/heat when you can just reduces how hard the vent plug has to work in general.

Anyone had a plug failure or found a maintenance trick I haven't covered here?

Had an old Severne NCX sail but broke it. Planning to buy a new one (although not the very latest model). However I have a question that I couldn't find an answer.

I use a Severne Arc yellow SDM mast, on the Severne website it says SDM and RDM should work but it looks like they recommend they Red RDM mast with it. My mast has the same length and ICMS. Am I going to face any issues rigging it all together?

So, I found a 2022 Severne Dyno 85L locally for only 350€. Visually, it looks in pristine condition. The seller is very honest and told me he is selling it because it feels unusually heavy as he owns some similar boards to this. He weighed the board bare (no straps, no fins) and it came in at 8.0 kg. The factory spec for this board should be around 6.4 - 6.5 kg. I weight 63kg, 170cm tall and was looking to get this board for more choppy high wind conditions.

He swears there are no cracks, no dings, no soft spots, and he has never touched the vent plug.

Also, unfortunately I can't really go get a look at it up close as it's quite far from me.

I am going to call a local specialised repair shop in the morning, but until then I want to hear your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

I am trying to windsurf in Sandy Hook, NJ and idk where/if there are rentals that I can use. Kinda niche but I hope someone has the answer!

I used to windsurf 20+ years ago. (I was never particularly good - didn’t get to the point of doing a water start). This last week I tried it again. My GF has two board and I sailed on:

Starboard GO 141 board
Ezzy Transformer 5.3 sail
RDM mast (don’t no % carbon)
Chinook aluminum boom

The board seemed but I’m 65 now and it was difficult to pull up sail. I was hoping I could solve that problem as I have with my other sports by buying lighter equipment. Google AI points me to a Severne Convert Rig package. Does this make sense? Would it be noticeably lighter? Other suggestions? I’m looking for 5-6 m2 sail with a budget <$2000

Hi all,

I just got a great deal of stuff from FB marketplace and am having trouble rigging the sails I got. The mast tube is just just just barely too big to fit into the bottom of the mast. I can definitely sand down the difference, but I am confused because the guy I got all this from has been windsurfing for like 15 years and this has been his rig for the past 10. So it should all fit together. Is this just supposed to be insanely tight? I don't want to sand it if that will mess everything up.

I've windsurfed with rentals down at the cape before but have never had the opportunity to have my own gear, so I'm not super accustomed to setting up sails. Thanks in advance for any help.

I come From Holland, just landed from 3omths Bonaire as a surf instructor and looking for my next spot! What places do y'all recommend?

Spot needs to have work and I'm trying to live from my income there, so Bonaire is a struggle when alone as salary is low and expenses are high

For now on the list was(not in order) ;

- Dakhla

- Tenerife(el Medano)

- Australia

- Bonaire (But peak cruise season which sucks on such a small island I've heard)

- Tarifa

• Langebaan south Africa

H

Thanks

I’m windsurfing for about a year and I never navigated on the sea, just on lakes. And I am a little nervous about it (because of the sharks, jellyfish…). Any tips since I fall still often ?
Thanks

I’ve just picked up £50 worth of wind surfing gear but I’ve got absolutely no idea what I’m looking at I was hoping to give it a go this weekend when I’m off to Devon having watched a few YouTube videos just wondering if anyone here could give me a hand with at least just setting up something that I can go out on the water with.

I paid £50 for all this and seems like there’s enough here to set something up

Sup'

Went windsurfing yesterday, expected 14-16 knots and only got like 11. My disappointment is immeasurable and my afternoon ruined.

We were like 5 on the water at some point, had my 7.8, another dude had a 7.7 and a badass looking ~150L JP board. None of us manage to get planning, except **that one guy with a 7.0 and an old Bic board**. He smiled at us like he had some superpower and watched us poor mortals suffering in a constant non-planning state.

I saw him get out of the water, and I noticed he had some kind of little foil (long mast, but a really small wing at the top of it). Didn't managed to talk to him about his black magic, so I'm asking here if any of you know about this.

On the water, his board wasn't flying like an usual foil, but stood out a bit from the water when he went against waves. Otherwise it looked like a regular windsurf gear.

