I've got a Mistral One Design (longboard, 7.4m dual-cambered sail) right now (which I'm going to keep for those light wind days). I've also sailed a Carve 145 with 5m-9m sails (if felt pretty "slappy" when getting into the waves). I can water start sometimes, and mostly gone in Cadboro Bay so far.

Given my 6'4" 170lb body, and my want to go faster and go out in some rougher conditions at Willows, Nitnat, etc. what do you suggest for a new set of gear, in terms of board volume/style and sail size(s)? Hoping you local experts can help me maximize my fun to $ ratio! Thanks!

welcome tangleweb. And thanks for holding down my gear today at Willows!

You are probably best to go to about at least 110-120 litre board for now, till you get your waterstarts wired. Then you'll want to add an 80-90 litre board for higher wind. For now, width and to a lesser extent volume are your friends if you have to uphaul. Nitinat summer is the best for that although with a good wetsuit/drysuit anything about 8 degrees and up is pretty bearable and Willows at 15-20 knots SE is quite a pleasant place.

CoastalBC.com ads and the classified here are great places to get used equipment. You can always ask on-line re: fair price, suitability. Almost any freeride board after about 2002 should do nicely. You probably want a 5.0 and 5.8 - ish sails to start, to fill out your light-wind stuff. Anything after about 2000 should be a modern shape, but you can get great value in used sails, and someone like Kus or the local shops can give you great deals on brand-new sails that are a couple of years ago models. Stay away from cambers while learing to waterstart. You can probably get one mast to fit both sails, though its great to have two that are right for each sail and be able to quickly change rigs (especially at Nitinat for a few days), even if you have just one boom. Booms are often best to get new as they can have hidden faults (I bought one that failed after about 2 hours). Excel watersports on Douglas has a good supply of budget aluminum booms.

Oh, and expect to get lots of conflicting advice!

tangleweb wrote:want to go faster and go out in some rougher conditions at Willows, Nitnat, etc. what do you suggest for a new set of gear, in terms of board volume/style and sail size(s)? Hoping you local experts can help me maximize my fun to $ ratio! Thanks!

Well, your fun is usually directly related to the $$ ratio unfortunately but you can get some deals for sure (and I'm a gear slut). Studying the sailing log and places sailed by various suspects that are your size and/or ability will give you some good clues
For maximizing fun you definitely have to sail in a place where you don't sail in circles so try and avoid Caddy Bay once you can sail both ways in a semi-straight line
MF4's advice is pretty bang on, at your weight even a 105L board might be a good uphaul-able unit for you, 120 is a bit much maybe for a second larger board. I don't concur on the alu booms but that's personal preference, esp if you are a lighter guy. I for one don't ever rinse my booms so they rot quickly and break the day you didn't bring a spare.....on that last run out....when everyone has left...and leaves a nice sharp edge to poke a nasty hole in your sail (or your body if you are really unlucky) if not on impact then when you've flipped the boom to limp in