Beach Starts

Launching your foil from a beach is jaw-dropping maneuver for onlookers, and, combined with the rock start, allows you to take off from almost any terrain. If you've been following the progression so far, the beach start is a challenging, but natural, next step.

Your First Beach Start - Launching From a Submerged Platform

The key to learning a beach start without breaking yourself or your foil is to spend $100 a 12" work platform, like this one from Gorilla Ladders.

Find a beach that descends relatively quickly and set up the platform so that the lower end is about 15 cm below the surface. Using the platform gives you extra clearance to avoid hitting the bottom.

Then follow these steps:

• Stand on the platform, holding the board beside you with your hands in the same position as the knee start.
• Take a few small shuffling steps forward to get a bit of speed. As you do, shift your hands so you can exert pressure down on the board as it starts to fly.
• When you're at the end of the platform, jump up to one knee. You can make this easier by diving the board down slightly so you don't have to jump as high, and by using your arms to help press you up. At this point you've landed on one knee and everything proceeds exactly the same as the knee start.

If it feels intimidating to jump right to your knee, try landing on your belly first. It's hard to get your weight in the right spot when you land on your belly, but it will at least give you the feeling of flying after jumping up to the foil. Also, you might want to try with a wetsuit or knee pads in case you contact the board on the way up.

Advancing Your Beach Start

You're going to want to get a lot of practice before you remove the platform. You need to learn how to precisely control the foil through the launch sequence — diving the board low enough so you can make your jump, but not so low that you hit bottom.

When you're ready to ditch the platform, find a beach with a really steep drop. The perfect spot would be 15 cm deep where you takeoff, followed by a steep drop off. Do the exact same launch that you've been practicing, adjusting how much you dive the board down, until you get it just right.

After this, you can slowly progress to shallower and shallower beach angles. Choose your launch spot based on where the beach begins its steeper drop. Ideally, the spot where you jump is about shin deep, but it doesn't always work out like that. If it's deeper than your knees it's pretty hard to make the jump.

Going for Style Points

In most beach starts you see online, the riders are jumping straight to their feet. This is impressive, definitely gets more style points, and is necessary if you're on a smaller foil without as much roll stability and glide. I used to use this method, but when it comes to the most challenging beach-start scenarios, jumping to one knee is my most trusted option.

If you've nailed the beach start, congratulations! You've just opened up a world of new launch locations on your freefoiling journey. Let's take the next step and go explore!

Other Resources

• How to Beach Start: This is a great video by Gwen that works through the beach start progression for smaller foils. It shows techniques for gaining speed in shallow water, and jumping straight to your feet. These two things aren't necessary on Beta, but for anything smaller, this is a great progression.