Windsurfing Top Speed: Why Most Never Hit 60 km/h

40, 50, 60 or 70 km/h: whatever your next speed milestone is, in this guide I go one by one through the reasons why you just can't seem to pass it. I also asked more than 2,000 windsurfers which speed they're struggling to hit, so by the end you'll know exactly where you stand.

This is not your standard tutorial on where to place your hand or your foot to squeeze out a little more speed. We have a lot of those already (start with 5 secrets to windsurf faster), and more will come. This is an in-depth breakdown of why you're not progressing as fast as you'd like to, why you're not reaching the next milestone yet, and if you will ever reach it. A realistic one. No sugarcoating, I promise.

Why you hit a speed plateau in windsurfing

We need little successes along the way that we can celebrate and that keep us motivated. Top speed is one of the most common goals in windsurfing, whether it's to beat your buddy on the straight line or to hit the next milestone. And measuring your speed with GPS is just so straightforward. It's black and white: you have the numbers on your phone or your watch, and there's nothing to discuss.

But what if you seem to hit a wall? No matter what you do, it just doesn't get faster. It's like you're tied to an elastic band that holds you back: you run as hard as you can, but you don't get further than a certain point.

First, let me tell you: this is absolutely normal, and you're not the only one. Everyone hits plateaus, at different levels and with different intensities. At the beginning of your learning curve you make faster progress, and the plateaus are fewer and shorter. The more you advance, the more annoying they seem to become, and the smaller your steps get.

So when we speak about speed on the water, adjust your milestones accordingly. When I reach 30 km/h, my next milestone should be 40 km/h. But when I reach 50 km/h, my next milestone should be more like 55 km/h. It's simply a mental exercise to keep yourself motivated and your goals realistic, one of those things sport can teach you about life.

50 or 60 km/h are the milestones that seem impossible to a lot of windsurfers. There are a number of possible reasons, so let's go through them together and find out what's blocking you from your next one:

1. Your discipline, the kind of windsurfing you do
2. Your time investment
3. Your personal barrier
4. Your equipment
5. Your physique

1. Your discipline: is speed really your goal?

These are the first questions to ask yourself: where are you in your windsurfing career, and where do you want to go? Is speed really your goal?

If you're just coming from your first windsurfing course, or you've only been in the sport for a short time, the options are wide open. You can go into wave riding, freestyle or windfoiling, or perhaps your goal is simply to cruise around without any ambition. From my experience working with windsurfers of every level around the world, some sort of ambition will come in time.

If that ambition is speed, you'll progress from beginner gear to freeride gear to freerace gear, and perhaps eventually to race gear. If you're a fast learner, you might skip a step in between.

Or maybe going fast is just a side quest for you, and normally you prefer to play in the waves or just cruise around hassle-free. In that case your determination to hit higher speeds will obviously be lower, you'll progress slower, and you won't be very motivated to upgrade to faster equipment. If you're moving from freewave or wave sailing to the faster side of windsurfing, you'll probably go straight to a slalom board.

But whatever gear you're on, it should never hold you back from your next milestone. Even on a beginner board, or on a wave board blasting down the swell, you can keep improving your speed technique. More about that in the equipment section.

Just know this: the more skilled you are, and the more you're already getting out of your circumstances (your spot's conditions, gusty wind, big waves or slow equipment), the slower your progress will become. At some point, they will limit your progress.

2. Time investment: are your expectations realistic?

Let's say you do want to get faster. Apart from what your spot looks like and what gear you ride, ask yourself: how much time am I putting into that next milestone? And are my expectations realistic?

Realistic expectations are one of my best personal motivators. I hate to be behind my expectations, but when I assess the situation right, I can't disappoint myself.

If you only get to train on the water twice a year on vacation, most of the time you're busy getting back to your level from the last vacation. If you're lucky, you'll have a few days to build on that and improve your personal best. But what if, on exactly those days, the conditions aren't great for top speeds? Then you feel demotivated, because the next milestone was simply not realistic in the first place, or you've just been unlucky with the conditions.

Once your next milestone becomes 50 or 60 km/h, in most cases you need to invest more time, and your gaps without windsurfing should get shorter. Be honest about how often you sail: twice a year and you'll struggle past 40 km/h, monthly sessions can reach 60, and consistent weekly sailing targets 70+. You don't need to live at a windy spot to improve. You just need to stay connected to your windsurf gear as much as possible.

How to invest your time best

Of course, nothing beats time on the water to improve your skills. Repetition is the best way to practise and improve your technique. But analysing plays a crucial role too. On my windsurfing trips, video analysis is the number one contributing factor to improvement. Seeing what your stance looks like, ideally with someone who knows giving you the right pointers, is just priceless.

So compare your technique with the better riders, watch tutorials, and have a clear idea of what you want to practise on the water. Especially when you can't sail that often, it's crucial to use your time off the water smartly. Between a well-trimmed and a not so well-trimmed sail you can easily find 10 km/h. (Start with Windsurf Sail Trim: 3 Rigging Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes.)

So when you're working towards your milestone, the extra half an hour you come early to the spot, or the time you invest between sessions when the wind drops, is definitely time well spent.

Ask yourself: are you investing enough time into improving your equipment and your technique? If the answer is yes, perhaps the reason you're not hitting the next milestone is your personal barrier.

3. Your personal speed barrier: fear

So let's assume you have your discipline and your time investment figured out. You spend the time on the water, but when the gust that should take you to your next milestone hits, you just can't commit to sheeting in. Let's say it how it is: you know more or less what to do, but you're simply scared.

