DEFINITELY NOT! Many sailors worry about getting injured, but let’s be honest, even the most cringe worthy of wipeouts when blasting don’t hurt and freestyle is the same. Watching people crash doing freestyle looks an awful lot more painful than it really is. Watch the motor cross boys stacking it and that kind of puts into perspective how safe windsurfing freestyle really is. Windsurfing as a sport has a lot less injuries than any other, and that includes freestyle.

A key way of minimising the risk of injury is big footstraps. These may feel odd and less secure at first, but remember if your foot goes in with ease, it will fall out with ease. Half the time injuries come about because of too small footstraps, with big straps you land on the ball of your foot, when they are too small you are forced to land on your tip toes; not good!