PLANE GYBING

Issue 317 - JULY 2012

completing a planing carve gybe

To plane consistently out of gybes, is as much about reading the conditions and choosing the moment as it is about technique.

Having said that, it is proof of subtlety and accuracy.

Words: Peter Hart | PHOTOs: Peter and Annette Hart

PLANE GYBING

Holy Grail, blue ribband, total pain in the **!!. There are contrasting ways to describe the challenge of completing a planing carve gybe. Peter Hart, who has helped millions off this over-crowded plateau, offers advice – and not all of it technical.

Peter Hart

I tried to suggest that he just needed a few technical tips and he’d be there.

“I’ve read all there is to read, seen all there is to see. I know how to bloody do it, I just can’t do it. It’s too difficult, takes too much effort and I’m too chubby and too lazy.”

Big Al is a vet whom a decade ago we lost to the dark side. As to why he continues to fly a sausage in preference to windsurfing, is quite clear.

“I was never good at windsurfing. I did it for 20 years and for the last 10 of them stayed at that ‘not quite planing out of a gybe’ level.

It was disheartening because it was such an obvious sign of your crap-ness. With kiting, you don’t have that – you look good even when you’re not.”

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And with his history of frustration bursting forth like a ripe boil, I decided to leave it there.

There are a bunch of Al’s out there. The ‘nearly planing carve gybe plateau’ is windsurfing’s most popular hang-out. Why?

A big stride

Learn, go faster, use a harness, plane, get into the front strap, get into both straps, survive a carve gybe, plane out of carve gybe.

Such are the typical first 8 steps of the improving windsurfer. The first 7 are gradual and equally spaced. But that last one...If it were a stepladder the first 7 rungs would take you to the top of the porch but the last one would be just above the spire of the Empire State Building. It feels like a massive, ‘unstride-able’ distance up.

The second reason is a trap. The completion of the first gybe is a huge goal in itself and sadly the intuitive techniques you devise to survive those first ones are the very things that prevent you planing out of the rest. Like: > trying to slow it down to make more time. > placing yourself over the centre of the board as a way of staying dry. > generally playing safe.

STANDING to BLAST not GYBE?

Some free-ride, ‘blasting’ set-ups do not leave you in the best shape to control gybes – and in fact are the very reason some people fail to exit with speed. The worst culprit is the low boom, short line, seat harness option. It connects you immediately with the fin, gets you going, puts a lot of power through the legs and helps you drive the board onto the water with a big sail; but the low boom makes you crouch too low, place too much pressure though the feet and gybe too much off the tail. With a higher boom (and longer lines to match) it’s much easier to drop onto the boom and control the nose. In a planing gybe, you should start tall and lower your position all the way round. With a low boom, you can’t do that. You start low and end up under water.

Plane out of all gybes? Don’t be ridiculous. Choose your moment.

Changing the subject for a moment, local members of the reservoir comment on how Johnny Pro-Freestyler seems to be able to jump twice as high as the mortal folk, believing him to be blessed with rockets in his heels. He may indeed be strong and technically gifted. However his true secret is that he spots the moment – a gust, a ‘lift’ where the wind shifts to allow him to hit the chop more head on; and a rogue bit of chop that is bigger and steeper than the rest, constitute a perfect storm of events that allow him to fly. But say you gave him the challenge of having to jump within a second of hearing your hooter, he may get the fin out but it wouldn’t be so impressive.

Therein lies the secret to planing gybing. It’s choosing the when and where.

Unless you’re trying to win a slalom race, a planing gybe isn’t always the best (or even a possible) option. It usually demands a longer arc which loses you ground downwind, especially bad news in waves and freestyle.

If it’s wildly choppy ahead, and/or the wind is a bit flaky, tighter, slammier gybes are often the safer and tactically wiser option.

So when is the right time? The happy ingredients are a gust of wind, flat water and even better, a down slope. Many are aware of these but use them wrongly. We’re talking about making changes. Here are two to think about in order to exploit the conditions.

The low boom, short line set up works or blasting with a big fin, but it doesn’t encourage the best gybing stance.

The plateau madness

Being stuck on any kind of plateau defines a kind of madness where you find yourself repeating the exact same action time and time again but somehow expecting a different outcome. Here’s the key. If you’re not planing out of any gybes, you have to change something! And given that it may have taken you years to devise a system that at least saves you a waterstart, sometimes, that’s not an easy ask.

