Just outta the shower and cracked a beer after my first session on a race board. Thought I'd share some impressions while wife & baby still asleep.

Board: 2012 Cabrina LX - 188 x 69cm wide & setup in 3 fin mode. Proper race board.

First thought: How do I carry this thing? 70cm is too wide to tuck under my arm like a surfboard - and I have long gorilla arms. I could just about do it but hard on the fingers. It's about 500m to water at low tide, plenty of time to experiment with getting fin chops to the back of my knees. So tempting to grab the base of a fin as a handhold, but I'm guessing that's bad for box/fin, so I avoided that?

Anyway, self launch Zeph 17 in about 8kts and head out deep.

Spent the next 1/2 hour trying to get up and going about 20m. Finally start improving slightly and I'm still up on the 2nd powerstroke. Stall the board on the fins and try to power out of it - end up launching a huge low railey which I land ribs first. Glad I'm wearing an impact vest - first thought "I'm gonna feel that tomorrow." 2nd thought "shut idiot I can feel it hurting now".

Take a break and it's picked up a few knots - perfect. A few more starts and I manage to go about 300m and I'm learing about TOES, pressing with the toes to flatten the board. Totally different technique.

Call it a day there, feel like a total beginner again. Am a total beginner again. Fun.
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Also thanks to Doycle for the amazing packing job, foam taped round all the edges, 3 box-in-box layers, and bright orange 'fragile' & "top load only" a4 sheets meant it arrived exactly as it left.

Good one Dave , welcome to the race scene , should be a stack of race boards at Brighton today.

I was trouble with typical stuff I guess, getting the right angle downwind to start, how over the board to be (and how to get myself there), and balance. I knew in theory to ride the board flat, and more 50-50 balance between the legs than TT, but making it happen in reality was a different story!

I was also worried because although I was starting in chest deep water, going downwind would see it get shallow quickly and I didn't want to catch a fin. So I could only have one go before walking back upwind.

My fleeting impression from the couple of decent runs was that it felt like the toes are really important to balance the board.

Anyway the rib's been pretty painful, I'm hoping nothing's seriously busted, mainly because I don't wanna be off the water too long.

JB - Yeah even having it pick up to 11-12kts after the break helped a lot. If I was good on the board I could probably have made 8-9 work, but it was far from ideal for a 1st session.

Thanks Matty. I might start using the fin as a handhold, would make life much easier. I was also sounding out the missus about her sewing me a simple sling, something I can hook round base of board and up over my shoulders. Or maybe from 1 footstrap to other with a velcro loop at either end. Something tiny I can tuck into a pocket while kiting. Dead Low tide at brighton is a long walk to the water.

I won't take the TT out again till I've mastered the race board.

Been chowing ibuprofen all day the the rib is feeling almost normal - might be out next weekend after all

Rattlehead - I'm time poor (due to baby) and lazy, so I mostly go straight out from 16th ave at low tide. It feels like a waste of time to drag my gear up to 19th ave, and feels silly to load the car and drive 2 1/2 blocks. But I'll make more of an effort to be sociable soon