A while back, someone offered help with the foil jibe, and I'd like to pick him up on the offer since I'm still crashing every time. Here's one of my better tries:
The problem I had was that the rig got away from me and ended up on the outside, too far away from me to get going again. That seems to be a very common problem for me right now. Any tips?
On the foil, I definitely have more luck with tacks. Here's a heli tack - dry but not pretty. I can probably figure out how to do it better on my own (few tries and decent success so far), but if anyone wants to shorten the learning curve with some hints, I'd appreciate it .

Best foil jiber I know [besides SunsetSailboards], keeps his feet together as he bears off, so the footswitch uses very little movement, allowing him balance at all times.
However, lightweight semi pro freestylers learn foil jibes within 10 foil days, and Jonny Heineken made foiling jibes his first 3 attempts, then crashed on a botched 1 hander, according to his Dad.
Wyatt M was forward and back looping within 2 months.
Me, 115 sessions in, none. Haven't tried since around day 30. Planing jibes are easy, and very dry.

If you are going to flip the rig before or during the foot switch then you need to get your back hand much further down the boom. You have to push into clew first really early then flip the rig immediately after the feet.
This is my go-to gybe for wind which is on the light side and I end up outrunning it during the gybe.

If it's windy enough that the apparent wind stay behind me the whole time then I simply let the sail flag and carve the board until I can sheet it in on the new tack, then switch my feet.
I find this technique either works very well or is a huge crash.

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boardsurfr said..
A while back, someone offered help with the foil jibe, and I'd like to pick him up on the offer since I'm still crashing every time. Here's one of my better tries:

The problem I had was that the rig got away from me and ended up on the outside, too far away from me to get going again. That seems to be a very common problem for me right now. Any tips?
On the foil, I definitely have more luck with tacks. Here's a heli tack - dry but not pretty. I can probably figure out how to do it better on my own (few tries and decent success so far), but if anyone wants to shorten the learning curve with some hints, I'd appreciate it .

You might find it easier if you increase the arc of your gybe.
Hold this position below heading downwind for longer until the sail goes light, then flip the sail (it's often so weightless you can flip it "no hands").

Stay switchfoot until you're steady on your new heading before changing feet - no rush, easy to sail slowly switchfoot for 10 or 20m.

?list=PLO90e8WmAgRd56Gtj7cqhhzNvVsaYu5f2

Hopefully this link works.

Its Colin Dixon in a Lightwind Techniques TWS Video. Specifically 5.05, he talks about the rig flip during a carve jibe

Always bring the rig to you!!

Good Luck

Just to clarify: I'm going for a sail-first (carve) jibe. In flat water conditions like on the video, I have absolutely no problems planing through carve jibes on the slapper. I can sail out switch no problem, and I can also step jibe just fine. The issue is not with the foot switch - it's that I do not get back into a stable position after flipping the sail (when foiling).

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azymuth said..
You might find it easier if you increase the arc of your gybe.

Not sure I understand what you mean with "increase the arc". Do you mean make the jibe wider or tighter?Looking at Simon's jibe in the 360 video, he starts turning at 9 seconds and is done at 12 seconds - the entire jibe takes about 3 seconds.
It takes me about 3 seconds to turn about 90 degrees to downwind, so I recon if I'd complete the jibe, it would probably take about 6 seconds.

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azymuth said..
Hold this position below heading downwind for longer until the sail goes light, then flip the sail (it's often so weightless you can flip it "no hands").

So you think I flip the sail too early?

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boardsurfr said..
Just to clarify: I'm going for a sail-first (carve) jibe. In flat water conditions like on the video, I have absolutely no problems planing through carve jibes on the slapper. I can sail out switch no problem, and I can also step jibe just fine. The issue is not with the foot switch - it's that I do not get back into a stable position after flipping the sail (when foiling).

azymuth said..
You might find it easier if you increase the arc of your gybe.

Not sure I understand what you mean with "increase the arc". Do you mean make the jibe wider or tighter?Looking at Simon's jibe in the 360 video, he starts turning at 9 seconds and is done at 12 seconds - the entire jibe takes about 3 seconds.
It takes me about 3 seconds to turn about 90 degrees to downwind, so I recon if I'd complete the jibe, it would probably take about 6 seconds.

azymuth said..
Hold this position below heading downwind for longer until the sail goes light, then flip the sail (it's often so weightless you can flip it "no hands").

So you think I flip the sail too early?

Increase the arc, make the gybe much wider - go downwind till you lose sail pressure then flip the rig. Slow everything down.
I think we're programmed to gybe as tightly as possible with fin boards because it's painful making up the lost ground.
No probs with a foil
Tight, fast gybes are a little harder.

