How To Hail Mary

Here’s how Caesar does his trademark move, the Hail Mary, which is named after the long through in American Football. The Hail Mary is ‘a very long forward pass made in desperation’ in American football…apparently…I only know because I just googled it! 🙂

This trick isn’t the best one to start with, but looks incredible and is a lot of fun to do – something to work towards. The best conditions for the Hail Mary is nice, flat water and between 11 and 15 knots of wind.

• You start off releasing the UJ, taking your sail apart from your board.
• Turn the sail upside down and head into wind to raise the sail into the starting position, so you are ready to throw it.
• With the sail in the air above your head, upside down and into the wind, you go into a tack.
• Head into your new direction, 180º from where you were going and slowly start to rotate the mast towards the nose of the board.
• Continue this rotation by lifting the sail back up into the wind.
• Don’t forget about stepping around the board, with the sail.
• At the start of the move you have one hand on the mast, and one hand on the leech of the sail, with the mast tip on the deck, now is the point when you lift the sail above your head and hold onto the bottom of the sail, ready to throw.
• As the sail rotates around, three quarters of the way back to the starting position you release and throw the sail upwards – it is at an angle of 45º into the wind and 45º ↑.(don’t get this last bit….but then I’ve always been a crap windsurfer….review it and see if you are comfortable with it)
• Never take your eyes off the sail or you might get hurt…and always do this far from everyone!
• With a little luck you might catch it too…