That's nothing to feel bad about, because we've all been there. Different people have that barrier at different points, but we all have it, and we have it for a good reason. It's a natural instinct that's supposed to keep us from risking our life.

The thing is, your body reacts before your conscious brain does. You start sheeting in, the board lifts, and your senses get overloaded: wind noise, spray, the board hitting the chop faster. Your instincts abort the mission. You might not even notice it, but you automatically open the sail a little or release some pressure from the fin. Those little micro hesitations are where your barrier starts.

How to break the cycle

The goal isn't to get rid of the fear, it's to retrain it. You have to teach your brain that this new speed is still safe, and that you're still in control. By going 1 or 2 km/h over your comfort zone, you reset your comfort zone.

It's like learning to jump higher or to jibe in more wind: you don't force it, you stretch your comfort zone gradually. And you learn that those new, higher speeds actually aren't that scary, and that you can control them.

This happens at every level, from your first steps on the board all the way up to what I do: windsurfing in rough conditions, or competitions with dangerous situations. So yes, fear is real, and that's okay, because it means you're on the edge of your limits. And progress only happens on that exact edge.

Every time you push through that little voice that says "maybe not this time", you move that barrier a tiny bit further out.

4. Equipment: how fast can your windsurf gear go?

Now we come to the point that's the easiest to use as an excuse when things don't move forward. There's a huge variety of equipment, and it's hard to find the right match.

In the beginning we already spoke about the gear for the different disciplines. There may come a point where you're close to what your equipment allows. I know you always want exact examples and numbers, but it all depends so much on a lot of variables: the specific board and sail, the conditions, your weight. Anyway, here are some examples:

• Pure wave equipment with a thruster or quad setup: if you can hit 55 km/h, you have a really good top speed. As soon as you put a longer single fin in, you'll get closer to 60 km/h.
• A pure freeride setup, around 120 L with a 7 m² sail: you're a very fast sailor when you reach 65 km/h.
• A freerace board with a freerace or even a race sail: you can reach speeds of 70 km/h.

All of those are rough numbers, and as I said, they can vary with different factors. They also depend on being well powered up on a decent flat water spot. As soon as chop comes in, the possible top speed can drop heavily: easily by 5 km/h, or even more in heavy chop. So be realistic about what you can achieve with the gear you have.

Before you buy new, optimise what you've got: trim, the right fin, mast-foot position. A performance fin is an easy speed upgrade in a freeride, freerace or even race board, and cheaper than a new board or sail. For boards and sails, we've compared freeride, freerace and race equipment in depth (for the sails: Freeride vs Freerace vs Race Sails). Every upgrade takes some adjusting and getting used to, but then it gets you a few extra km/h.

How to windsurf faster on the setup you have

So the choice of equipment is another super important factor. You need a setup that takes you to the edge of where you can still comfortably push the fin and get the board freely gliding over the water. How free you can get the board is, of course, relative to your level.

Now it gets a little bit technical. From other technique tutorials we know we want the least possible resistance in the water:

1. Reduce the wetted surface by pushing the board on the right angle.
2. Keep the pressure on the fin strong and steady.

I see a lot of videos of people railing the board super nicely. It looks like they're going extremely fast, but in reality they barely get past 60 or 70 km/h. That happens when you just focus on railing the board and don't apply enough pressure to the fin. A lot of pressure on the fin is exactly what makes you move forward.

So you need enough power in your equipment to rail the board steadily, but not so much that it makes you release pressure from the fin when the gust hits. If you need to release pressure from the fin to keep the board steadily on the rail, your equipment probably has too much power. (More on riding overpowered in Windsurfing in Strong Wind: 9 Ways to Stay in Control.) Sail size, board size and fin size all relate to each other. I summarised that equation in my windsurf fin size guide.

There's one more way to get more pressure on your fin, and that's your physique.

5. Weight and physique: does it matter for speed?

If you've been in the windsurfing scene for a while, you've heard the phrase "fat is fast" before. And that's true, to some extent. When you're lighter, you have an advantage to get planing. But overall it's probably not too good to be fat. It's also important how your weight is distributed.

When the wind gets strong, more weight helps you apply more pressure to the fin and control your gear better. Sometimes a bit less weight can be an advantage too: you can switch to smaller gear sooner, which can give you an edge over your friends on the water. But purely looking at the GPS, when it's windy enough for your weight and your gear setup, more weight will get you more speed.

That's why speed sailors wear weight vests. For safety and health reasons I don't recommend that to you, unless of course you're going for the world record.

So your weight could be a very limiting factor for your speed. I know several very good windsurfers with great technique and good equipment who are pretty much within the last few percent of the potential their weight allows.

It seems a bit unfair, but I told you at the beginning that we'd be realistic. Working on the beer belly will certainly help, at least as long as you stay mobile, but it will harm you a lot in the jibes and in early planing. Putting on some muscle weight is much more effective: with high body tension you improve your performance in light wind while also improving your speed potential. Basically, your wind range gets better.

So hypertrophy and core muscle training is what I find the most effective way to work on your speed potential in the long term. And of course, that comes with a few other benefits in your life off the water.

The poll: which speed do windsurfers struggle to hit?

Remember the poll from the beginning? More than 2,000 windsurfers answered it on my Instagram: 17% struggle to hit 40 km/h or less, 30% have 50 km/h as their next milestone, 32% are working on the 60 km/h mark, and only 21% are already working on 70 km/h and more.

Your top speed checklist

There you have it: a full breakdown of what could be holding you back from your next milestone. Save this checklist on your phone, then work through the five barriers step by step below.