Hi fellow windsurfers.
I got the shock of my life last Sunday while sailing at Boggy Lake. I was picking up speed, got my front foot into the front foot strap and was about get my back foot into the rear foot-strap but unfortunately I missed the strap and got catapulted to the other-side of the board and ended up under the sail still hooked in. This has happened to me before except this time, for some reason, I couldn't unhook and even though I was only under water for A FEW SECONDS, I was out of breath (I can hold my breath for about 30 seconds...I'm a mild asthmatic ), I guess the impact must have some effect in dramatically reducing the non breathing time. I could not hold my breath any longer and thought I was going to die because of the overwhelming need to inhale. By some miracle however, I actually exhaled because I saw bubbles emerge. Then the next thing I knew I was free from the harness line and frantically swimming in any direction to get away from under the sail. When I surfaced I breathed like never before!

I would be grateful to hear any suggestions on methods / techniques on how to prepare /survive such a situation. About the best reference Ive found so far is this one:

howtowindsurf101.com/being-trapped-under-the-sail-is-harmless/, but I will be doing some trials to test its validity.

Thanks