The thrust of last month’s offering was to get into
carve gybing via the painless route of adapting
a non-planing gybe with the basic aim of
completing a dry one. There is SO much joy to be
had from making a fast (ish) turn that isn’t
sandwiched between two waterstarts. However, the
dry gybe landmark is so life-changing (no
waterstarts = more energy, less total immersion,
more warmth and less downwind drifting) that you
may be loathe to try anything different, which is
likely to set you back on the road of wet gybing.
The problem is that the techniques you discover to
survive those first gybes often reek of desperation.
Waiting for the board to stop before changing feet
and rig; doing slow shuffling, safe rig changes,
lunging forward up to mastfoot at the end to level
things off are all well practised survival tactics but
which, not surprisingly, block your path to the
famed Holy Grail – the planing exit.
My task this month is to persuade you to fall in
again and climb off that plateau before you put
down roots and start buying real estate there. It’s
not hard. Mostly, it is just about doing the basics
better and on developing a fresher, more dynamic
approach.
A FRESH APPROACH (let,s get obvious)
Say you approach a gybe at 20 knots and by the
time you sheet in on the new tack, you’re down to 2
knots, then, and I’m not trying to be daft,
somewhere along the line, you’ve lost some speed
– 18 knots to be precise. Sorting out your gybes is
about returning to scene of the crime and trying to
discover where those knots disappeared. The
common places to look are
1. During the preparation phase. Did you manage
to unhook, shift back foot and then get into a
position to carve without sending the board into a
rocking frenzy and slamming on the brakes?
2. During the carve. Are you carving too tight? Too
wide? Are you keeping the board level nose to tail
or are you dropping into the back seat, sinking the
tail and producing a load of drag? Is the rig
powering you through all phases?
3. During the transition (moving through the wind
onto the new tack). Are you levelling the board out
downwind? Are you being pulled off balance by the
outward pull of the rig? Are you failing to keep the
rig powered as it opens up AND keep the board
carving?
4. During the rig and foot change. Are you moving
the feet into the wrong places at the wrong time
with the wrong amount of finesse? Does your rig
change have the same amount of frantic hand
movements as a couple of teenage octopuses
groping each other in the back row of the cinema?
(The intimacies of the rig and foot change options
makes up the final gybing episode next month.)
One thing I can say is that it’s a rare sight to see a
gybe suddenly speed up at the end. So in your
quest to discover the truth, the beginning of the
gybe is a very good place to start because that is
where the bulk of problems have their roots. It’s also
an excuse to discuss the issue of speed in general.
SPEED AND PREPARATION
People don’t carry enough speed into the gybes for
3 main reasons.
1. They can’t unhook, move the foot and generally
prepare to gybe without putting on the brakes.
2. They can’t/won’t sail broad to the wind.
3. They can’t/won’t plane out of the harness.
GENTLE PREPARATION
Looking upwind at a practised performer entering a
gybe (so they’re hidden behind the sail), you see no
visual indicators of gybing preparations. The rig
stays still and the board continues to plane level.
The less competent gyber, meanwhile, looks as if
he’s been shot or is going for the biggest chop hop
of his life. These are the details of an artful
preparation.
Back hand down Slide the back hand back on the
boom (about 18 inches) before you unhook. So
long as you stay committed to the harness, there’s
not much to worry about. The only issue is
forgetting to do it. It sometimes helps to put a bit of
duck tape on either side of the boom where the
back should go as a memory jogger.
Moving the back hand is NOT an excuse to
sheet out.
Unhook To disengage the line, you only have to
take tension off the line for a fraction of a second.
The aim is to that without moving the rig. If you
bend the arms you upset the trim and you tend to
sheet out and then start the gybe all scrunched. The
unhooking technique is to take the load on the arms
by levering down on the boom on straight arms and
lift the hips – get the hook just a couple of inches
closer to the boom and the job is done. Then as the
line falls out, drop the hips down into a sitting
position and extend the arms so the rig stays
upright and forward.
Unhooking is NOT an excuse to sheet out.
Back foot out
Of all the preparation phases, this is where things
take on the shape of the pear.
1 The back foot lies over the thinnest part of the
board so any movement is likely to provoke
an upset.
2 Moving the back foot across onto the inside edge
encourages you to shift your weight inboard
which can lead to you sheeting out.
3 Rightly or wrongly (wrongly as it happens), many
use their back foot as an anchor point. To move it
is to invite a certain catapult. So when they do
move it, they move it hurriedly and as if they were
wearing Wellingtons full of porridge.
