Day 11 - Begins on the couch

Got up this morning on a mission, The carve gybe....Must crack the carve gybe. I loaded my Guy Cribb DVD into the player and pressed play....Intuition, It has to be the best carve gybe instructional DVD available. I watched it not once but twice and what did I get out of it, that fact that I needed to go back and work on the basics.

I hit the water about 2pm with a single agenda, Concentrate on the basics of windsurfing. Stance, foot steering, Rig tuning and control at speed is what I was going to master today, The carve gybe would have to wait till another day.

With the wind being a bit stronger today, 20-25 knots I opted for a smaller kit. I rigged my 5.8 and fitted it to my 113 and stuck with this all afternoon, At times I was over powered but most of the time it was perfect.

The first run out was fast, real fast.....as I headed upwind the board snapped violently sideways at full speed, It must have kept sliding for at least 50 meters before I managed to snap it back in a straight line. My stance was wrong, I was loading my back foot and causing spin out...I needed to get more weight into my harness and off my feet....I raised my boom about 2cm and It seemed to do the trick no more spinout.

I played with my harness lines a bit, moving them back and forth trying to find the sweetspot, I got annoyed in the end and pulled out the famous Cribb Sheet and tried it out, It works perfectly. Who would have thought a piece of elastic could be a valuable rig tuning tool, But it works 100% no need for any further adjustments.

Foot steering has never been an issue for me, I just needed to get more aggressive with it to get my carving skill up to speed. I just did what I use to but really got my heals and toes into it, Toes when carving downwind and heals when carving upwind, Really pushing into the board. My carving was getting quite smooth and I could throw a good bit of spray.

Speed, I've done 31.2 Knots at home on the lake...I know I can go faster, There's just a lot more chop in the ocean to deal with. Speed and not being in control don't mix well...If you are not comfortable your never going to sail fast. The first thing that came to mind in the DVD was to drop my ass down low and point my elbows down, this apparently gives me more down force and thus more control over the board. Sitting down like this also causes you to sheet in which causes you to accelerate instantly, Start using my legs I think to myself...shock absorbers, Hey it actually works wonders. I was flying, full speed over huge chop...the board would only launch out off the water if I commanded it to, I was in complete control.

Cranking up wind on a smaller board, I applied the same technique that I used yesterday for getting up wind and It still worked, Yes I've master going up wind. I could point high into the wind and still hold my speed...things were going well.

I did start on my gybe today, Just a few goes....and guess what...I got around on nearly all my attempts...No planning carve gybes though, just carving round, foot change and rig flip and slog out the other side, One step closer. The one thing I noticed today about my gybe was I use to flip the rig way to late, I'd almost be fully around before I flipped the rig, which would almost be fully powered clew first by that stage....Too much power and out of control. I now change my feet and flip the rig much earlier and it seems to be working for me...can't wait for tomorrow. I think I need to go somewhere a little flatter to crack the gybe, I've been sailing off St Georges and while in close to the shore it's reasonably flat, out at the channel marker there is some step and nasty chop....It can't be the easiest place to learn to gybe....We'll see.