My lovely wife has booked us a January vacation on a tiny atoll/island off the coast of Belize. While it is truly "paradise on Earth", I would go crazy without being able to sail for the whole week while we're there. After spending hours researching windsurf/kiter reports and weather, I'm going to go conservative and take the floaty Carve board and 7m sail. I would rather ride the wave board and a smaller sail, but it's not an overly windy spot and I need to maximize my water time to justify the $400 airline charge!

My experience with flying with gear is limited to returning from Maui with a custom board almost 30 years ago, so I'm looking for any tips and/or web links that might save me headaches. My plan is to wrap the board in bubbles, with extra on the nose/tail, and then stuff it into a board bag along with the sail, mast and booms.
We have a layover, and I assume (hope!) the airline will put my gear on the correct connecting flight.

Any info is appreciated Drew

I was also looking for answers to that topic lately, and did a 3min research online and here's what I found for Delta Airlines. Other airlines probably have their own rules... Might be different!
See the link below and click on SPORTS EQUIPMENT. Then scroll all the way down for WINDSURFING. Notice that you cannot fly that stuff on small commuters and MD80 aircrafts! Good to know! If I had to fly my stuff, I'd call an airline agent anyway to make sure they'll take what I bring to the airport.

www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/travelin...p/special-items.html

Yeah, I gave up on taking anything (except my harness) on that trip. The biggest problem was the "winter holiday" season rule where they won't carry any gear at all.

Plus it turned out that the last flying leg of our Belize trip was on a little 9 passenger single prop (with no roof rack for boards!), so I would have been screwed anyway!

Drew

In Europe it is nice to book with Transavia, costs about 40EUR per windsurfbag (40 kg)....