And here are three measures that will help you
something about it:
1 Stay across the wind. Across the wind the pull
in the sail is sideways rather than forwards so you
can lift the back foot without being catapulted
forward. You can also hang right away from the
boom to take the weight off the feet.
2 Lean forwards. It’s hard to move a foot if you’re
standing on it. To ease the back foot out of its strap,
swing the hips forwards (towards the mastfoot) and
momentarily shift the weight onto the front foot.
3 Slide. It’s not a lift and step so much as a slide
across to the inside edge. Do your best to keep the
back foot in contact with the board and make all
movements feather-light
Back foot details
There’s no exact ‘right’ place to put the foot – much
depends on the width of the board and the length
of your legs - but there are wrong places.
Too far forward = feet too close. To gybe well,
you need to be stable and you need to be able to
shift the weight from front to back foot to vary the
arc and trim the board. You can only do that if the
feet are at least shoulder width apart.
Some fall into the habit of placing the back foot right
forward on the rail next to the front one as a way to
keep the weight off the tail. It’s a dodgy way of
compensating for bending the arms, pulling the rig
back, choking the rig and losing mastfoot pressure.
Worst still, with the back foot forward, the feet will
trip over themselves during the change.
Personally I place the back foot as far back as I can
so I can feel the front edge of the back strap up
against my heel. If your ultimate aim is to head into
the surf on little boards, get used to having the foot
right back because to ride waves well, you’ll be
carving with the back foot actually in the strap.
Too far over To tilt the board, you don’t need the
back foot resting right over the inside edge. The
wider the board, the further over you need to move
the foot but if the toes are dragging in the water,
you’ll trip up.
SAIL UNHOOKED
The vital skill is to be able to unhook and sail out of
the harness for a while without dumping power and
losing speed. During a slalom race, especially if it’s
choppy, you’ll see the sailors unhooking and
preparing sometimes a 100 metres before the gybe
mark to give themselves and the board a chance to
settle. If they were to suddenly crank it over, still
maxed out with the board is flying on the fin,
explosions would follow.
By staying unhooked for 2,3,4 or 5 seconds before
carving, you establish board water contact. You can
then bank the board over without it skipping or
spinning out.
For many the act of unhooking is the trigger to gybe
because sailing out of the harness is tiring – in
which case they’re doing it wrong. You just have to
use the right muscles, which are NOT your
forearms, biceps and whichever ones make you
squeeze the boom. Hold the boom in the fingertips.
Use over-grip (palms down). Extend your arms fully.
Bend your legs, drop your backside and keep your
back straight just as if you were sitting on a low
chair. Tighten your stomach to transmit the power
efficiently through the legs and the board should
keep tracking as if nothing happened. Best of all,
this low, stable straight-arm, bent leg stance is the
best from which to enter a gybe.
Sailing out of the harness is NOT an excuse to
sheet out!
GO DEEP!
The fundamental issue with carve gybing well is that
the right speed to go into the gybe, to most people
feels too fast. They’ve been happy reaching up and down but the carve gybe is
the first time they’ve had to really bear away. The sudden power and acceleration
are unnerving and the immediate reaction is to back off and sheet out. Being on
a broad reach with the sail open and flapping in the breeze is no position from
which to try anything.
Practise sailing broad to the wind. Embrace the feeling. Make a happy
‘weeeeee’ sound like a kid sliding downhill on a sledge. With gybing in mind, as
you bear away, don’t dig in like a tug o’ war anchor man but rather give into the
rig and let it pull you forward and over the board so you feel a weight shift from
back to front foot.
Sailing broad is NOT an excuse to sheet out!
Sailing broad undefensively your centre of gravity is nearer the centre-line. You may
feel a little vulnerable but take solace in the fact that the rig does not keep pulling
when you bear away. As you accelerate, the apparent wind direction moves
forward, the power softens and that’s when you can move inboard and forward.
“Go with the flow and let the rig pull you into the turn.”
GPS TRUTH
Just recently my speed chum Whitey and I used a GPS to record speeds of
various people as they entered the gybe. The wind was 18-22 knots
(force 5).
Those who didn’t bear away but initiated the carve across the wind, started the
gybe on average at 17 knots. Those who bore away first started the gybe at 25
knots. SEVEN knots more momentum, more stability, more room for error and 7
knots more chance of ending on the plane. Case proven m’lud.
Variations
The order of play – back hand back on boom, unhook, back foot out and then
bear away – is a method which works and which is based on sound logic.
However it is not the only way. Some like to move their back foot before
unhooking. Some, especially if they’re using a wide board and/or they have
short legs, find they physically can’t get their back foot onto the inside edge
unless they bear away first.