Yeah Simon can gybe in 3 secs, I think duck gybe in 1 sec but he's the best I've seen by far

I find it much easier to flip the sail if I oversheet going into the gybe, because you bring it forward as you flip and it is very light in your hands. The other tip is to go in a straight line after bearing off, then flip the sail then finish the carve.

Also I move my back foot further towards the outside rail right before the sail flip

I would try flipping the sail sooner. It look like a late sail flip the way the sail flung open and it was already to far away from you to bring it back. Late sail flips are hard because the sail flings open so fast that it make you off balance. On a good sail flip it should feel effortless flipping the sail manually dont let the wind do it for you.

Beginner jibing tips:
1. Foil control: Practice going from a reach, to downwind and back to the same reach: Teaches foil control and foot positioning/balance at off angles
2. Fly the foil. Most windsurfers bring in the bad habit that they can step all around the board because the water/buoyancy helps keep things flat. In your first video, you start the carve, but it looks to be going the other direction at the end. Mind your foot pressure and focus on the roll/pitch as you turn.
3. Turn-flat-Turn. This is a great technique to learn with. Turn the board pushing it down wind. Flatten the board out, switch the feet, flip the sail, then continue the turn. (I can't find it, but there is a french guy in his living room that explains following the boom around with your body), but that video has helped me the most.
4. Foot placement and the shuffle. every board/foil combo will be slightly different. The tutorials with the 4-step step jibe messed me up. So, I found that shuffling the feet to maintain ride height, proper pressure on both rails for roll helped me understand correct pressure on either foot.
5. Jibe in a gust! It seems scary, but when you head downwind, your apparent wind can be worse if you do it in a lull. Don't. If you're powered up and going fast, start the turn, etc, do it in a gust. The gust helps with creating the right feel and pressure as you come around. Makes backwinding a thing of the past.

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CAN17 said..
I would try flipping the sail sooner. It look like a late sail flip the way the sail flung open and it was already to far away from you to bring it back. Late sail flips are hard because the sail flings open so fast that it make you off balance. On a good sail flip it should feel effortless flipping the sail manually dont let the wind do it for you.

There's lots of truth here! I got better when I started flipping the sail earlier.

Yea I remember getting so pissed when i would blowup on every jibe then it just clicked. All of the above tips help, big long jibes heading straight downwind help a lot when first learning also try to jibe in a gust if you jibe into dead air you loose foil speed and the sail flip gets much harder sail might even feel back winded. Keep the sail upright with the board, open the sail earlier. These tips worked for me on a strap to strap jibe were you stay switch stance until after the sail flip.

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CAN17 said..
I would try flipping the sail sooner. It look like a late sail flip the way the sail flung open and it was already to far away from you to bring it back. Late sail flips are hard because the sail flings open so fast that it make you off balance. On a good sail flip it should feel effortless flipping the sail manually dont let the wind do it for you.

Thanks. There seems to be agreement on too much power in the sail during the flip, which would explain why it gets away from me.

There are three suggestions how to avoid that:
1. Flip earlier (CAN17).
2. Oversheet going into the jibe (thedoor).
3. Slow the turn down, wait for the sail to get light (azymuth).

I can relate the the "flip earlier" when thinking back at learning the duck jibe on the slapper (although the effect of a late flip is a bit different). I can also see the point in oversheeting, since that's what I do on the slapper in step jibes and carve jibes. It helps get pressure out of the sail, and thereby could perhaps help flipping earlier.

Slowing things down is advice that I also found at several other places. It's also the main advice I got when learning to plane through jibes on the slapper consistently. The problem I have with this on the foil is that I usually foil with quite a bit of sail power, and things feel very unstable without. Although moving the feet more to the rails, which I tried to do in this session, seems to have helped a bit here.

Well, this gives me a few things to try, so thanks for the advice.

I think that compared to a normal windsurf gybe you need to release the rig earlier, and lean both body and mast forward. This helps prevent the backwinding that can push your weight back on the board, leading to a breach. On the foil you don't need the power kept on like you do in regular windsurfing. You can just concentrate on a nice gentle turn with the sail released.

Also the instinct from normal windsurfing is to tighten up the end of the turn, especially if you feel a bit unbalanced, but on the foil this makes it a lot harder to then switch the feet. In the video you're really carving hard at the end - much harder to control.

If you check this video at 1.50, you can see an example of oversheeting and how you bring the mast across the board into the wind.