Someone confided to me once he went to golf lessons only to be told that to improve, he had to totally deconstruct his swing and start again.

He was afraid it was going to be the same with his gybing. You may be surprised at how little you have to change and be yet more delighted that it may even not involve technique changes – although it probably will.

The complete gyber

Someone who planes consistently out of gybes is indeed a polished and accurate windsurfer.

They do their gybes at the right moment, in the right place with the right kit and employ the right techniques with a high degree of skill. Someone who has, in their whole lifetime planed out of one – just – probably got lucky with a gust or a wave.

Success and improvement come about as much from a change in approach and tactics as from altering technique.

Space is short and the full account of the carve gybe including the identification of every mistake that bumps you off the plane is a work of interminable length. Furthermore, such a deluge of information would, I fear, glue up your joints forever. Instead I’m going to offer just a small selection of tips, which aren’t difficult to implement but do demand that you change something.

“A history of catapults informs you that the amount of power you feel in the sail is proportional to the amount of teeth you finish the gybe with” Gybe on the FRONT of the gust

Gybe on the gust but gybe on the front of the gust so you accelerate through the arc. Inland especially where wind arrives in blocks, it means you stay with the gust all the way round rather than gybing into a hole.

The common mistake is to use the gust to get up to full speed and then initiate as you come out of the back of it, so you lose steam all the way round.

There is an associated technique issue where a history of catapults informs you that the amount of power you feel in the sail is proportional to the amount of teeth you finish the gybe with. Hence the trigger to go is when you feel the pressure drop. For a planing gybe you’ll feel a happy pull all the way round. You just have to control it.

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PLANING EXIT – don’t break the thread.

Like the young doctor who as he learns about the many diseases is convinced he must have at least one of them and hence becomes a hypochondriac, it doesn’t help to dwell on just how many ways there are to kill a planing gybe. Instead focus on the positive aspects and what’s going to help you succeed. It’s primarily about flow, blending the elements, carving a round arc and making smooth, non-jerky movements so as not to break the narrow thread that’s holding you on the plane. There’s a sequence below and every frame highlights a different aspect of tactics or technique.

Starting with speed. The more you have at the beginning, the more you can lose and still remain on the plane. Key here too is vision. By dropping the rig into the turn, you not only power the sail but also give yourself a clear view ahead to pick the best line. And most important of all is the low nose. If the tail is dragging at this stage, your thread is already broken.

Early timing of the foot change, only just through the wind, while the board is at top speed, means it supports moving feet without a flutter. The hidden skill here is timing the change at the top of a chop …

The constant pressure and the smooth arc. We’re downwind and it’s here the banking angle should increase so you turn fast through the broad reach to broad reach dead zone. To flatten the board off here is to run out a loser.

…so you actually move the feet as the board shoots downhill. Note the bent knees and the continual lowering of the body position, which is the only way to keep pressure on the heels and the inside rail.

Gybe downhill – ESPECIALLY the last bit.

Gravity is a wonderful force when it comes to helping you pick up speed. A smooth swell is a greater aid to a planing gybe than pure flat water. Last month I encountered the day of all days in Kerry. 6 ft lazy swells were rolling in over Mossies reef at least 100 yards apart and the water between, and on the wave, was as smooth as butter. With a 20 knot side-on wind, it meant you could bear away onto the swell and complete the whole gybe going downhill. As long as you embraced the sight of a lumpy sea, you couldn’t fail.

However, usually it isn’t like that. What we normally encounter is confused chop. Even if there is a hint of a swell, there isn’t enough room to complete a gybe in between the waves, which means you end up going uphill at some stage.

The temptation (and mistake if you’re looking to plane out) is to bear away down the chop or swell. It’s a great feeling as you can initiate really hard, like a motorcyclist banking round the wall of death.

The problem is that you hit the trough dead downwind and have to do the transition as you climb up the swell in front – no chance. When, swells are closely spaced, bear away in the trough so you use the initial burst of speed to climb the hill, reach the summit dead downwind, then time it so you’re doing your rig and foot change (the point at which you normally lose speed) as you’re going downhill. Above all, if you power up on a down slope, you will continue to plane. The best way to stop suddenly is to sheet in as the nose slams into a ramp.

Try and time your rig and foot change (the point at which you normally lose speed) as you’re going downhill.

For you to read the water ahead and pick the line, you have to be able to see where you’re going.