The truth is that if you can stay sheeted in, keep the board settled and maintain
speed it doesn’t really matter in which order you do what.
“Anticipation means that you have to gybe first and then hope the board
catches up. For a moment you have to fall into nothingness. It’s a leap of faith.”
CROSSING THE LINE
When you change tacks (tack or gybe) at some point, your body has to move
from one side of the board to the other to be able to control the power on the new
tack. The earlier you make that move and cross that imaginary line over the
middle of the board, the sooner you’re in position to resist the forces of a fast turn.
In a good gybe the shoulders and hips cross the centreline as or even before
the carve begins.
In a less good gybe, the shoulders and hips never make it across the centreline
until the very last frame – and sometimes not even then.
Anticipation. Think: ‘someone is about to pull the rug from under my feet …but
I’m ready for them.’ You are going to change direction before the board. Do NOT
be a passenger. Without that mindset, the carving stage is a distant dream.
The classic mistake is to pull yourself inboard by bending your arms. The way
to get into a position to gybe is to bear away and let the increase in power pull
you forward and inboard on extended arms. ‘Bear away’ means drifting perhaps
20º off the wind by pressing ever so gently on the toes of the back foot to
engage the inside edge. It’s not a full carve. You’re just getting the teeth of the
saw to make a shallow groove before sawing the log.
FRONT SEAT AND BACK SEAT
The basic difference in the images is that one is aggressive/offensive, going with
the power and dominating the board; the other is defensive, closed, braking
hanging back with the look that whatever happens next will be a surprise.
He survived this gybe but it did finish
stationary. All the classic
misdemeanours - looking at the feet,
bending the arms not carving the
board (it’s making lots of spray but
it’s not really on an edge) - stem from
the fact that he never got forward, is
gybing from the tail with his hips over
the fin and is not controlling the nose.
Everything changes when you make
yourself the centre of the turning
circle and get the feeling of standing
in front of the tail and driving it out
behind you.
STAGE 2 -- CARVING
People lose speed, lose control or just fall off during the carving stage for two
basic reasons - they don’t hold the board on its edge and they don’t control the
nose. Both problems stem from the same failing - gybing in the back seat – i.e.
they haven’t completed stage one. They’re sitting on the tail their centre of
gravity (bottom) over the fin. The board accelerates and changes direction but
they don’t. Their weight then gets thrown onto the outside (wrong edge) from
where it’s actually impossible to keep the board banked and lean down on the
boom. With no mastfoot pressure, the first bit of chop is going to smack the
nose and launch it skywards – game over.
It’s wrong to be too specific about weight distribution as it should be a freeflowing
thing with the body moving easily between the mastfoot, front foot and
back foot to withstand the different forces thrown up by different situations (wide
gybe, tight gybe, gusts, lulls etc) but the following is the logical progression
through most carved turns.
“Think of the mastfoot as the front foot of your body. Throughout the whole
gybe up until the point of rig release, you’ll have most of the weight on your
‘front foot’ (mastfoot).”
WEIGHT ON THE MOVE
Understand from the beginning that the feet are only HALF responsible for
banking and carving the board. They control the back section of rail but
pressure through the mastfoot keeps the front section of rail engaged.
Stage 1 The carve starts with a roll forward from the front shoulder. The front
arm extends the rig forward and to the inside of the turn. As the mast inclines to
the inside, drop onto your front hand and drive your weight down through the
boom and into the mastfoot. Focus on the inside edge. When you see that the
full length is touching the water, then you’re ready to carve.
Stage 2 Let the rig pull you forward so most of your weight is going through
the mastfoot and your front foot.
Stage 3 To carve the board, you basically stand on the front foot and use it as a
platform from which to bank the board with the back foot (although on same
boards with inboard straps mountings the front foot can also bank the board).
The back leg acts like a piston extending to drive the rail into the water. You’re
NOT standing over the tail, you’re in front of it, driving it out behind you,
pushing the back foot away like you were try to scrape some doggy pooh off
your shoe.
Stage 4 At the end of the gybe, there is a positive weight shift to the back foot so
that you can rotate the front foot out of its strap onto the new (upwind) side.
“If you let the board flatten off anywhere between broad reach on one tack
and broad reach on the other, you WILL lose speed. “
I’ll let the photos do the talking and just leave you with these carving tips.
Bank the board. Yes. People get so fixated with body position that they actually
forget to put the board in its edge.
Keep off the tippy toes. If you’ve banked the board, it should come up to meet
the heels. The more foot you have in contact with the board as you carve – the
more control you have.
