Hi , I am new to this forum. I have been windsurfing for over 20 years and still can't carve gybe. I am wondering if I should give up ! It's not that I have never done any carve gybes, I have. I went on a holiday with my husband ( who is also a windsurfer) and managed to stay dry for 6 turns. I thought I had cracked it, and was very pleased with myself.

However I came back from our holiday and since the windsurfing course ( which was 3 years ago) I still can't turn around more than one or two gybes per windsurf session (if I am lucky !) it seems that I am still making the same mistakes and fall in. I think now it's instilled in my muscle memory that I have to fall in !

I do enjoy windsurfing but if i don't learn to carve gybe or do some kind of turn on a short board soon i am not going to have enough energy to continue windsurfing much longer ! I am 52 years old.

By the way I am in the straps and using a harness - I go out in strong winds my smallest sail is a 3.5 metres .

I have a RRD 77 litre board

and a 86 litre board single fin

Any tips for a aging female windsurfer gratefully received

Flip the sail earlier in the turn??

My wife learned to windsurf when she was 50, and now at 70 still goes out on "goldilocks" days. It took her a while to get consistent carve gybes on a 90l board, she still hasn't quite planed out of one, but comes very close if she times a wave to go around on.
So don't give up yet!!!!

It's very hard to give advise without seeing what's going wrong, there's so many things you can get wrong in a gybe! Short estuary chop still gives me a hard time, flat water or waves aren't a problem.
So maybe you should look for flatter water to practise your technique and get your muscle memory sorted out.
The smaller the board the faster you have to be going to get around, if you're not planing out then the small board will sink on you, best to be using a floaty board, that you can balance on when you slow down.

So questions, when you had lessons, was the board bigger, and/or water flatter than where you sail here?

What do you think is your main problem, getting the sail flipped or your feet sorted?
How far around do you get the board? Do you get blown downwind, and can't turn the rest of the way?

Try keeping your weight forward to stop the board sinking and do a very wide arc to maintain board speed. Keep the sail flip as late as possible, wait until at least the board is pointing well into the opposite tack. This way when you let the sail go it will quickly flip the complete way around And you can immediately grab the opposite boom. It does help to aggressively flip the sail rather than let it swing around in its own sweet time. Foot change just after the sail flip. Pump hard to keep on the plane.

there are many many versions to this. good luck.

Have a look at this and see if you can spot things you are doing wrong.

Thanks for your replies :)

Nuder and Freddog- I will keep in mind about flipping the rig sooner and more aggressively.

decrepit- Thanks for the words of motivation and to answer your questions…..

The board I used on holiday was the same board I have at the moment which is 86 litres. The water was flat on the inside, but choppy on the outside.

I sail on the sea and it's never flat when I go out , it's very choppy! My problem is probably a combination of the rig flip and not moving my feet quicker enough.

When I go into a gybe I don't normally get blown downwind. What happens is…..The rig comes around, I grab the mast ( the board has turned around through the wind). The board then stops moving and becomes unbalanced, and I fall in ready to do a water-start straight away, it's a kind of wet gybe. It's so near yet so far !

I think I will hire a 95 litre board, and go out when it's not so windy as then the water state is flatter, and see how I get on. :)

I find a board around 30-40 litres above your weight ideal for gybing.

Around 100-110 litres for 70kg is ideal.

Too small a board is actually easier for the experts as they can carve a tighter arc. For the majority though bigger is usually easier.

A smaller sail helps a lot.

As you start to rotate the sail your body weight should start to move forward to the nose side of the board --- would be my best tip.

If wind is strong keep the sail sheeted in till you have carved 90 degrees. If the wind is light--- do the opposite--- keep the sail sheeted out a little to catch wind and stay powered during the gybe.

Sit down with a pen and paper and work out the science of gybing.

In genuine strong wind and genuine choppy conditions everyone but the really top guys struggle!

I am 63 kg so a 95 litre board should be about right to practice gybes..

Thanks for the advice :)

One thing that helps is speed.

Going into the gybe, it helps you keep planing through the gybe.

Half-way, the speed reduces the power in the sail and makes it easier to handle.

Coming out of the gybe, speed helps the sail to come back round to you.

The board is like a bicycle - very unstable at slow speed but more stable with some speed.

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Dogged said...
Thanks for your replies :)

Nuder and Freddog- I will keep in mind about flipping the rig sooner and more aggressively.

decrepit- Thanks for the words of motivation and to answer your questions…..

The board I used on holiday was the same board I have at the moment which is 86 litres. The water was flat on the inside, but choppy on the outside.

I sail on the sea and it's never flat when I go out , it's very choppy! My problem is probably a combination of the rig flip and not moving my feet quicker enough.

When I go into a gybe I don't normally get blown downwind. What happens is…..The rig comes around, I grab the mast ( the board has turned around through the wind). The board then stops moving and becomes unbalanced, and I fall in ready to do a water-start straight away, it's a kind of wet gybe. It's so near yet so far !

