How to Windsurf Faster: My 5 Secrets for More Top Speed

Here's a disclaimer first: this is not your standard tutorial. Move your foot like that, pull your arm like that, and you're going 5 km/h faster. I want you to understand why you have to do things a certain way, and I want you to know how to go about your training.

So here are the five important areas to look at if you want to become a faster freeride, freerace or race windsurfer: training system, measuring success, physique, gear and technique. Prefer to watch? The full video is at the end of this guide, and after section 5 there's a checklist to save on your phone.

1. Training system: build higher bases

You don't have to look at yourself as a high level athlete. But regardless, it's very helpful to have a scheme or a concept that you can work with, so you're always aware of what you're doing instead of just windsurfing into the blue.

This is based on a realisation I recently had in foiling. On the fin I've been at a high level of speed for quite some time. But in foiling, the general level and also my personal level and speed are still rising.

It may seem obvious that a higher average speed also leads to a higher top speed. But let me explain why that is important for you.

Get comfortable 1 or 2 km/h faster

In order to increase your top speed, you need to build higher bases. You want to start being more comfortable at speeds that have previously been a challenge for you.

Once you get comfortable at 1 or 2 km/h more, with a bigger sail size or a new, faster board, you'll be able to approach the next peak. And this is quite literally what pushing your limit is.

Go for really long reaches

You want to go for really long reaches, because acceleration happens much faster at a lower speed and decreases when you're close to your top speed.

Long reaches also help you get more comfortable at speeds close to your personal speed limit, as opposed to just turning around after you reach your peak.

2. Measuring your speed: GPS vs a windsurf buddy

Measuring your success is more difficult than it may seem. Of course a GPS watch should be objective, but your speed depends on a lot of different factors:

• the angle you sail to the wind
• the strength of the wind
• the length of the gust
• the speed you enter the gust at
• the shape of the waves

It works to a certain extent if your spot always has more or less the same conditions. In that case an average speed over, for example, 500 m can give you a good indication.

More reliable is a windsurfing buddy you know is a consistent windsurfer. If you sail next to each other, you can be sure you enter the same gusts and chop or waves at the same time. That gets rid of a lot of the factors above, and you know whether or not you're gaining speed by changing a part of your gear or your technique.

3. Physique: windsurfing fitness for speed

When it comes to windsurfing at top speed in strong wind, we're often limited by our ability to control the gear. In lighter winds, we struggle to get it flying efficiently over the water. Both can be addressed with body tension, core strength and strong legs.

To reach the highest speed possible for the gear you're on and the conditions you're windsurfing in, you can probably not expect to be super comfortable. Anything that gets you close to the ultimate performance will require some sort of physical effort, and with that also discomfort.

So I've got some good and some bad news. The good news: you can probably train yourself to be comfortable at the same or a higher speed than the one you're uncomfortable at now. The bad news: you have to work for this a bit.

There are basically two ways of training:

1. Time on the water. Get as many hours on the water as possible and bring your body to the limit of its capabilities each time.
2. Training off the water. This one is especially important if you sometimes have several days, weeks or even months between windsurfing sessions. With longer breaks you obviously have a much harder time building new, higher bases.

The key with your workouts is to do them consistently. If you don't have any workouts in your routine yet, start with just one or two a week. With a lower entry barrier, it's much easier to keep them going.

I'm not going into the exact exercises here, because I already have a full workout video for windsurfers that you can even do at home.

4. Gear: tune your windsurf gear for speed

We could talk for hours and hours about gear: how to trim it, how to tune it and how to choose it. We all know windsurfing is not a cheap sport. So first and foremost: never get held back by feeling like you can't afford the latest generation of sail.

It's super important to remember that windsurfing, at least when you're not competing like me, is not an ego game. Focus on getting the best speed out of whatever gear you have, whether it's a 10 year old freeride board, the latest racing sail or anything in between.

Freeride, freerace or race gear

I'll mention the obvious things first. A freerace sail is faster than a freeride sail, and a race sail is faster than a freerace sail. The same goes for fins and boards. We tested that in depth when we compared the different boards and the different sails against each other. The board test is in my video I Tested Freeride vs Freerace vs Slalom Boards, the sail results are in Freeride vs Freerace vs Race Sails: I Tested All Three.