A continuously tightening arc. “In wide, out tight.” The old car racing mantra is
just as relevant to windsurfing. Don’t think of ‘constant pressure’ on the inside
edge but ‘constantly increasing pressure. The board should be at its steepest
angle dead downwind, the point at which most let it level off.
“If you need an incentive to really bank it over, imagine a generous sponsor
pays you by the second when they see their logo on the bottom of the board.”
Imagine the ball of your foot on a pedal above a very strong spring. You have to
keep the pedal down. If you let it off for a second, you get launched off the side.
Bent ankles. It’s very hard to bend the ankles without leaning forward – hence
this action alone gets you moving in the right direction.
Look where you want to end up. It might be around the front of the mast at the
clear water ahead. It might be through the sail at the centre of the turning circle
– anywhere but straight down at the feet.
Bend the knees. We save this old cliché until last. Bend them as much as you
think you should … and then another yard. Once they’re locked out, you can do
nothing to absorb the chop and hold the edge.
“If the board is carving level nose to tail, then
you’re storing the energy in the inside edge and will
accelerate out of the turn like a slingshot. If you’re
gybing just on the tail, you’re towing a bucket.”
THE TRANSITION (passing through the wind)
Carve gybing would be easy if you didn’t have a rig
– stupid comment in that it wouldn’t be windsurfing
– but generally it’s the rig that pulls us out of shape,
confronts us with apparently confusing forces and
stops us reacting like instinctive dynamic balancers.
The way to get to get your head round what you
should be doing with the rig, is to keep it as simple
as possible.
It’s just a motor providing forward drive. It’s NOT
producing a turning force (unless you stop half way
and need to get out of jail). Imagine therefore, that
there’s no UJ. The mast is just stuck upright in the
middle of the board so when the board banks over,
the rig backs to same angle.
In most gybing situations (apart from when you’re
over-powered), you want to present the sail to the
wind so it’s providing power through all stages of
the arc. Because the board is always turning, you
have to be constantly altering the sail angle right up
to the point where you release it.
A game of two halves
In the first half of the turn up to dead downwind,
keeping it at the right angle is relatively
straightforward. The wind naturally blows you and
rig towards the inside of the circle and helps you
commit to the turn. But when you pass through the
wind, it wants to blow you to the outside of the
circle. Lets look at the two halves.
“It’s far more effective to sheet in at the
beginning of the gybe by stretching the front
hand than by pulling the back hand. “
Sheet in?
As you bear away, the cry is “sheet in!” It’s good
but potentially confusing advice. Say ‘sheet in’ and
people think of yanking in the back hand – but that
encourages you to fall back. However, you can also
sheet in by pushing the front hand away. It’s with
the front hand that you should control the power in
the first half of the gybe.
How far you stretch out that front hand depends on
how much power you want as you bear away into
the turn.
“The rig action at the beginning of the gybe is
like turning the handlebars of a chopper
motorbike.”
If it’s easy conditions, you look to stretch the front
hand as far away as possible. The back hand
meanwhile is well down the boom and just as holds
the same position.
If it’s windy and you’re well stacked, to avoid being
hurled over the front, you have to dump a little
power by:
1 Decreasing the sail area by leaning it right down
to leeward.
2 Over-sheeting, pushing way the front hand and
pulling in the back hand a little to stall the sail
and open the leech
This sheeting in/over-sheeting lasts less than 2
seconds, the time it takes to reach dead downwind,
at which point you should already be opening the
sail out again onto the new tack.
The second half
As you turn through the wind, there’s a conflict of
forces. To keep the board carving and keep the
shoulders parallel to the boom as you sheet out
onto the new tack, you have to twist athletically at
the hips.
Coming through the wind both the rig and the
centrifugal forces of the turn are trying to hurl you to
the outside. It’s when you give into those forces that
the board levels out prematurely (or worse). Not
keeping the board carving through the wind and into
the rig and foot change is one of the greatest ways
to lose speed.
HOPEFUL TIPS INCLUDE:
Look forward and the moment the nose turns into
the same direction as the waves (i.e. dead
downwind), start to open the sail.
As you open the sail turn your head to look at the
clew. That simple move alone will get everything -
hips, shoulders etc. - moving in the right direction
and help you stay committed.
Keep the mast upright as you open it. If you let the
mast drop even 5º to leeward in the middle of the
carve gybe (as you would to steer the board in a
light wind gybe) you WILL get pulled off balance.
“At no stage during the last half of the gybe
should your hips be over the centre of the board.”
So creaming out of the gybe, in perfect shape to
change feet and rig is where I leave you this month.
