Waterstarts

Uphauling and waterstarting are easy once you learn to manouvre your rig the right way. Both can be tiring, so it is worth for you to improve uphauling as well. You need to learn beach starting before waterstarting. I don't say anything else because soon you will be flooded by tips, but if you are impatient you can search previous threads. good luck !

Second season is when the water starts happen.
When you first try them you have no technique at all and rely on brute force for the wind to drag you up out of the water and onto the board,
so pick a windy day to try them.
After getting the hang of it on windy days then you can quickly refine the process for not so windy days.
Eventually, by refining the technique, you can get them to work in very light wind.
They are actually harder to do on a big board in light wind because you can't sink the tail of the board to climb up on it.

I always found uphauls to be murder on my back so the sooner you get water starts happenning the easier it will be.

I got myself a buoyancy vest and a thing called a "water starter" which is basically a floaty for the clew end of the boom; it helps to keep the back of the sail from sinking. Both of these help you to get the tip of the sail flying.

Moving your back hand further along the boom to get more leverage and +1 to doing beach starts first all helped me get my first water starts.

I disagree with the lifting the tip thing, it is too tiring due to treading water hard and lifting for some time. Learn to waterstart with that technique and in light to moderate winds and you'lll be stuffed in 2mins. Also you only nee dot move a little bit laterally and the wind will come from the leech side and work against you.

Far better (IMHO) is:
-do it when almost overpowered (so at the point of being lifted out of the water you have little choice in it lol)
-mast across wind, nose of board into the wind
-lift boom head a little and frog kick backwards HARD into the wind.... once or twice will do it and the rig will be flying 30cm above the water all by itself. That has taken 2sec, not 20sec of kicking hard and working ur way down the mast only to have some chop break over the mast tip when u r halfway (and push u underwater again).

Then hold boom and use the power in the sail to push the nose of the board downwind.... the sail is supporting ur weight and driving the nose downwind into the broad reach position that you want. (Beach starting will assist with this rig steering technique)

Thereafter, it is the same.

Tip - not having a 100cm wide board helps too, width can make it harder to get your leg over.

dedicate an entire afternoon to it.
I did this in my first season and that's all it took.
Get a few tips from the crew at your local, start out in waste deep water and just keep doing it. no more uphauling.
Practice rig flipping and positioning too. the windier it is the closer to the breeze you can water start.
If you start to square you'll be pulled off balance as soon as your up.

lots of great tips that all will work on whatever part of waterstarts are your problem.

I would suggest you take them all on board and start at the beach start then each successful beach start you simply go a step deeper.

when you get waist deep and are starting everything will be falling into place.

of course you could just go straight to the full planing jibe from the shallow beach start and cure all your problems. And stay dry.

I spent a lot of time standing in waist to chest deep water just flying the sail and orienting the board, just getting the feel of what was happening, you can steer the board by pushing and pulling with different hands, then I got both feet on the board and got dragged around while flying the sail, learning to sail around like that with my body in the water and both feet on the board. finally I learned to get the sail to pull me upright.
The point being there is a lot a lot more to it than just having the sail pull you upright and all that is best learned fooling around in shallow water to keep from getting exhausted.
You will need to force yourself to stop sailing for a bit to practice every session, it's not as fun as sailing but once you dedicate yourself to learning it you will soon have it nailed like it was no big deal Then you'll have to learn how to do it going the other direction

Just dedicate 1 whole session to it and you'll work it out quickly but you will continue to refine it for a few more seasons. Helps if you can do it somewhere where you can stand in chest deep water. My tip would be to sheet out rapidly to dump the power when you get lifted upright, Failing to sheet out will just see you overpowered and catapulted into the drink on the opposite side of the board.....Which results in more swimming.

I think a lot of fellow watermen& women had this problem with waterstarts when we all first started but if you dont get it sooner or later it could make progressing further or even save your life l remember when l started which was in open ocean (pinnaroo pt).l just keeped practiceing every time l went out until l nailed it. Trust me you feel better & gain a lot more convenience. So get out there & practice in deep& shallow water until you get it down to a fine art & enjoy this gr8 sport.

As an old fart ( 10yrs older than Jungleman ) who rarely pulls off a gibe, my advice is not to expect the wind to do all the work.Do not expect to lay on your back, get some wind under the sail and be pulled onto the board by the wind. I like to fly the sail first then bring the board to the right position by back hand or back foot. Sheet in with the back hand this will start the mast in an upward direction and at the same time stand up on the back foot, (which is in front of the back foot straps as close to the center of the board as you can reach) pushing with your front hand as well. Bring the front foot up to in front of the front foot straps as you pop out of the water. Keep in mind to keep sheeted in to bear away slightly, depending how strong the wind is as you will find you will round up into the wind. (By standing up on the back foot, I mean a bit like doing step ups, put a foot on the step reach for the sky and put the other foot on top of the step).
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was rounding up into the wind in strong winds.
I no longer even sail with an up haul rope, but then again, I do not go out unless it is 15kt +. (Small board, small sails).
Hope you achieve your goal of water starting by the end this summer as I have set my self the goal of achieving at least 80% of my gibes.

There's so much good stuff here, I only have a small tip to offer.

I find one of the main problems people have when first learning, is pushing on the board with their back foot and pulling down on the boom. This is the natural way to get to your feet on dry land if somebody offers you a hand up.
But when water starting you have to do the exact opposite, throw the sail in the air and pull the board in under your bum, with your back foot.

Unless it's very windy, I start with only my back foot on the board, the front foot kicks to, 1 lessen down wind drift, that robs you of wind strength, and 2, helps lift your body out of the water.
Unlike most people I put my back foot in the back strap, this gives you much more control of the board, you can really tug it towards you and under your bum.
But if the wind is light once I'm up I have to move the back foot further forward, I always recommend people try this method, but most don't get on with it for some reason or another.

And it's certainly possible to learn water starting in your first season, (the tips on practising rig steering of the board are a good start). I've seen young keen surfers learn without going through the uphaul stage. And they're gybing and wave riding in the first season, it's a quicker method when possible.

I always have the board across the wind..and even grab the back footstrap and pull it into place ( being at the back and upwind with the sail in the air fornt hand on the mast and back to grab the strap. Or use my leg to nudge the fin to push it around ( not a good habit as I always have bruises on my thigh after sailing .
Why do people start with the board facing into the wind? If he is using a big 150ltre board it will be a job to manoeuvre it with the sail.Why not get it into possy before he gets pulled up?
As you get better you can get into both straps and hook in as you come up when you are really overpowered ( my survival trick). That way I am locked in ready to go and don't have to worry about finding straps , hooking in etc when flying along bouncing in chop - or have the strength to hold on until I hook in.Have to be careful to keep the rig back so you don't get catapulted but easy enough to learn.

my poor gybing has made me the best water starter in Australia.