North Dockstarter | Your Shortcut to Quick and Easy Dockstarting

The North Dockstarter is quite a unique product that we haven't seen before, but now it's an indispensable part of our foil pumping toolkit. It's an inflatable foil launching device that you can use with a dock, boat, or whatever else you can strap it to. It holds your board above the water with the foil in the water so that you can run up, jump on your board, take off gliding and start pumping.

What Is The Dockstarter?

If you've tried dockstarting before, you know that it can be very challenging, especially if your dock setup isn't ideal or you don't have someone to hold your board for you while you run up on it. There have been some attempts at creating devices to help with this, but North's Dockstarter is really clever in its use of inflatable paddleboard technology to create a soft, safe, lightweight, and easy-to-deploy method of launching your board from a dock. It makes dockstarting so much more accessible, especially if you don't have a high level of expertise yet or aren't as athletic.

Dockstarter Setup

The Dockstarter pumps up into a flat structure that you then bend into shape. We've got detailed instructions on how to do that here. One of its best features are the straps that you can use to get your board set at just the right angle. When you're running up with your board in hand, one of the most challenging things is setting it in the water at the best angle, and this is going to be a little different every time, too. The Dockstarter lets you get that angle dialed in, and then it'll be the same every time.

If you've got the nose of your board pointing too far up, then it's going to stall or even breach as soon as you jump on and start gliding. If it's pointing too far down, then you'll either slide off the board and into the water in a rather comical fashion, or you'll immediately lose mast height and you won't have any space to start pumping since your board will already be on the water's surface. We found that the ideal setting for the board was either level or with the nose pointed slightly downward. This helps you gain speed while still giving you enough time to glide away cleanly and begin pumping.

Dockstarter Benefits

It'll still take plenty of practice to become more consistent in your dockstarts, but being able to run up and focus on your foot placement is a huge help. Perhaps most importantly, it's so much safer. Many docks have pillars that can get in the way when you need to run up with your board in hand, and then it's easier to fall once you get to the water with so many variables and things to focus on. You could fall on your board, the foil, or even back onto the dock. The Dockstarter makes it easy to get away from the surface you're jumping from so that if you fall, you're more likely to fall into clear water and not something hard. If you manage to fall back onto the Dockstarter, it's much less likely to hurt.

The Dockstarter also provides a nice buffer between your foil and the surface you're jumping from. It's pretty easy to knock your board or foil against the dock or boat when you're hand-holding it, but the Dockstarter will make that almost impossible. The Dockstarter is a bit of an investment, but we've found that it pays for itself pretty quickly in protecting your body and gear, and in the time you'll save by progressing that much faster.

But Is It Fun?

The MAC crew got together for a few sessions with it, and we really had a blast. Everyone had a decent amount of success dockstarting within 10 to 20 tries, and around 50 tries most were getting consistent rides. Now, these are athletic people with some foiling experience, so set your expectations for yourself accordingly. If you're new, you'll need to give yourself more time to learn, but that learning curve will still be shortened dramatically over trying to run up with the board. Arguably, new foilers will see the most time savings from using the Dockstarter.

Tucker has quite a bit of foil experience from winging, but dockstarting is an entirely different animal, and he really struggled with it in the past. The Dockstarter made it so much more fun and allowed him to progress significantly. He and Pat even took it to a public dock and had a lot of fun. They tried it in different places, and even when they couldn't strap it to the structure, it worked fine as long as there wasn't so much wind or current that it floated away before they could run up on it, so it's quite versatile.

Summary

It packs down into a small space, so it's easy to store and transport. It's small enough that it'll even fit in a lot of vehicles inflated. (Just be careful not to leave it in a hot car when it's inflated!) It's a simple, elegant solution to the challenges and risks that come with learning to dockstart and gets you pumping that much faster. Our team had a lot of fun with it and everyone came away with stronger dockstart and pumping skills. We're excited to see how other people use the Dockstarter!

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