Sorry to keep you on tenterhooks. The reality is that
if you have speed and form at this penultimate
stage, the last bit is straightforward.
carve gybing via the painless route of adapting
a non-planing gybe with the basic aim of
completing a dry one. There is SO much joy to be
had from making a fast (ish) turn that isn’t
sandwiched between two waterstarts. However, the
dry gybe landmark is so life-changing (no
waterstarts = more energy, less total immersion,
more warmth and less downwind drifting) that you
may be loathe to try anything different, which is
likely to set you back on the road of wet gybing.
The problem is that the techniques you discover to
survive those first gybes often reek of desperation.
Waiting for the board to stop before changing feet
and rig; doing slow shuffling, safe rig changes,
lunging forward up to mastfoot at the end to level
things off are all well practised survival tactics but
which, not surprisingly, block your path to the
famed Holy Grail – the planing exit.
My task this month is to persuade you to fall in
again and climb off that plateau before you put
down roots and start buying real estate there. It’s
not hard. Mostly, it is just about doing the basics
better and on developing a fresher, more dynamic
approach.
A FRESH APPROACH (let,s get obvious)
Say you approach a gybe at 20 knots and by the
time you sheet in on the new tack, you’re down to 2
knots, then, and I’m not trying to be daft,
somewhere along the line, you’ve lost some speed
– 18 knots to be precise. Sorting out your gybes is
about returning to scene of the crime and trying to
discover where those knots disappeared. The
common places to look are
1. During the preparation phase. Did you manage
to unhook, shift back foot and then get into a
position to carve without sending the board into a
rocking frenzy and slamming on the brakes?
2. During the carve. Are you carving too tight? Too
wide? Are you keeping the board level nose to tail
or are you dropping into the back seat, sinking the
tail and producing a load of drag? Is the rig
powering you through all phases?
3. During the transition (moving through the wind
onto the new tack). Are you levelling the board out
downwind? Are you being pulled off balance by the
outward pull of the rig? Are you failing to keep the
rig powered as it opens up AND keep the board
carving?
4. During the rig and foot change. Are you moving
the feet into the wrong places at the wrong time
with the wrong amount of finesse? Does your rig
change have the same amount of frantic hand
movements as a couple of teenage octopuses
groping each other in the back row of the cinema?
(The intimacies of the rig and foot change options
makes up the final gybing episode next month.)
One thing I can say is that it’s a rare sight to see a
gybe suddenly speed up at the end. So in your
quest to discover the truth, the beginning of the
gybe is a very good place to start because that is
where the bulk of problems have their roots. It’s also
an excuse to discuss the issue of speed in general.
SPEED AND PREPARATION
People don’t carry enough speed into the gybes for
3 main reasons.
1. They can’t unhook, move the foot and generally
prepare to gybe without putting on the brakes.
2. They can’t/won’t sail broad to the wind.
3. They can’t/won’t plane out of the harness.
GENTLE PREPARATION
Looking upwind at a practised performer entering a
gybe (so they’re hidden behind the sail), you see no
visual indicators of gybing preparations. The rig
stays still and the board continues to plane level.
The less competent gyber, meanwhile, looks as if
he’s been shot or is going for the biggest chop hop
of his life. These are the details of an artful
preparation.
Back hand down Slide the back hand back on the
boom (about 18 inches) before you unhook. So
long as you stay committed to the harness, there’s
not much to worry about. The only issue is
forgetting to do it. It sometimes helps to put a bit of
duck tape on either side of the boom where the
back should go as a memory jogger.
Moving the back hand is NOT an excuse to
sheet out.
Unhook To disengage the line, you only have to
take tension off the line for a fraction of a second.
The aim is to that without moving the rig. If you
bend the arms you upset the trim and you tend to
sheet out and then start the gybe all scrunched. The
unhooking technique is to take the load on the arms
by levering down on the boom on straight arms and
lift the hips – get the hook just a couple of inches
closer to the boom and the job is done. Then as the
line falls out, drop the hips down into a sitting
position and extend the arms so the rig stays
upright and forward.
Unhooking is NOT an excuse to sheet out.
Back foot out
Of all the preparation phases, this is where things
take on the shape of the pear.
1 The back foot lies over the thinnest part of the
board so any movement is likely to provoke
an upset.
2 Moving the back foot across onto the inside edge
encourages you to shift your weight inboard
which can lead to you sheeting out.
3 Rightly or wrongly (wrongly as it happens), many
use their back foot as an anchor point. To move it
is to invite a certain catapult. So when they do
move it, they move it hurriedly and as if they were
wearing Wellingtons full of porridge.