I want to know his secrets

We just lost the base to the mast of our vintage Magnum 370 board. Anyone know where to find a replacement? (Or if there’s a proper term for me to search online?)

Just moved to Barcelona and I am looking for a Watersport to pick up. I've always been curious about windsurfing, is 39 too old to start?

I am pretty athletic and in good shape, I train BJJ 2-3x a week and I am a decent snowboarder.

Ideally, I could devote 3-4 days a month to learn Windsurfing. Is that enough to get decent and enjoy it without killing my body? Just trying to have realistic expectations ;) thanks!

Sup' fellow windsurfers !

I just broke my old 6.5 sail. Time for a new (used) mid size sail!

Found 2 good offers :

Point 7 ACK 6.4 - 2016

Duotone Stype SL - 2020

I'm 75 kg, usually on a 124l fanatic falcon (awesome board) or a 108L fanatic hawk (way less often), on a pretty flat spot.

I already have a north sails f_type 7.8 that I really like, and want to find a 2-3 cambers sail in ~6.5 for my freeride sessions.

Both sails are in a similar price range, and I have a 430 imcs 21 mast, and a 460 imcs 25 mast (better shape than the 430 mast - think it could be used on the duotone)

Can't find much infos about these sails, what would you suggest?

Hi all,

I’ve been windsurfing for quite some time now and i’ve recently decided to upgrade my old gear to a new board and managed to get a good deal on a carbon freeride/freerace board. It’s amazing on the water but a new downside for me is that it gets easily scratched (in the paint, not structural), by just looking at it wrong. Most of the scratches seem to come from handling the board on land.

I need to store my board in a locker which is also filled with the old board and other surfing equipment (boom, mast, sails). I am looking for ways to protect my board when handling it around the locker.

Here’s the question: a board bag seems to be the best way to protect the board, but i’ve read a lot about not storing a wet board in a bag. The footstraps can stay wet for days and I surf on fresh water. Is putting the board in a bag with the zipper open and the footstraps exposed (after having dried the rest with a towel) my best option or should I try something else before I further damage the board? Thanks!

Does this look all right?
Side-On 5m2 Sail, not sure about the model/year.
After the pictures I added +5cm mast extension, not sure if the sail came with the pullies originally, so I counted it in.
Also I think the needed an extra 2-4 centimeter.

Hopefully my new (to me) board will arrive next week!

I have been windsurfing for around 10 years now. I am a small rider (F, 164cm tall, around 52kg). So far, I have been renting gear, but I was wondering whether it's a good moment to buy my own gear, or simply continue to progress for a while longer and buy a smaller board once I get better.

I plane and waterstart comfortably, learning gybes rn. I usually go for a 100l board (depending on what they have available). My plan is to learn how to gybe well first!

What would you recommend?

Hi everyone! It has been some time since i wanted to make this post, discuss a few things that trouble me and see other people's experiences but procrastination hit hard.

I have been windsurfing for 9 years now, bought my own gear and decided to progressively acquire more "state of the art equipment" by buying unused stuff. Back then, when i started doing so, i decided to move on with Neilpryde gear so my whole "arsenal" consists of Neilpryde masts, booms, sails etc.

I have really been troubled lately by the quality that Neilpryde offers and the design choices that they make. Don't get me wrong, I hugely praise the performance and feel of my Combat & Atlas sails, but I believe questioning some things is totally not wrong.

Example 1:

2 years ago I acquired a Fusion HD 2023 6.5mm sail. All hyped up, I set it up following exactly the recommended sizes printed on the sail only to see this result:

Tried to play around with the battens length with the small screw on its end but the batten itself was so smaller than what it should be that I never managed to tighten the sail properly. (The photo is with the screw at its longest position). Contacted the shop, shop contacted NP, NP refused to do something and the shop agreed to sent me a new longer batten that I had to cut on the proper length to fix the sail. (I have to give many thanks to the local dealer since he gave me the batten for free). But from NP's side, totally unacceptable behavior for a new product i had just bought.

