The challenge of Wave Sailing by Harry Adams

Issue 311 - NOV DEC 2011

the challenge of wave sailing

Sand blowing parallel to an uncluttered shore for 24 days on the trot, leaves no room for excuses! Photo: Peter Hart

Following a relentlessly windy clinic tour around the British Isles’ Atlantic shores, Peter is brimming with advice about the challenge of wave sailing.

he violin teacher and wave sailing coach share a similar challenge. The class arrived inspired by that leggy blond trio strutting their classical stuff on the X factor, only to discover that in the beginning they’d make a more satisfying musical sound if they swung a cat around by its testicles. Gratification is far from instant. The posture and the bowing action have to be mastered before they can even play a note; and within a year they may just move onto the delights of ‘Twinkle twinkle …‘ but only if they find the time and inclination for daily practice. In wave sailing, the cream, that is to say the glorious pursuit of actually jumping and riding waves, comes only after a lengthy apprenticeship battling through shore-breaks, confronting white water and swimming after crumpled kit. 72

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Yes, a decent note follows a lot of grief-filled practice. Ah! Practice … “So Reg since the course last year, how much have you done?” “Well … (he says sheepishly) that was actually the last time I was in the waves – you know … work, kids etc..” Practice days in proper waves for most working humans come in dribs and the very odd drab. Even week long wave courses are generally about just choosing an arena to help people through the crash and trash stage. However, every now and then … This autumn the glorious Atlantic shores of Ireland and Scotland provided 24 consecutive days where people could return to the same arena every day to find the wind and waves pretty much as they left them.

The chance for repetition and to pick up on what they did the day before saw people genuinely make massive strides towards the real thing. It was also a dream for the coach. Consistent, ideal conditions and the fact that recreational sailors are now turning up with better kit and are genuinely better prepared mentally and physically for the challenge, meant that I ended up coaching them in areas normally reserved for the pros. It wasn’t just about how to beachstart in a rip – but suddenly we’re discussing lines on the wave, balancing in the lip, timing top turns, releasing the nose – all juicy life-enhancing topics. After a truly inspiring tour, here are a selection of the points, tips and discussions that seemed to click with rapidly improving wave-sailors given the time and conditions to get out there.

DOWN THE LINE – on the front foot

In side off winds and small waves it’s easy to be a hero – you have little choice but to bear of down the wave – but it’s also easy to mess it up. Once you’ve learned to catch the set wave early, set up, get speed and do easy wiggle turns, the next level comes from getting more active with the rig and leading with the front arm and the shoulders. Good sailors gouge and throw spray because they power the sail up as they carve and then depower as they move from rail to rail. These waves are small, which in a way is harder as you have less power to tap into and they’re easy to miss-time. Without a big lip to smack the board round, you have to make a positive shift onto the heels to carve the board down the face. The key points are to make the turn before the board and make sure you end on the front foot.

In side-off winds the bottom turn will be over very quickly. Linger more than second in small waves and you’ll shoot off the back. Gouge hard and push the front hand at the section of wave you want to hit.

Start making the transition. It starts with you sliding the back hand right forward to open the sail and a turn of the head to look at the beach. That encourages the hips to flow over the board and allows you to pressure the heels.

Then physically chuck the rig down the wave, project onto your front foot and present the underside of the board to the lip. Resist the temptation to tug the back hand.

Now you’re on the front foot and facing down the slope, you can sheet in and extend the back leg to throw some spray.

The Multi Fin Question

Some arrived with multi-fin boards. Those that didn’t were soon plundering the back of my van to nick mine. So did they make a difference? I maintain that the most immediate and noticeable advantage is being able to launch in shallower water. That means an extra few metres in which to get planing before hitting the inside waves which are often the best for jumping. And often the best place for practising riding is on the smaller reform waves just as they make their last hurrah right inshore. It’s the spot where you really feel like ripping it in the knowledge that dry land and succour are only a step away. You can do that on a multi-fin board without running aground and face planting into the sand.