And here are three measures that will help you
something about it:
1 Stay across the wind. Across the wind the pull
in the sail is sideways rather than forwards so you
can lift the back foot without being catapulted
forward. You can also hang right away from the
boom to take the weight off the feet.
2 Lean forwards. It’s hard to move a foot if you’re
standing on it. To ease the back foot out of its strap,
swing the hips forwards (towards the mastfoot) and
momentarily shift the weight onto the front foot.
3 Slide. It’s not a lift and step so much as a slide
across to the inside edge. Do your best to keep the
back foot in contact with the board and make all
movements feather-light
Back foot details
There’s no exact ‘right’ place to put the foot – much
depends on the width of the board and the length
of your legs - but there are wrong places.
Too far forward = feet too close. To gybe well,
you need to be stable and you need to be able to
shift the weight from front to back foot to vary the
arc and trim the board. You can only do that if the
feet are at least shoulder width apart.
Some fall into the habit of placing the back foot right
forward on the rail next to the front one as a way to
keep the weight off the tail. It’s a dodgy way of
compensating for bending the arms, pulling the rig
back, choking the rig and losing mastfoot pressure.
Worst still, with the back foot forward, the feet will
trip over themselves during the change.
Personally I place the back foot as far back as I can
so I can feel the front edge of the back strap up
against my heel. If your ultimate aim is to head into
the surf on little boards, get used to having the foot
right back because to ride waves well, you’ll be
carving with the back foot actually in the strap.
Too far over To tilt the board, you don’t need the
back foot resting right over the inside edge. The
wider the board, the further over you need to move
the foot but if the toes are dragging in the water,
you’ll trip up.
SAIL UNHOOKED
The vital skill is to be able to unhook and sail out of
the harness for a while without dumping power and
losing speed. During a slalom race, especially if it’s
choppy, you’ll see the sailors unhooking and
preparing sometimes a 100 metres before the gybe
mark to give themselves and the board a chance to
settle. If they were to suddenly crank it over, still
maxed out with the board is flying on the fin,
explosions would follow.
By staying unhooked for 2,3,4 or 5 seconds before
carving, you establish board water contact. You can
then bank the board over without it skipping or
spinning out.
For many the act of unhooking is the trigger to gybe
because sailing out of the harness is tiring – in
which case they’re doing it wrong. You just have to
use the right muscles, which are NOT your
forearms, biceps and whichever ones make you
squeeze the boom. Hold the boom in the fingertips.
Use over-grip (palms down). Extend your arms fully.
Bend your legs, drop your backside and keep your
back straight just as if you were sitting on a low
chair. Tighten your stomach to transmit the power
efficiently through the legs and the board should
keep tracking as if nothing happened. Best of all,
this low, stable straight-arm, bent leg stance is the
best from which to enter a gybe.
Sailing out of the harness is NOT an excuse to
sheet out!
GO DEEP!
The fundamental issue with carve gybing well is that
the right speed to go into the gybe, to most people
feels too fast. They’ve been happy reaching up and down but the carve gybe is
the first time they’ve had to really bear away. The sudden power and acceleration
are unnerving and the immediate reaction is to back off and sheet out. Being on
a broad reach with the sail open and flapping in the breeze is no position from
which to try anything.
Practise sailing broad to the wind. Embrace the feeling. Make a happy
‘weeeeee’ sound like a kid sliding downhill on a sledge. With gybing in mind, as
you bear away, don’t dig in like a tug o’ war anchor man but rather give into the
rig and let it pull you forward and over the board so you feel a weight shift from
back to front foot.
Sailing broad is NOT an excuse to sheet out!
Sailing broad undefensively your centre of gravity is nearer the centre-line. You may
feel a little vulnerable but take solace in the fact that the rig does not keep pulling
when you bear away. As you accelerate, the apparent wind direction moves
forward, the power softens and that’s when you can move inboard and forward.
“Go with the flow and let the rig pull you into the turn.”
GPS TRUTH
Just recently my speed chum Whitey and I used a GPS to record speeds of
various people as they entered the gybe. The wind was 18-22 knots
(force 5).
Those who didn’t bear away but initiated the carve across the wind, started the
gybe on average at 17 knots. Those who bore away first started the gybe at 25
knots. SEVEN knots more momentum, more stability, more room for error and 7
knots more chance of ending on the plane. Case proven m’lud.
Variations
The order of play – back hand back on boom, unhook, back foot out and then
bear away – is a method which works and which is based on sound logic.
However it is not the only way. Some like to move their back foot before
unhooking. Some, especially if they’re using a wide board and/or they have
short legs, find they physically can’t get their back foot onto the inside edge
unless they bear away first.
