During our last time in Nelson sailing with the crew, we found ourselves tied up in lots of questions regarding gear and tuning. As there is only so much you can answer on the beach or people haven’t got the specific gear with them they have a rigging question about, we decided to offer a more formal Q ‘n A session. A rainy windless Saturday morning offered itself to it. Tim from Nelson Yacht Club was happy to be on board and support with knowledge, coffee and last but not least a dry venue.

Despite organising the event only at very short notice (you don’t want to sacrifice a windy day to only talk about windsurfing), we had a good crew of about a dozen people turn up. Several sails were rigged, from freeride to full blown race sails.

By tweaking outhaul and downhaul tension, we could put a few people at ease who were worried that their sails might be faulty because they didn’t look quite right when being rigged or cambers didn’t rotate. We answered questions around batten tension, harness line length and position, which mast for which sail and plenty more. One and a half hours later, everyone had a good idea how they could improve the performance of their gear and what might have caused some issues. It was a great event, nice getting to meet so many new people and loved being able to help.

As a bonus, there was wind the next day and the improvements were directly put into practice!