Multi fins – the Fins

On the good and bad side, multi-fins have really brought fin customisation back into the mix. People buy the boards usually with a slight inferiority complex. They understand it’s the recently moulded prototype of someone extremely good and exotic and that for a while at least, it’s going to be quite a bit better than them. They therefore believe the fins are right and if there are any problems, it’s certainly pilot error. The manufacturers have a conundrum. To supply it with small fins may maximise it looseness under cultured feet and bring about glowing test reports. But that same set-up may just go sideways driven by a newcomer who favours a bit of back foot. One guy had an 82 Quad fitted with 13cm fins which put into him into permanent tail slide.

A move to 16cm’s transformed it and him. As a general rule on all boards, the better you get, the faster you sail and the more balanced you are between your feet, the less fin area you need. On wave boards, that’s certainly true but it’s also a question of style. If you’re bit old school and like to turn and sail off the back foot, you’ll prefer a bigger fin and may do better with a single set up – but ...

Multi-fins and the stance

The multi fin boards helped a lot of people with their stance. The smaller the fin(s), the less you can rely on it (them) for low speed lift and acceleration. The blasting types, therefore, had the least immediate joy. Their normal method to plane on free-ride kit is to drop outboard, sink as they sheet in and direct the power laterally into the rails and the big fin.

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BREAK OUT! Falling off the top of the wave as you bottom turn is like waiting half an hour at a busy bar to get a pint and then spilling all of it. You’ve done all that work and got none of the reward. The causes are usually bad timing, starting the top turn too late, especially in side off winds where the bottom is very quick. As in the photo sequence, it can be the result of a dodgy, stalled bottom turn. If you get too heavy on the back foot and lose your speed, the board sinks into the lip and just won’t turn.

It’s not looking good. The bottom turn is more tail sink than carve.

So he’s lost a lot of speed as he approaches the lip and the board is sinking into the face. For this to work he needs to be 3 metres further down the wave where the lip is pitching over.

So the nose breaks through the wave …

and he flops over the top.

That doesn’t work with little fins. The plan has to be to bear away more, stand up over the centreline, sail on the toes and drive the board rather than the rails. It’s a posture that puts them in a far better position from which to attack jumps and rides. As they stood up they instantly became more mobile, less reliant on the rig and in a far better position to move quickly from edge to edge.

Multi-fins and the mental boost

Overall the influence of multi fin boards was positive and no one was seen chucking one in the skip and reaching for the old pintail 290. But at that stage of their development the main influence was psychological. When you put on your dancing shoes, you’re going dancing. Strap into a multi-fin and you’re going riding. People believed in their purpose so took up lower, more dynamic positions and drove the board harder. The converse is also true. The moment you doubt a board, especially its ability to hold an edge, you will sail like it’s about to skip or spin out – and it’s that tentative position than causes the problem.

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Chickens and eggs all over the place.

Mismatches

What was encouraging to note was that after a few consistent days on the job, people were making smart, informed comments about their kit choices - the design and the set-ups - and were relating performance to equipment rather than always pinning the blame on personal failings. We had comments like: “I realised how much easier it was to control the rig during bottom and top turns when I lowered the boom a bit.” High booms are great for early planing and encouraging an upright stance. But when you go too high, much above shoulder, you limit how much you can move the rig in the windward leeward plane. In a windy bottom turn, you have to get on top of the boom and drop the rig into the turn, so you can control the nose and depower the rig.

If the boom is too high, the rig remains too upright in the carved turns and over-powers you. “I really felt the freestyle/wave board sticking as came off the top.” The straighter the rocker-line (good for acceleration and flat land tricks) the less happy the board is carving on a curved surface – i.e. a wave. The speaker realised the next level of riding, that is to say doing his turns higher up on the steepest, most curvy, most interesting parts of the wave, was only possible with a pure wave board. “I don’t feel this board and sail are right for each other. The sail seems to over-power the board and I feel stuck to the water in jumps.” On paper it seemed like a perfect match – a 5.0m powering an 80l single fin wave board. But the 5.0m was a little old and more importantly it was a free-ride design, not a wave sail. It had a lot of shape in the bottom 3 battens, loads of grunt and acceleration. That’s fine for driving a biggish allrounder onto the plane.