Some can’t because the rig is upright and in the way. Now that is a technique issue. Read on.

Planing gybes – it’s in the set-up

The question to ask yourself is – is your kit setup just for blasting? Or have you thought about adjusting it specifically to give you better control and balance around the gybe.

Powering up. It’s only if you’ve held your position to the inside that you can flip the sail and power up without having to waste time and adjust your position. The quicker you get sheeted in, the greater your chances of staying on the plane.

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Relate the end of the gybe to getting on the plane from scratch. You power up off the wind, you hold the board flat and you power the rig up on extended arms with the hands right back on the boom

I’ve just returned from teaching at a freeride centre abroad where you’ll find a kind of homogenous European set-up and approach.

In the force 5 winds, the popular kit choice for meaty men was 125-135 ltr boards with 40 cm fins and 7-8 sq m sails. The booms were low, the harnesses mostly seats and harness lines often shorter than 26”.

MAKE SPACE and TURN the HIPS

To carve the board all the way round and keep the nose down, you have to get the rig out of the way, make space and move into that space. Perhaps the most important move of all is the turn of the hips to get your body to move over the inside rail. If you don’t, you end up facing the nose and dropping over the tail. Here’s a contrast of the good and not so good.

The rig is dropped forward and into the turn and the body moves into the space. The front knee softens and the board carves nose down.

Through the wind, you open up the rig gradually clew first and move into the new space to hold your hips to the inside and the rail engaged.

Key moment – after the rig change, rig at arms length, weight on the heels still carving the board, hips still to the inside waiting for the boom to fall into reach.

On entry the rig has been pulled back defensively, partly perhaps due to that strong under-grip. The sail is held open so the hips can’t turn over the rail. With the rig pulled back he can only lean back onto the tail.

He goes for the strap to strap gybe, releasing the rig first, because with the rig back, there’s not much room to move the feet.

But that leaves all his weight over the middle and over the tail doing just a couple of knots.

It’s a set-up that places a lot of pressure on the legs and immediately engages the big fin. And you get going by doing nothing more than sitting down. When people plane, they’re happy. If they stay upwind, they’re even happier. If they fall off in the gybes, they blame themselves.

But it’s not much help for a planing gybe.

The worst culprit of all is the low boom. It forces you to crouch into the gybe with all the weight on the feet. It’s very hard from there to get the hips forward and in and apply any pressure through

the boom into the mastfoot to control the nose; hence the tail drops. You start hunched and finish crouched.

With the planing gybe in mind, you can afford to change the focus of the set-up. Top priorities are, of course:

Instead you should start the gybe tall and finish low. With a higher boom (shoulder-ish), as you enter the gybe you should feel yourself naturally dropping onto the boom and powering up the mastfoot. With that taller stance, it’s much easier to unweight the feet and share the pressure between feet and mastfoot – and a planing gybe is essentially nothing more than being able to control the nose and stop the tail sinking.

1. To be fully released onto the plane.

2. Able easily to stay upwind, otherwise you’ll never feel like bearing away.

But after that, contemplate the following set-up compromises.

A really big fin gets you planing early but resists turning, tries to straighten you out and locks you into a long arc.

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The thread that holds you on the plane can be broken at any time – quite often it’s right at the beginning.

Outboard straps give you the most positive power transfer but with the straps inboard a notch or two, you can use the front foot more as a platform (helps get the weight forward) and are less likely to mess up the board trim during the foot change – and that’s where the planing gybe is most commonly lost.

A bigger board and fin, offer more momentum, glide as well as a cushion for clumsy feet but they force you into a longer arc and resist turning. On a slightly smaller board, it’s easier to move over the rail applying constant pressure. Of all the top tips, that is the ‘toppest,’ which leads us neatly onto …

Technique – breaking the thread

For me the key ingredient is ‘flow’ where one element blends seamlessly into the next. The board remains at the same angle and appears blissfully unaware of flipping rigs and changing feet.

You can liken a planing gybe to be towed around an arc by a steady powerboat on a very thin thread. If you plane into your gybe but don’t plane out, then either the boat has broken down or you’ve broken the thread from making a sudden, jerky, non-flowing and usually backwards motion.So to finish, lets focus on where the thread most commonly gets broken and what you can do about it.

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Thread not strong enough

It’s the speed thing. The slowest a 100 ltr board will plane at is about 7-8 knots. Say you enter a gybe at 27 knots – then you can lose 20 somewhere and STILL sort of plane out. Go in at just 15 knots and you’ve only got 8 to play with - you get the idea.