The truth is that if you can stay sheeted in, keep the board settled and maintain
speed it doesn’t really matter in which order you do what.
“Anticipation means that you have to gybe first and then hope the board
catches up. For a moment you have to fall into nothingness. It’s a leap of faith.”
CROSSING THE LINE
When you change tacks (tack or gybe) at some point, your body has to move
from one side of the board to the other to be able to control the power on the new
tack. The earlier you make that move and cross that imaginary line over the
middle of the board, the sooner you’re in position to resist the forces of a fast turn.
In a good gybe the shoulders and hips cross the centreline as or even before
the carve begins.
In a less good gybe, the shoulders and hips never make it across the centreline
until the very last frame – and sometimes not even then.
Anticipation. Think: ‘someone is about to pull the rug from under my feet …but
I’m ready for them.’ You are going to change direction before the board. Do NOT
be a passenger. Without that mindset, the carving stage is a distant dream.
The classic mistake is to pull yourself inboard by bending your arms. The way
to get into a position to gybe is to bear away and let the increase in power pull
you forward and inboard on extended arms. ‘Bear away’ means drifting perhaps
20º off the wind by pressing ever so gently on the toes of the back foot to
engage the inside edge. It’s not a full carve. You’re just getting the teeth of the
saw to make a shallow groove before sawing the log.
FRONT SEAT AND BACK SEAT
The basic difference in the images is that one is aggressive/offensive, going with
the power and dominating the board; the other is defensive, closed, braking
hanging back with the look that whatever happens next will be a surprise.
He survived this gybe but it did finish
stationary. All the classic
misdemeanours - looking at the feet,
bending the arms not carving the
board (it’s making lots of spray but
it’s not really on an edge) - stem from
the fact that he never got forward, is
gybing from the tail with his hips over
the fin and is not controlling the nose.
Everything changes when you make
yourself the centre of the turning
circle and get the feeling of standing
in front of the tail and driving it out
behind you.
STAGE 2 -- CARVING
People lose speed, lose control or just fall off during the carving stage for two
basic reasons - they don’t hold the board on its edge and they don’t control the
nose. Both problems stem from the same failing - gybing in the back seat – i.e.
they haven’t completed stage one. They’re sitting on the tail their centre of
gravity (bottom) over the fin. The board accelerates and changes direction but
they don’t. Their weight then gets thrown onto the outside (wrong edge) from
where it’s actually impossible to keep the board banked and lean down on the
boom. With no mastfoot pressure, the first bit of chop is going to smack the
nose and launch it skywards – game over.
It’s wrong to be too specific about weight distribution as it should be a freeflowing
thing with the body moving easily between the mastfoot, front foot and
back foot to withstand the different forces thrown up by different situations (wide
gybe, tight gybe, gusts, lulls etc) but the following is the logical progression
through most carved turns.
“Think of the mastfoot as the front foot of your body. Throughout the whole
gybe up until the point of rig release, you’ll have most of the weight on your
‘front foot’ (mastfoot).”
WEIGHT ON THE MOVE
Understand from the beginning that the feet are only HALF responsible for
banking and carving the board. They control the back section of rail but
pressure through the mastfoot keeps the front section of rail engaged.
Stage 1 The carve starts with a roll forward from the front shoulder. The front
arm extends the rig forward and to the inside of the turn. As the mast inclines to
the inside, drop onto your front hand and drive your weight down through the
boom and into the mastfoot. Focus on the inside edge. When you see that the
full length is touching the water, then you’re ready to carve.
Stage 2 Let the rig pull you forward so most of your weight is going through
the mastfoot and your front foot.
Stage 3 To carve the board, you basically stand on the front foot and use it as a
platform from which to bank the board with the back foot (although on same
boards with inboard straps mountings the front foot can also bank the board).
The back leg acts like a piston extending to drive the rail into the water. You’re
NOT standing over the tail, you’re in front of it, driving it out behind you,
pushing the back foot away like you were try to scrape some doggy pooh off
your shoe.
Stage 4 At the end of the gybe, there is a positive weight shift to the back foot so
that you can rotate the front foot out of its strap onto the new (upwind) side.
“If you let the board flatten off anywhere between broad reach on one tack
and broad reach on the other, you WILL lose speed. “
I’ll let the photos do the talking and just leave you with these carving tips.
Bank the board. Yes. People get so fixated with body position that they actually
forget to put the board in its edge.
Keep off the tippy toes. If you’ve banked the board, it should come up to meet
the heels. The more foot you have in contact with the board as you carve – the
more control you have.