This arcing movement of the sail makes it light to flip and I think the bringing of the mast to windward (after the sail flip) also helps maintain the balance on the foil

There is also a foil gybe with the goal of oversheeting at the beginning of this vid
www.instagram.com/p/CFQrDv-j_aK/

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thedoor said..
If you check this video at 1.50, you can see an example of oversheeting and how you bring the mast across the board into the wind.

Funny that you picked a video from Andy Brandt . He's the one who taught me how to plane through jibes in Bonaire. After that, I was hooked, and did more than 20 clinics with him. I'm a slow learner , but my flatwater jibes on the slapper are ok:

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thedoor said..
There is also a foil gybe with the goal of oversheeting at the beginning of this vid
www.instagram.com/p/CFQrDv-j_aK/

Yes that's a nice example, thanks. What I found interesting is that he lets the mast go a bit to the outside, but nevertheless jibes nicely. In the jibe at 44 seconds, it is easy to see that the front arm makes a circular motion, first moving the sail forward and then pulling the rig back. It's actually pretty similar to my sail handling in a slapper jibe. Not sure why I thought I had to do this differently on the foil.

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boardsurfr said..

thedoor said..
If you check this video at 1.50, you can see an example of oversheeting and how you bring the mast across the board into the wind.

Funny that you picked a video from Andy Brandt . He's the one who taught me how to plane through jibes in Bonaire. After that, I was hooked, and did more than 20 clinics with him. I'm a slow learner , but my flatwater jibes on the slapper are ok:

thedoor said..
There is also a foil gybe with the goal of oversheeting at the beginning of this vid
www.instagram.com/p/CFQrDv-j_aK/

Yes that's a nice example, thanks. What I found interesting is that he lets the mast go a bit to the outside, but nevertheless jibes nicely. In the jibe at 44 seconds, it is easy to see that the front arm makes a circular motion, first moving the sail forward and then pulling the rig back. It's actually pretty similar to my sail handling in a slapper jibe. Not sure why I thought I had to do this differently on the foil.

Andy has done so much for windsurfing, one sailor at a time.

That is a nice looking gybe man. My fin gybes are crap, but I visualize the same movements when i foil gybe. The great thing about foil gybes is their repeatability, because everything is kind of predictable and we don't suffer from the loss of speed that we do on the fin.

PS: Consistent foil gybes took me about one year.

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thedoor said..
Consistent foil gybes took me about one year.

Thanks for sharing, it helps. I've been foiling a lot for a year now, but mostly stopped trying jibes after the first few sessions when the success to even just stay dry went downhill. I did not have a wide board, which supposedly makes jibes easier, and did not want to practice mistakes. When windsurfing, I still have to fight in every jibe to not repeat the mistakes I practiced over and over in decades of windsurfing before my first ABK camp.

A surprising number of local foilers have a hard time foiling through jibes. Many of them are much faster learners than I am. Of course, there are exceptions. The local wing girl was foiling through jibes on her 90 l repurposed freestyle board quite quickly. She never reached the success rate in foiling through that she had with her wing after winging for just a couple of months, though, which is close to 100%. But I know better than to think it would be easy for me just because she makes it look easy .

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boardsurfr said..

thedoor said..
Consistent foil gybes took me about one year.

Thanks for sharing, it helps. I've been foiling a lot for a year now, but mostly stopped trying jibes after the first few sessions when the success to even just stay dry went downhill. I did not have a wide board, which supposedly makes jibes easier, and did not want to practice mistakes. When windsurfing, I still have to fight in every jibe to not repeat the mistakes I practiced over and over in decades of windsurfing before my first ABK camp.

A surprising number of local foilers have a hard time foiling through jibes. Many of them are much faster learners than I am. Of course, there are exceptions. The local wing girl was foiling through jibes on her 90 l repurposed freestyle board quite quickly. She never reached the success rate in foiling through that she had with her wing after winging for just a couple of months, though, which is close to 100%. But I know better than to think it would be easy for me just because she makes it look easy .

Here is my 2 cents worth and I apologize as I believe some of the points have been previously captured:

It's hard to tell from the vid so it might be easier for the gang to analysis if someone could take a video of you from shore or in the water.

Just want to confirm you are on a bigger wing? I believe that's one reason the WingFoilers learn their turns quickly as well as not having to switch their feet. A floaty wing 1500cm2 or bigger is what I would recommend. But I am thinking you are there.

Practicing the S turns, as mentioned perviously, helped me. It's about practicing the first part of the jibe and then turning back up wind; so be sure to place your feet where you would when entering/starting the jibe. It's also fun.

