80s drifter trying to get back into the sport

short boards are extremely hard to tack, I've been sailing them now for 35 years and still can't do it, ( not that I've tried very much).

Gybing is the thing with short boards, flat water and lots of speed helps, and of course the floatyer the board the better. At slow speeds carving with the feet is less effective, use the sail more. As the speed gets higher use more foot pressure on the inside rail, and less sail scooping.

The hardest bit is the transition, flipping the sail and swapping the feet. There are so many things that can go wrong here, that it's much better having somebody who knows advise you.

But the less powered you are and the slower you go the later you can flip the sail, keeping what power you have on through the gybe, and flipping after the gybe has finished. Going fast and well powered, you need to kill the power in the sail before you flip at about the half way mark.

And as an aside.
The term fibreglass board is ambiguous these days, most people take it to mean the old medium density polyurethane core covered by a few layers of fibreglass and polyester resin laminate. You'd be extremely hard pressed finding a new one of these. Typical construction these days is a low density polystyrene core with a high density foam fibreglass/epoxy sandwich. Note the fibreglass is the same in both, it's the core and resin that's different, not the fibreglass. Although, there's also more exotic materials like carbon, and in some cases kevlar being used as well.

Thanks for the reply. For starters I didn't think these boards were classified as short! I thought this was the transition period to the wave jumping phenomenon that I completely missed.

i tried "carving gybes" with the Bombora on a lake for days, but a guy on a 2 year old rig explained politely that "there is no rocker on that board, you are wasting your time with that gear"

As an aside, I got the comet (with retractable centreboard) after trying to manoeuvre the Bombora for so long, and although it pointed better, I still couldn't tack it properly.

Question - how do you get back to point A if you can only gybe?

P.S. The fibreglass Is the mast. An old one from the early 90s

What State are you in and get down to the local spot for a bit of help with technique & kit. Good luck

The mistake I see a lot of people learning to gybe is that from the moment they think about gybing, they start slowing down. So as they start to sail down wind they are considerably slower than the wind, so they hang onto the sail and lean back, slowing down even more, so they lean further back. By the time they get to flip the sail they are doing 5 knots in 15 knots of wind so the sail just get ripped away.

Instead try and keep the board flat and maintain speed and release the sail earlier than you thought possible. This way you will hopefully be doing 12 knots in 15 knots of wind so the apparent wind is barely noticeable. Then wave your arms and legs around and see if you can clean up the mess.

You might even find there is time to drag your hand in the water...

Blasto ,you can gybe anything ,but the bigger boards are harder ,don't leave the centre board down .walk back on the tail .i found was easier .
tacking is a thing I still do ,even on my 105 litre board ,I just practise it because its a handy move to have at times
the smaller the board for tacking the further back to the tail your foot goes .step on the nose and it sinks .

welcome back to the sport ...just give it time and it will fall in place ,but new gear is easier to use and sail .
its lighter .its just like cars ,they are a lot better than the earlier days ...

All good advice but especially +1 for remery's post.

It simply has to be fast, so the sail is light (no wind in it) when flipping.

I think one good way is to get going fast, then oversheet a bit, lean forward a bit and carve the board around almost 180deg. Forget the feet the rig everything- until you can plane all the way around in an arc and then get back winded. You will get pushed over on your arse, but importantly now you are maintaining speed through a gybe. Do it until you can plane thru every time.

Then, do the same but let the back hand go at the downwind point (or a tiny bit before) and keep the planing carve going. Do that a few times.
Now you are carving and flipping the rig at the right time. No more landing on your arse due to backwinding.

Do it another 100x fully planing and almost scary fast as you enter the gybe. Don't forget to oversheet as you start and lean forward - it stops the nose bounce that would unsettle things.

THEN go look at all this yoochoob stuff about footswitch and doing the shuffle, the spin, the step strap farkin whatever some instructor has come up with as a name.
I think they are a great help but people are too reliant upon the technique videos. You will never carve gybe until you can enter the turn planing and and keep it planing. Else you end up standing on the tail like remery said, and thinking about footwork that you saw on youchoob that would make a ballroom dancing star think twice whilst thinking about the rig flip video you saw at same time. Its too hard mentally.

NO go fast, carve and keep speed up. Then do all that stuff.

OTOH- those are very difficult boards to gybe. The guy who said impossible due to rocker can be ignored though. Its do-able but damn hard. If you are in WA I'll sort you out with something better for nothing if I can (others here would also)

I appreciate all the helpful tips, thanks heaps. I guess I will stick to the comet since my complete lack of ability to point the Bombora might leave me out at sea... at least with the board down on the comet I can get almost 45deg to the wind (even if I do have to fall off to tack!). Am about 90 kg so think maybe my slalom is struggling to stay on the plane while trying to gybe with my technique. A lot of tips are making retrospective sense now, as I am sinking the tail while wrestling the sail. Will post back once I have another go.