How to Avoid Nose Damage?

[Lowesdown]

Any tips on how to avoid nose damage from catapults? Working on a repair right now, and would love to not have to do a ton more

[Alton]

[jtorva]

You could use a deviator.

http://www.bigwinds.com/chinook-windsur ... y-deviator

Jordan

[AdrienGrelon]

Sheet in and commit to the catapult! That'll have your mast missing the nose, and it's good practice for forward loops

[BigD]

Always keep your front hand on the boom, only let go with the back hand. That should de power the sail and keep it from loading up and smacking the nose.

[Bryanl]

I have a few Boards with delicate noses.
I put an old fashioned mast boot protector on my mast under the boom.
I also use a boombra but with new boards the boom clears the nose of the board so the mast hits the nose.
Seems to work - no damaged noses since I started doing it a few years ago.
Modern sails have a built in mast base protector so there are lots around.

[Ryan]

When I first started to get back into windsurfing 14 years ago I bashed a few noses and considered pads and deviators but someone in the gorge told me that I should just learn to sail properly. I took this advice and now go years between minor nose bashes.

The root cause of nose bashes could be the following:
-Sailing with too big a sail.
-Sailing in too much wind without having the muscle memory to sheet out in a millisecond as a surprise gust comes.
-Compensating for a lack of the above sail control by leaning towards the tail of the board on your back foot, then when your weight is not enough getting flung violently forward.
-Sailing with your harness lines in the wrong place.

Learn to sail really well with a smaller sail, learn to be efficient, learn to sail on either the front or the back foot while keeping gusts under control. Try some drills where you control gusts while balancing mostly on your front foot. This will also get you planing faster. Once you can do that then try bigger sails.

[spinmaster3000]

This!

Sheet in and commit to the catapult! That'll have your mast missing the nose, and it's good practice for forward loops

[LeopardSkin]

Training wheels:

http://www.unifiber.net/2015/gear/acces ... ard-guard/

[gabrielb]

decided to go for the rugby helmet for my limited sailing when nobody's around...

https://www.amazon.ca/competition-rugby ... gby+helmet



under the hooded wetsuit you guys may want to try this ...

https://www.amazon.ca/2nd-Skull-Protect ... =2nd+skull