Choose to be powered up but more importantly than that, get into the frame of mind where you’re looking for speed, not looking to wash it off. Work the sail a little, tense the stomach muscles, drop the toes, drive the legs, and then bear away into it.

“ Jockeys don’t heave back on the reins as they leave the starting gate (unless they’ve taken a bung), nor should the gyber” Bad entry

So many threads break even before the gybes have begun, as people heave back on the rig and depower just to get unhooked and the back foot out of the strap. Neither the board nor rig should show any visible signs of that preparation. After you’ve hooked out, make sure you power up again and ease everything forward, give in to the force

that’s pulling you and ease the pressure you put on the thread. Jockeys don’t heave back on the reins as they leave the starting gate (unless they’ve taken a bung), nor should the gyber.

The level trim – a controlled nose.

These figures are official. 94.7% of all windsurfing problems, in a straight line and during moves, come from failing to control the nose. It’s partly technical but mostly psychological. To control the nose you have to move forward towards the force that is trying to pull you over. You have to let your hips overtake your feet so you can bear down on the mastfoot – and that feels spooky. It means starting the gybe with the upper body, moving head and shoulders towards the nose, before carving. That way the nose stays down and the board remains level. But if the nose rises and the tail sinks, you push water, throw out the anchor and immediately break the thread.

The round curve

We mentioned it at the beginning. It’s been the hottest tip ever since carving began back in the late 70s and is as true of windsurfing as it is for surfing, skiing and snowboarding – control and speed come from making round smooth turns, which is only achieved by maintaining a constant pressure on the inside edge. You can only maintain pressure on that edge if you move your whole body over it.

Probably the commonest reason for slow messy endings is going after the rig and losing it to leeward. Unless you hold your windward (inside) position and keep the rig upright, you don’t have a chance.

In a gybe the board only has to level out downwind for half a second to lose its planing speed. Broad reach to broad reach (i.e. downwind) is the zone where the rig produces least power.

The longer you stay there, the quicker your thread will snap. It’s when you hammer down through the downwind dead area that you’re in business. A full planing arc is one that tightens all the way round.

The powered rig

Relive one of your best, blasting reaches. Sailing well you hold the rig constantly at its most efficient angle. Opening the sail in a gust, gathering it as you accelerate, being sure not to fall against it and oversheet as you run into a lull. It should be the same when you gybe – it’s just harder since your angle to the wind is changing every micro second.

In ragged, agricultural gybes, the perpetrators rely on residual speed to carry them round the last half, which it rarely does. Without power from the rig, a board very quickly drops off the plane, even in a gale.

A more common habit these days is that of laying the rig and down and over-sheeting and staying sheeted in too long. When they release, it’s under such tension that it whacks round heaving both board and rider into survival poses. The habitual 76

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planer meanwhile, presents the rig to the wind all the way round. He closes the sail on entry and then gradually opens it until the release. The rotation of the rig should be as smooth as the arc of the board.

The change – a question of timing.

Nothing is more fundamental to maintaining the integrity of your thread, than the sweet timing of the foot and rig change. It was going so well until then wasn’t it? As soon as you move your feet, it all goes to rat-pooh. You associate your problems with the end of the gybe and the sail and rig transition – that’s the point where you lose it. It’s not fair. Why do you have to do the most complicated bit right at the end just as the board is slowing right down.

There are a few clues in there.

The foot and rig change shouldn’t happen at the end, it should start right in the middle!

We talked at the beginning about escaping the madness of the plateau by making changes. If you take nothing else away from this tome, during your next session, do your rig and foot change at least half an hour (OK, 2 seconds) earlier.

It’s hard. Many primeval instincts are telling you NOT to dare and move your feet around while the board is going so fast. But if you do, and switch them round so your heels keep the rail in, you find the board floats higher and supports stepping feet with less fuss the faster it’s going.

Yes there is such a thing is too early - you need to play with the timing. If you want to survive a gybe in tricky seas, it pays to tighten the arc and delay the transition – but if you want to plane, lengthen the arc and go early. Early in this case means changing the feet and flipping the rig only just through the wind. That way your thread has half a chance of living to tug another day.

Harty keeps the torrent of technique gems coming next month. His legendary clinics are especially popular this year but check out availability by going to www.peter-hart.com or email him for his monthly newsletter on hart@peter-hart.com