SWELL HUNTING The unseen yet crucial skill of proper wave riding, is spotting the set waves well out to sea when they are unspectacular, round lumps, and then getting on them and in the straps well before they break, even in non-planing winds.

In side-offshore, flakey winds, start out of the straps and use the front foot to force the nose down the slope. As you connect, tuck the front foot in even though you’re barely planing. However, it over-powered the wave board and plastered it to the water to the point of sinking it. A wave sail is flatter, lighter in the hands and with the effort higher up, lifts the board out of the water. It’s also a lot easier to depower. Talking of which …

Releasing the nose

In regular speedy sailing, sheeting out is generally regarded as a failing. You didn’t spot the gust or weren’t man enough to sit on it – and that’s when Bertie the Bullet slipped by. In wave sailing sheeting out is vital skill. Going over, jumping off and riding lumps, much of the time the board is unsupported. If you’re sheeted in as the nose leaves the water and floats over thin air, the rig will drive it down suddenly violently. Most of the time that’s not desirable. The first instance people really ‘got’ the idea of releasing the nose, was going over big white water. Foam is essentially bubbly air. If you hit a steep wall sheeted in, the rig will drive the nose into it and over you go. The skill is in sheeting out momentarily to let the nose rise above it – then sheeting in again to drive over the back over the back of it. It became even more critical as people tackled jumps and got intimate with pitching lips. Read on.

To get the back foot in close to the wind and off the plane, you do have to contort, keeping the nose down by leaning heavily on the front foot and the boom. Now we’re in the straps, settled and at the top of a swell in plenty of time. It doesn’t look like much, but in 100m time this turned into a sweet, waist high clean peeling wall.

Wave-spotting

Over the whole 3 weeks there wasn’t one day when we were messing about in slushy wind waves. We always had swell, much of time with a side or side-off wind. So the waves were arriving in proper sets, usually of three about every 2-3 minutes. The popular failing straight off was just missing the waves altogether and managing always to be heading out when they were coming in – or just catching them too late and therefore not having enough time to set up, get in the straps and get speed up, before they broke. The star of this particular show was Ronnie who rarely came in without being in position ‘a’ on the biggest set wave. This was a revelation since it was Ronnie not 2 years ago, who couldn’t find a wave for love nor money. His epiphany was the realisation that, and I use his words; ‘they don’t look like much do they!’ People are looking for steep shiny walls like as featured in the surf mags, whereas they should just be trying to spot a long, thick, unspectacular lump, which will mutate into something steep and glorious as it rolls into shallower water. The advice that made the biggest difference to people was: x - you’re looking for length of swell, not size. Ignore the big steep wedges of wind swell which are basically just outsized chop and turn into nothing.

x - a bit like skiing in fog or a white-out, try and feel when you’re going downhill. If the swell is small, it may be a very subtle slope – and then temper your speed and direction so you keep going downhill. If you feel you’re going uphill, you’ve caught a swell up, unless you’re well powered, you’ll fight to get up and onto it. The best advice is to back off; stop and either gybe out or wait for the next one to catch you up. x - the further you go out, the harder the swells are to identify. Keep your runs short.

Wave-catching

In the cross-offshore winds that make for dreamy downwind riding, catching a wave is not a given. You’re heading to the beach on a close reach often under-powered and with little speed. Here are the tips that helped: x - clock the swell’s direction which may not be parallel with the beach. You have to be perpendicular to the wave to catch it and often it means bearing away far more than seems sensible. x - in offshore winds, stay out of the straps to catch the wave. That way you can use the front foot to bear away and drive the nose down the hill.