From what I can tell and what some have already eluded to, It looks like when you flip the sail the mast starts pretty vertical in front of you and moves to the outside of the corner as well as behind you and away from your body. I think that causes you to lean into into the turn as well as backward which would tighten then end of the turn and may cause you to foil out. You seem to be flipping the sail just past downwind which worked for me.

I would suggest:

1) Widening the Arc, as other have mentioned, the trick is to maintain STEADY Rearfoot pressure. Figuring out how much you need practicing the S turns, it changes with equipment and conditions.

2) Lean/push the mast to the outside of the turn as you enter and rotate through the turn prior to flipping the sail, the bigger the sail and the lighter the wind the more I find I need to do this. Moving your back hand down the boom a few inches makes it easier. So when you flip the sail the mast travels from the outside of the corner to the inside of the corner, in front you as you go boom to boom. As the mast crosses in front of you, you should naturally lean/shift weight the other way (from the inside to the outside of the turn) which will start to level you off

3) Now you should be somewhere between downwind and a broad reach and pretty much stabilized/level so you can switch your stance. Like you, I found riding strapless easier when learning to jibe and to begin with I brought my heels close together then took a step forward. I did the foot switch right after the sail switch.

Hope this helps and have fun

I found one instructional video that shows the exact problem I have at 5:51:
His suggestion to avoid the problem is "bring the mast as close as possible to the body". I have heard the same advice before from other sources.

This is exactly the position I often find myself in:

I have had plenty of crashes where the board turns back, and in the Surf magazine video. The worst ones were when I had both feet close to the centerline, and the mast got far to the outside, making the inside rail come up while I was leaning to the inside. I fell to the inside with the foil coming up at the same time, so I hit the front wing with the back of my head.

Interestingly, he says to not oversheet, because that makes the rig movement too large. I'll try his suggestion to bring the mast close to my body as soon as I let go of the sail hand, and to open the sail more and flip earlier.

Funny thing is that the swing weight of the rig is much reduced when keeping the arm right above your head in light wind duck jibes. Very similar principle - keep the rotation close to you.

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boardsurfr said..
I found one instructional video that shows the exact problem I have at 5:51:

His suggestion to avoid the problem is "bring the mast as close as possible to the body". I have heard the same advice before from other sources.

Perfect, this is what I did a poor job of explaining. Although he says not to lean the mast he does lean it to he outside of the jibe and by the time he has finished the sail flip it is leaning to the inside of the jibe. As shown from 3:38 to 3:40 In his video. Just to be clear the mast is vertical in a plane across the board. As you can see his front arm is actually straight leaning the sail to the outside and then the mast travels across his body (closer) as he flips the sail.

When I was learning I tried to make all movements "smaller" and "gentler" and did keep my feet closer to the centreline to detune things. Meaning my heel was near the centreline and my foot was completely on one side of the board. However if the mast gets behind you and your feet are on the centre line I suspect it will be difficult to balance the force of the sail with your weight. I suggest trying the S turns to determine where your feet should be.

Have a great day

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Hess said..
Although he says not to lean the mast he does lean it to he outside of the jibe and by the time he has finished the sail flip it is leaning to the inside of the jibe. As shown from 3:38 to 3:40 In his video.

Good point, thanks for bringing this to my attention, I would have missed it. This may exactly be my problem. I try to keep the mast vertical to the board right in front of me, and to rotate the sail around the mast, to prevent it from getting away from he outside. I even move my front hand to the mast early in the jibe to make sure the mast stays in front of me.

But for a neutral sail rotation, the sail rotates around its center of effort, not around the mast! The mast actually goes around in a circle. By making the mast the center of the rotation, the swing weight of the clue ends up pulling the mast to the outside. In a perfectly neutral rotation around the center of effort, the mast hand just follows the natural rotation of the mast. You can even take both hands off, and everything will still end up at the right place. Instead, the "around the mast rotation" would force me to pull the entire rig weight towards me, from a position where the rig is at my side or even a bit behind me. Even if this works, using this much muscle makes the board on the foil wiggle around way too much.

I did try to keep the mast vertical over the board trying to follow advice to "keep the mast in front of you". I let that override the advice "level the clue before the flip", which ensures a neutral sail flip.

I am pretty sure that this is the correct diagnosis. The adjustments to make are easy: instead of having the hands more towards the mast early in the jibe, keep them at the same place they'd be on a slapper jibe. Focus on a neutral sail flip, allowing the mast to go to the outside just before letting go with the back hand. Just keep the clew level for a neutral rotation. That will make getting the mast in front of me at the end of the rotation easy.

This is a good point about keeping the center of mass of the rig over the universal (or slightly to the inside of the turn) when flipping the sail. As mentioned I feel this is easier if you oversheet and stall the sail first, because it is easier to move and you can kind spin the sail like a top.

