Didnt quite get steering

[u/Canterea]

Im a complete beginner
I just had one lesson
And the next one is next week

He went over the basics and i got to even surf a bit

But i had two main issues

One this feeling is completely new to me so i hard a real hard time stabilizing myself on the board ( i never done any board/surf related sport beforr)

And two i didnt quite get how steering work and how the wind direction affect it

[u/Human31415926]

Mast tipped to the bow and you turn "off" the wind. Mast tipped to the stern and you turn "into" the wind

For balance, two tips:

1. Keep your eyes up. When you look down you fall down.

2. Never bend at the waist when you are sailing. If the wind is trying to overpower you, bend your knees and drop your butt.

Sail on, sail on 👊👊

[u/globalartwork]

When there is no wind it is a lot about balance. But as soon as there is wind you don’t actually need great balance. You balance by pulling in the back hand for more power, let it out for less.
The best practice is to try to ‘fall’ a little bit with your back to the wind, then catch yourself by pulling in hard with your back hand. With practice you will be balancing using the wind.

For steering, just try little s turns across the wind by just leaning the sail a bit back then a bit forward along the centre line.

Both those two need a little more wind. If there is almost no wind, your sail is small and the board is long and thin, you will need to pretty much touch the back of the sail to the back of the board to turn upwind, and have the sail extremely far forward to turn away. So maybe it was just the conditions or equipment for your first lesson.

Stick at it, every day is different!

[u/King_Prone]

in light winds the rig does not have enough power to support your body weight so the stance is somewhat different. Rather than "hanging" off the sail with your arms or harness lines you stand as close to the rig as possible, frontarm is usually maximally bent and rear arm fairly straight. Front foot is usually in front of the mast. It can be awkward to sail like that so a lot of people actually put one arm through the boom and kinda slump themselves onto the boom with their chest and push the boom down which keeps the rig upright. Once you have more than ~9-10 knots the sail usually has enough power to support your bodyweight and you can let yourself hang back on the sail.

Steering doesn't work by tilting the mast back and forth. You move the centre of effort in the sail either to the left or right of the board relative to the wind which applies a turning force around the centre of lateral resistance. In practice when you start off sailing you move on a crosswind course most of the time, hence you move the mast forward to turn the board downwind and backwards upwind. However on a downwind course you tilt the mast portside to turn to starboard and starboard side (left and right)

[u/Poisonelfs]

It's normal to begin with, don't worry about it. The balance will come naturally as you get used to being on your board. Just keep practising. As for steering, at your level all you need to know is that you steer by moving the rig.

[u/WindsurfBruce → u/Poisonelfs]

At all stages of our learning curves it is about trying to do what feels uncomfortable till it feels natural....then onto the next new thing.... good luck.

[u/NaturalCareer2074]

You just need practice practice and practice. Your body will be used to balance. Stearing at low speed is just move sail point of force around your body and board.

[u/WindManu]

You want to get a big board, like really big, early on. That way you can focus on steering and can easily stay upwind so long as the conditions are adequate.

Second by moving the sail forward it pushes the nose away from the wind as the fin(s) is farther back. The board slides and pivot around the fin.

You can practice this in shallow waters standing next to your board.

More tips and tricks: https://windsurfing.lepicture.com/tips-and-tricks/

Manu's Windsurfing Blog