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CROSSING the LINE

To turn back up the wave in side-shore winds, you have to open up clew first whilst leaving the feet in the straps in their original positions. It’s a tough, contorted position which many are reluctant to take up, hence their bottom turns end parallel with the wave. It’s a skill that’s best practised on flat water – and once wired takes your riding to a new level. Photo: Phil Luckhurst

Side-shore wind, great wave, great positioning, but to make it to the lip, he needs to open up the sail and keep carving through the wind. With the back foot out of the strap, you have no anchor and feel uneasy projecting towards the wave.

Getting set-up

People’s first down the line ride on an unbroken face is better than all sorts of things more traditionally associated with pleasure. They also complain it’s all over a bit quick. There’s another parallel there somewhere. The instinctive and overwhelming impulse when you catch a beautiful unbroken swell is to go ‘yahoo!’ and belt down it. And before you know it, you’ve run out wall and find yourself on strangely flat water. A big change comes about when they got on the swell and WAITED! They made sure they were deep in the straps, throttled back to stay high on the wave, headed upwind and crucially took time to have a look up and down the wave so they timed their run more astutely and headed towards the steep sections rather than away from them. They figured out that the wave moved and broke quite slowly so it was all too easy to outrun it and shoot away from the interesting parts.

Carving with both feet.

A few started bottom turning and riding downwind with the back foot out of the strap. But without that back anchor point, they were reluctant to commit forward, anticipate the changes of direction; hence, especially in the top turns, ended up in the back seat. They said it felt more comfortable but that was because they

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were used to gybing with the back foot forward on the rail (a bit of an 80’s habit). When they left the back foot in, they felt tail heavy. Windsurfing is all about balance and trim. If you move the back foot back you have to sail more off the front foot and throw the rig further forward to compensate. Powerful wave-riding comes from increasing your range of movement. The further you can extend your mast tip from your back foot, the more power you’ll deliver to the ends of the board.

Timing Issues

Having caught them, many fell off the back of waves as they tried to top turn – incredibly frustrating after all that hard work. Plus on the big days, such a slip left them in the impact zone in little wind, in the line of fire. These were the main causes: x - just getting the timing wrong. The more offshore the wind, the faster you’ll arrive at the top of the wave so sooner you have to initiate your top turn. The more onshore the wind, the longer the bottom turn. x - sloppy bottom turn. If you spend too long in front of the wave or make a slow, tail heavy bottom turn, you arrive at the lip with no speed and just break through it.

x - not committing to the slope. It’s more of an issue in big waves, that of arriving at the top, looking down, getting a touch of vertigo and then being reluctant to project down the slope. Just man up, trust the rocker line and go for it!

Orientation

For the first downwind rides, especially in the more side-shore winds, many spoke of a complete lack of orientation. With another force in the mix (a wave), pushing in another direction, they just forgot where they were in relation to the wind. So before they knew it they were getting back-winded or were over-sheeting. It helps to think of the rig staying in one plane and the board turning underneath it. On a downwind ride, as you make your bottom turn, that means continually opening the back hand (sheeting out) so you’re pushing the clew above the approaching lip. The best violent comedy moments occur when the sail ends up between you and the about-to-break wave.

Top Turn Blues

The top turn involves a gloriously sudden change of direction, which catches many out. Here’s a selection of the issues and solutions. x - overpowered! In cross off conditions, the wind accelerates up the face of the wave. Unless you depower on the lip as you turn, you can

Photo: Phil Luckhurst

The switch foot, clew first position so crucial to riding being demonstrated around tiddly waves. literally get blasted off the back or just catapulted. x Mobile back hand. You can only open the sail and depower as you approach the lip if you slide the back hand forward. If you don’t, you’ll tend to over sheet and dig the clew into the face. x Toe to heel. The biggest misconception was that the top turn is a pivot on the tail brought about by stamping on the back foot. It’s not – it’s a carved turn off the front foot. Yes you can kick the back foot to throw some spray but only once you’ve turned down the hill and are standing on the front foot. What made a big difference was when they started to make a positive weight shift from toe to heels to carve back upwind. That began to happen automatically when they anticipated the turn by shifting the hips down the hill over the upwind edge.