A continuously tightening arc. “In wide, out tight.” The old car racing mantra is
just as relevant to windsurfing. Don’t think of ‘constant pressure’ on the inside
edge but ‘constantly increasing pressure. The board should be at its steepest
angle dead downwind, the point at which most let it level off.
“If you need an incentive to really bank it over, imagine a generous sponsor
pays you by the second when they see their logo on the bottom of the board.”
Imagine the ball of your foot on a pedal above a very strong spring. You have to
keep the pedal down. If you let it off for a second, you get launched off the side.
Bent ankles. It’s very hard to bend the ankles without leaning forward – hence
this action alone gets you moving in the right direction.
Look where you want to end up. It might be around the front of the mast at the
clear water ahead. It might be through the sail at the centre of the turning circle
– anywhere but straight down at the feet.
Bend the knees. We save this old cliché until last. Bend them as much as you
think you should … and then another yard. Once they’re locked out, you can do
nothing to absorb the chop and hold the edge.
“If the board is carving level nose to tail, then
you’re storing the energy in the inside edge and will
accelerate out of the turn like a slingshot. If you’re
gybing just on the tail, you’re towing a bucket.”
THE TRANSITION (passing through the wind)
Carve gybing would be easy if you didn’t have a rig
– stupid comment in that it wouldn’t be windsurfing
– but generally it’s the rig that pulls us out of shape,
confronts us with apparently confusing forces and
stops us reacting like instinctive dynamic balancers.
The way to get to get your head round what you
should be doing with the rig, is to keep it as simple
as possible.
It’s just a motor providing forward drive. It’s NOT
producing a turning force (unless you stop half way
and need to get out of jail). Imagine therefore, that
there’s no UJ. The mast is just stuck upright in the
middle of the board so when the board banks over,
the rig backs to same angle.
In most gybing situations (apart from when you’re
over-powered), you want to present the sail to the
wind so it’s providing power through all stages of
the arc. Because the board is always turning, you
have to be constantly altering the sail angle right up
to the point where you release it.
A game of two halves
In the first half of the turn up to dead downwind,
keeping it at the right angle is relatively
straightforward. The wind naturally blows you and
rig towards the inside of the circle and helps you
commit to the turn. But when you pass through the
wind, it wants to blow you to the outside of the
circle. Lets look at the two halves.
“It’s far more effective to sheet in at the
beginning of the gybe by stretching the front
hand than by pulling the back hand. “
Sheet in?
As you bear away, the cry is “sheet in!” It’s good
but potentially confusing advice. Say ‘sheet in’ and
people think of yanking in the back hand – but that
encourages you to fall back. However, you can also
sheet in by pushing the front hand away. It’s with
the front hand that you should control the power in
the first half of the gybe.
How far you stretch out that front hand depends on
how much power you want as you bear away into
the turn.
“The rig action at the beginning of the gybe is
like turning the handlebars of a chopper
motorbike.”
If it’s easy conditions, you look to stretch the front
hand as far away as possible. The back hand
meanwhile is well down the boom and just as holds
the same position.
If it’s windy and you’re well stacked, to avoid being
hurled over the front, you have to dump a little
power by:
1 Decreasing the sail area by leaning it right down
to leeward.
2 Over-sheeting, pushing way the front hand and
pulling in the back hand a little to stall the sail
and open the leech
This sheeting in/over-sheeting lasts less than 2
seconds, the time it takes to reach dead downwind,
at which point you should already be opening the
sail out again onto the new tack.
The second half
As you turn through the wind, there’s a conflict of
forces. To keep the board carving and keep the
shoulders parallel to the boom as you sheet out
onto the new tack, you have to twist athletically at
the hips.
Coming through the wind both the rig and the
centrifugal forces of the turn are trying to hurl you to
the outside. It’s when you give into those forces that
the board levels out prematurely (or worse). Not
keeping the board carving through the wind and into
the rig and foot change is one of the greatest ways
to lose speed.
HOPEFUL TIPS INCLUDE:
Look forward and the moment the nose turns into
the same direction as the waves (i.e. dead
downwind), start to open the sail.
As you open the sail turn your head to look at the
clew. That simple move alone will get everything -
hips, shoulders etc. - moving in the right direction
and help you stay committed.
Keep the mast upright as you open it. If you let the
mast drop even 5º to leeward in the middle of the
carve gybe (as you would to steer the board in a
light wind gybe) you WILL get pulled off balance.
“At no stage during the last half of the gybe
should your hips be over the centre of the board.”
So creaming out of the gybe, in perfect shape to
change feet and rig is where I leave you this month.
Sorry to keep you on tenterhooks. The reality is that
if you have speed and form at this penultimate
stage, the last bit is straightforward.