Hard to tell from the angle, but it seems you have your hands really close together on the boom. Try moving your back hand further back on the boom before you initiate the gybe, it will naturally move your sail closer to the correct position as you get to the rig flip.

- bigger arc, turn allows to slow things down
- wider grip, backhand to go far down the boom

I personally find foot switch before rig flip much easier. Check out Nico Priens video about the foil jibe.

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swoosh said..
Hard to tell from the angle, but it seems you have your hands really close together on the boom. Try moving your back hand further back on the boom before you initiate the gybe, it will naturally move your sail closer to the correct position as you get to the rig flip.

Instead of moving the back hand towards the clew, I moved the front hand closer to the mast early on. The idea was that this helps to keep the mast vertical over the board / in front of me / to the inside of the turn at all times. Sam Ross had an instructional video where he says that's important, and I have heard similar statements from other gurus. But as I said above, keeping the mast vertical over the board during the sail flip is probably exactly what causes the mast to get away from me to the outside. Moving the mast to the outside at the beginning of the sail flip allows a more neutral (lighter) sail flip. The long story: at boardsurfr.blogspot.com/2020/10/foil-jibe-rig-flip-and-bubbles.html

Had a session on the slapper today where I focused on a neutral sail flip in the sail-first jibe. It's not exactly hard if you move the sail to the outside at the start of the flip, and then (as Manuel says in the Surf instructional video I posted above) pull the mast close to your body during the sail flip. On the slapper, it's easy to get away with bad sail flips where the mast escapes to the outside of the turn at the end, and you just pull it back with force. But that just does not work at all on the foil. Even on the slapper, I noticed that a light and easy sail flip makes planing out a lot easier. Kind of funny that I never noticed that before in a few decades of windsurfing .

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MProject04 said..
I personally find foot switch before rig flip much easier. Check out Nico Priens video about the foil jibe.

There are tons of foilers who prefer a step jibe, and tons who prefer a sail first jibe. I can do both on the slapper, and pick either one depending on conditions (and habits, which is step jibes in most conditions and gear). I've started trying step jibes initially on the foil, but prefer to concentrate on only one thing at a time, so I switched to sail-first jibes.

The biggest factor in choosing between sail-first jibes and step jibes is board speed compared to wind speed. If board speed exceeds wind speed, then the step jibe has a big advantage, since it makes slicing the sail forward easier. That's one reason why slalom sailors and foil racers always use the step jibe.

If board speed is significantly below wind speed, then the sail-first jibe can be easier. It seemed to be dominant on typical Maui days, with wind speeds above 30 knots and board speeds 20 knots or less. When a wind gust just rips the sail out of your hands in the turn, the sail-first jibe can be quite handy. My typical foiling speeds on the i84 are around 12 knots, and closer to 10 knots downwind; wind speed is usually between 15 and 20 knots, often with stronger gusts. That's somewhat comparable to the Maui example. Lots of freeride foilers do sail-first jibes. That includes Any Brandt, who's very step-jibe oriented when teaching windsurfing, but teaches sail-first jibes for foiling.

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azymuth said..

boardsurfr said..
A while back, someone offered help with the foil jibe, and I'd like to pick him up on the offer since I'm still crashing every time. Here's one of my better tries:

The problem I had was that the rig got away from me and ended up on the outside, too far away from me to get going again. That seems to be a very common problem for me right now. Any tips?
On the foil, I definitely have more luck with tacks. Here's a heli tack - dry but not pretty. I can probably figure out how to do it better on my own (few tries and decent success so far), but if anyone wants to shorten the learning curve with some hints, I'd appreciate it .

You might find it easier if you increase the arc of your gybe.
Hold this position below heading downwind for longer until the sail goes light, then flip the sail (it's often so weightless you can flip it "no hands").

Stay switchfoot until you're steady on your new heading before changing feet - no rush, easy to sail slowly switchfoot for 10 or 20m.

The m gonna try this. Bigger arc & stay switch

Opinions on which wing is easier to learn to jibe, i99 or i76? I mostly use the 99 because I go out in lighter winds, but it seems like the 99 is hard to turn on my Wizard 125. I haven't completed a jibe yet. And turning downwind doing S-turns I lose my stability. Thanks for any ideas.

Seems to me, like slapper, the key to foiling thru the jibe lies in getting the sail flipped and having the board still heading downwind, at least 45 degrees from before to after dead downwind.

With the race foil i never foiled a jibe. Then i moved to Moses 790 and after four days i got 80% flying thru