Leading with the front hand

When I saw people catching the set waves; not running out onto the flat but staying high on the face and just doing shallow, heel to toe wiggle turns, I knew they’d ‘got it’ and understood where they should be and what they should do.

Only with that basic skill and knowledge could they approach the next steps, which are to draw tighter lines on the wave and to make deeper harder turns. That starts by using the rig more and more and above all initiating the top and bottom turns with the shoulders and the front hand, rather than the feet. In the bottom turn, I asked people to drop the rig forward and point the tip of the mast at the section of wave they wanted to hit. It’s an action that pulls you over the inside edge onto the front foot and forces you to gouge the rail. Then I asked them to initiate the top turn by looking over the front shoulder at the beach and throwing the front hand and rig down the hill. It got over the concept of them making the move first and then the board turning and catching them up. If it’s the other way round, they fall off the back.

Drawing new lines

Everyone’s a hero wave-rider in side-offshore winds because, so long as they catch the wave, they have no choice but to bear away along it. And also because, thanks to the wind direction,

both the bottom and top turns happen on the same tack. On days where the wind went sideshore, most only turned parallel to the wave, i.e. dead downwind. No one managed to turn through the wind to face back up it, because that meant taking up the dreaded switch foot clew first position. This is where it gets a little technical. The answer was to take it back to flat water and get people attempting the flat water wave-ride where they gybe with both feet in the straps but change neither feet nor rig – i.e. attempt to plane out fully twisted switch foot and clew first – and then carve back upwind. With that skill, people can then widen their riding arcs by 90º.

Bigger is beautiful

On Tiree, after 3 days of riding sweet, waist high waves we moved to Crossapol where it was a good bit meatier. The general comment was that despite the odd swim, it was actually easier. Bigger waves are easier to spot and catch. There’s more room on the wave to turn, they’re faster so you’re less likely to outrun them, and most importantly, they make you look good!

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BANGING OFF THE MUSH

The whole essence of wave riding is manoeuvring into positions where the wave redirects the board. To get that feeling and have a bit of a laugh, try banking off the white water. White water is actually moving so really bangs the board round. The rule is that you have to turn right round to approach it nose first. If the white water catches the rail, it’ll turn you over. Photos: Phil Luckhurst

The wave has broken but there’s still fun to be had. Move out in front to give yourself room to turn.

Then really crank it round so you approach the wave nose first.

Use back foot pressure to keep the nose high and let the foam hit it and bang it round.

Then absorb the acceleration by bending the knees and leaning forward. And drop onto the front hand to stop the tail sinking.

Jumping – a tall order

There’s a technical conundrum. As one of the team said: “gybing, wave-riding, I may not do them right but I understand the technique. With jumping I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing!” He wasn’t alone. Many struggled to work out what they should do to take off and fly. Well there’s the answer – jumping is the thinking man’s Nemesis.

The remedy was to stop thinking and try and get air off every hint of a ramp. Kids who can barely plane, learn to jump within minutes because it’s fun and they really want to. Like pumping, jumping requires a sudden loading and releasing of the board with both feet and rig. Doing lots of them drills the action and also sucks the fear out of it. When people are getting a little air and are almost relishing it, that’s when a few tips make a difference.

A regular hop lasts less than a second. If you manage to fly for more than 2, you’ve gone stratospheric. There’s no time to think. And when you do try to think, that’s when you hesitate and flop.

The tip that rang the loudest bells was this idea of, once again, releasing the nose. Sheeting out momentarily as you climb the face, releases the mastfoot pressure and allows the nose to lift.

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Harty has a massive clinic schedule next year and a brimming cabinet of instructional DVDs. Check it all out on www.peter-hart.com Apply for his monthly newsletter by emailing him on harty@peter-hart.com