Sailing upwind and beating step by step: close-hauled course, sail and daggerboard trim, tacking and using a fixed point to get back to your start safely.
How do you get back upwind when windsurfing? Not directly: you zigzag close-hauled, which is called beating or sailing upwind. Depending on wind strength and gear you can get up to about 45° to the wind [1].
The honest answer on difficulty: beating is no showpiece, it is tiring, slow and takes time. It is the slowest point of sail there is [1]. But it is the skill that turns "I just drift out" into "I will definitely get back". Without it you end up walking the rig up the beach on your shoulder.
Take it seriously, because it is not a game: if you have to beat while exhausted you can get into dangerous situations, for yourself and for rescuers [1].
Where the skill sits in your learning chain: sailing upwind is the bridge between sail steering and real sailing. Only when you separate heading up from bearing away cleanly can you choose your course deliberately. The tack follows as a side change, later the gybe. If you master beating, you no longer depend on where the wind happens to push you.
Remember: beating is patience work. Better plan one leg more than end up paddling against current and wind.
Choose a point on shore you want to reach. When beating, always orient yourself with head turn and eye contact on that point [1]. If you stare at the water you lose your course.
Milestone: you hold a course for 30 seconds without the board turning on its own.
When heading up you tilt the sail back in the sail plane (towards stern and leeward), move your hands forward on the boom and shift your weight to the front foot [1][2]. Your body stays straight.
Important: the heading-up movement tempts you to sheet in too much. Then the flow stalls and the board slides sideways to windward [1]. When steering, the sail is neither sheeted in nor opened, it only moves along its line [2].
You cannot sail straight into the wind. So stop heading up before the board has turned fully into the wind [2]: sail back to normal sailing position, boom almost horizontal again, sail hand back, sail sheeted in.
At the end of your leg you tack. The tack is the real height machine: each turn gains you a few metres to windward, whereas a gybe wastes about 20 metres of height [3]. Then you continue on the other side at the same angle. That is your zigzag.
Milestone: three legs in a row and your starting point lies behind you downwind at the end.
Do not beat by feel alone, beat by landmark: sight a fixed point on shore over your sail. If it moves out of view to leeward you are drifting. If it moves to windward you are gaining height. Your eye is your best wind gauge. And tacking is easy even in gusts, because the tack turns you without losing height [3].
You zigzag close-hauled and tack at the end of each leg. Straight into the wind is not possible. Depending on wind and gear you can get up to about 45° to the wind [1].
Usually the sail is sheeted in too tight. Then the flow stalls and the board slides to windward instead of making drive. Open the sail a little, move your hands forward on the boom and only tilt the rig back [1][2].
Beat upwind first while you are fit, so that you can return more easily if you get tired or the wind picks up [1]. In offshore wind of any real strength you simply do not go out.
Yes, if you want to hold height. The tack takes you to windward, the gybe costs height, about 20 metres per gybe according to surf's technique article [3].
Clew-First Sailing in Windsurfing: Rig Turned, Clew Leading