At the same time, technology evolves. Newer sails have a higher speed potential, better ease of use and bigger wind ranges than the older ones. Of course you need the skill level to use them to their full potential.

Tuning: get your trim right and balanced

So far so good. But how do you get the maximum speed out of your gear? I've made many tutorials on how to tune your gear (start with Windsurf Sail Trim: 3 Rigging Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes, the full board and sail tuning is in The Full Freeride Guide). It's just important to get the trim of your gear right and balanced. There's no simple formula like "more downhaul equals more top speed".

Here are the most important trimming and tuning tips for speed:

• Mast base. The board should fly with little resistance over the water. Is it too sticky? Move the base further back. Does your board tend to tailwalk, especially when you hit a gust? Put it further forward.
• Downhaul. The sail should release enough and let you accelerate when you enter a gust. If you feel resistance instead, you probably have too little downhaul or too big a sail.
• Fin size. If the rail of the board lifts too much once you're powered up, the fin might be too big. If the wind is light and you have to be too gentle with fin pressure, or you get spinouts easily, the fin may be too small. (How to choose one: Windsurf Fin Size.)
• Footstraps. Positions further back have more speed potential, but you need to be able to control it. Why don't you try one position further back to start with?
• Harness lines. In strong wind, your lines should be long enough to let you bring your body low enough to counter the sail pressure and apply lateral pressure on the fin. That results in better speeds. (More in Long Harness Lines.)
• Boom height. In light wind, the boom at eye level can help you lift more board area out of the water, so there's less resistance. In strong wind, the boom at chest level can help you keep the nose from rising and losing control.

The right gear size

And lastly, the right gear size. Generally speaking, to reach your highest possible speed you should be on the biggest gear size you can just keep under full control.

5. Technique for light and strong wind

And finally, probably most importantly: the technique. Most windsurfing spots don't have consistent wind, so you enter gusts and you enter wind holes. Your technique always has to adjust to the surroundings. That increases your average speed, and as we learned before, also your top speed.

When you practise these techniques, it helps to exaggerate them a bit, so you understand the posture and the benefit better.

Light wind technique

1. Sail upright, hips up. In light wind you want the sail as upright as possible. To achieve that, move your hips up, so your body makes a straighter line. The sail comes more upright, works more efficiently, and it also lets you rail your board better.
2. A little weight onto the back leg. Now get your board into a position in which it can fly over the chop. Carefully shift weight onto the back leg, and from there transfer the pressure onto the fin. Not completely though: if you push too much at a low speed, you'll end up in a spinout. (Why that happens: Windsurf Spinouts.)
3. Lift your back heel slightly. Start lifting the heel of your back foot slightly, and you'll see the windward rail start lifting.
4. Keep the leg pushing down. Now comes a moment where leg strength plays an important role, and it's often unmentioned: lifting the heel doesn't mean lifting the whole leg. So while the heel goes slightly up, your leg is still pushing down on the board.

From this position you can start playing with the pressure on your fin and with how much you lift your heel. But as soon as you enter a gust, your posture has to adapt immediately.

Strong wind technique

1. Heel pressure back on. Start applying more pressure on the heel again, because the windier it is and the faster you go, the more your windward rail wants to lift.
2. Hip low, upper body close to the boom. Your hip moves lower to leverage the increased power in your sail. Your back bulges out a bit and your upper body gets closer to the boom. That gives you more control, and this is where longer harness lines help.
3. Weight in the harness, not your arms. In strong wind we tend to get nervous and put a lot of the weight and force of the sail into our arms. Try to put as much of it as you can into the harness and away from your arms. And lock yourself in the footstraps.
4. Raise your comfortable speed again. From here it's again about raising the base speed you're comfortable at. Acceleration is fast in the beginning, but to really reach high peaks you need to keep your position and stay in control for longer reaches.
5. A little more sideways pressure. Once you're comfortable, focus on applying slightly more sideways pressure to the board. That transfers the sail power more into the fin rather than into the deck of the board, and that results in higher speed.

I can totally imagine this has been a ton of information, so take it step by step. Below are the five secrets once more, plus my go faster checklist to save on your phone for the beach. If you're stuck at a speed milestone, also read Windsurfing Top Speed: Why Most Never Hit 60 km/h.