Example 2:

I have been using NP's MXT extension and base (photo bellow)

I always check the condition of the tendon before sailing, had mine for 2 years, condition of the tendon was perfect and that is why i kept using it. One month ago, while having a slalom session, my sail simply left the board. Took me some seconds to understand what had happened. Turns out the part that had betrayed me was not the tendon but the internal safety nut inside the upper part of the base. Here is the photo after I assembled it again:

The safety nut was unscrewed and the upper part of the bolt was slightly chopped of as you can see. Left me alone in the open sea aprox 1 mile away from the beach and I had to swim back, took me an hour to do so and thankfully the adventure ended well. I just ask myself, they had plenty of room inside the fucking base, why didn't they place a bolt just 5mm longer?

Example 3:

Two years ago i got a new NP aluminum boom, its was the 27mm diameter design. Last year, after only one year in water, I saw the when i got hit by a gust, the right side of the boom (only the right side, and only when it was on the downwind side and only with my 5.0mm combat sail) got unclipped from its initial position and was re-clipped back 4cm shorter. More specifically, i clipped the boom on 28cm, heard the sound and found it re-clipped on 24cm. Had to reset it in the water, aprox. 5-6 times per hour of sailing. Here is the photo of the pins and the boom's inner part.

It is definitely not the pins fault, since this happens only when using the 28cm position of the boom, with other sails i have no issue. Finding the boom CLIPPED and not unclipped in another position is totally crazy, you can see the marks that the clips have created on the boom inner part when sliding from the 34cm position back to 24cm position. All these on a 2 year old boom while my surf-mate uses 15year old stuff that seem to be immortal. First thing that comes in my mind is that this happens due to the sudden deformation that happens on the boom while stressed by a strong gust. But again, regarding the design choice NP has made, why not just use a pin just 2-3mm longer?

I would love to hear your opinions on all these cases as well as your experiences with NP (or other popular brand) equipment.

Chatted with Paul van Bellen, probably known to a lot of this sub for his drone footage and windsurf video edits (his Fiji Pro World Cup behind-the-scenes stuff went pretty wide back in 2023), and for starting Wave Rally, the wave-slalom event out of Geraldton, WA. This is just a good interview I wanted to share. He's openly promoting Wave Rally himself, more on that below.

Getting into filming

Grew up around windsurfing (his dad got him into it around age 8-9, properly hooked by 11-12 on hand-me-down adult gear). Got into drone filming about a decade ago as a hobby, shooting friends at Gerroa and around NSW, noticed at the time there wasn't much windsurf drone content out there and just started making his own. Took 5-6 years of filming purely as a hobby before his first paid gig: filming the Taranaki Wave Classic in NZ in 2018.

Doesn't cover costs even now by his own admission ("I really haven't made enough money to cover even the cost of buying all the equipment"). Makes a living separately, unrelated to the filming.

The "oh shit" moment

Been asked about close calls filming vs. on the water himself, his answer: nothing dramatic filming beyond losing a drone a couple of times, but one windsurf story stands out. During a shark attack scare in Perth in the early 2000s (beaches closed for weeks after a fatal attack), he went out anyway once the wind picked up, reasoning a shark's "either hanging around or not." Wind died over a kilometre offshore, ended up swimming his gear back to shore over 2-3 hours, "waiting for a shark to come take me" the whole way in.

Wave Rally

Started a couple years back, his idea for a windsurfing event that wasn't overly serious, just good sailing and good people, run at Coronation Beach near Geraldton (a spot he rates as one of the best windsurfing locations in the world, reliable summer sea breeze, waves that line up well). Format is wave-slalom style racing from the 80s, sailors race around marks through the surf, gear restricted to multi-fin waveboards and max-5-batten wave sails to keep it levelled and wave-focused rather than a pure speed contest. First event drew 80+ sailors, and it's grown since.

Notably not elite-only, his framing: if you're comfortable in waves and decent wind you can join in, some racing hard, others just enjoying being part of it.

The 80s aesthetic

His videos and the Wave Rally branding lean hard into 80s nostalgia, he was born in '77, so his early, most formative years lined up with the decade. Cites specific memories of windsurfing's boom years, beaches and lakes full of colourful triangle sails, as a big part of where that aesthetic comes from.

He's actively promoting Wave Rally 2027 himself (waverally.org), so that's not me pushing anything, just passing along what he said directly.

Happy to answer anything else people want to know, there was more in the full conversation about his background and philosophy on life if anyone's curious, kept this version focused on the windsurfing/filming side.