I think I will hire a 95 litre board, and go out when it's not so windy as then the water state is flatter, and see how I get on. :)

DON'T grab the mast . When you do the flip and step, take your back hand over the top of your front hand and grab the front of the boom on the new side. By grabbing the mast you put your hands in the wrong position on the new side

The following are points that have helped me;
Get as much speed as possible - gybe in a gust
Move back hand as mush as possible before you turn
Bend knees during the turn
Look though window in the sail to where to are turning to
Keep weight forward on the board through the turn so that you don't sink the tail
Begin the sail flip before you are dead down wind
Don't grab the mast, move hand from boom to boom
Bear away and pump after the sail flip

Going boom to boom is a very advanced technique!

As ll others have said,
bend knees (practice on shore bending the knees and growling ...grr grr)
look where you want to go 9your eyes are magnets)
make sure you unhook from the harness
slide your front hand all the way forward on the boom. This make it easier to flip the rig and reach for the boom again

There's foot work as well.

so look up videos, Guy Cribb is good and he comes to town every year and will teach you a lot more than just gybing. Course called "Intuition"

keep trying and as long as you can waterstart you'll be fine

I have been sailing for quite a few years and it took me a long time to be able to gybe consistently. I too had a problem, and still do at times with foot change. Some days I still only get 50% of them and they are not pretty to watch but then other days I can plane out of every gybe and look like a pro.

The biggest tip for foot change I can give that helped me is don't think about your feet. Your brain takes to long and then you have lost too much speed, board becomes unbalance etc. If anything think 'now' when your foot change should happen but don't actually think what each foot is doing and where they have to go.

The other biggest tip is time on the water.

I feel you as it can be so frustrating at times (especially when you screw one on a good sized wave ), but dont give up and dont place too much pressure on yourself or you will lose the fun aspect of this sport.

hi
I am about your age, weight and experience, and have also struggled with carve gybes but I am nearly there now. I don't have time to write much now but I will later, so stay tuned.
Don't give up!

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petermac33 said...
Going boom to boom is a very advanced technique!

No it's not, taught at beginner level (ryc handbook )

Doing it over and over again, on a bigger board that you can't fall off, burned the muscle memory into my brain and has translated into improved rates of gybing on a smaller board.

I got myself a super light wind board which is 165 litres and 92cm wide. A one legged blindman would find it difficult to fall off no matter how badly he stuffed the gybe.

When the wind picks up and I go onto my smaller boards I have been pleasantly surprised how much better I gybe just because the number of times I have successfully gone around on the wider board. Mind you. gybing in the ocean with decent swell quickly reduces the success rate :)

One really good tip, Make your runs really short, like a 100m short. That way you'll get twice as many chances to practice than doing a 200m run etc.

I am just looking carefully on "advanced gybe) 5:05.It seems that guy grab the mast (?)





I am trying to rid off completely this my wrong habit ( that happen now very sporadically in lighter winds )

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Dogged said..
Thanks for your replies :)

Nuder and Freddog- I will keep in mind about flipping the rig sooner and more aggressively.
.....

No, I said to flip late, really late.... but there are so many different ways to successfully gybe which is why you'll get so many differing opinions.

Best bet: qualified instruction, ideally a multi-day clinic with someone who does this for a living, like Guy Cribb. Learning and improving the jibe is a big part of most clinics. I do a couple of clinics a year, and I usually can jibe, but I still often get corrections because some bad habit has crept in (or come back), without me realizing it.

If that's not an option (or in addition), get video footage of your jibes, and post them online for feedback. Does not have to be a GoPro - a $50-80 ripoff (SJ4000 etc.) should get good enough footage. A mount at the clew gives a great perspective. If someone can film you from land or standing in the water, that's just as good.

it is very hard to know what you are doing wrong if you don't have video footage. Typically, the big mistakes are made much earlier than you'd think. Good instructors will be able to spot the first thing you need to change.

Watching instruction videos can be somewhat helpful. My favorite is Dasher's 12-step jibe. Guy Cribb has a bunch of really good points, too, though, especially the "core skills" and 3-step approach (practice on land, then in light wind, then in high wind). After I concentrated on Guy Cribb's "Boom Shaka" (moving the hand towards the front of the boom before the flip), my dry rate in difficult conditions improved dramatically.

Definitely use the bigger (95 l+) board to work on jibes. Jibing does get a lot harder in big chop and high wind. When you practice, focus on just one thing each session, starting at the preparation / entry phase.

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boardsurfr said..
Best bet: qualified instruction, ideally a multi-day clinic with someone who does this for a living, like Guy Cribb. Learning and improving the jibe is a big part of most clinics. I do a couple of clinics a year, and I usually can jibe, but I still often get corrections because some bad habit has crept in (or come back), without me realizing it.

If that's not an option (or in addition), get video footage of your jibes, and post them online for feedback. Does not have to be a GoPro - a $50-80 ripoff (SJ4000 etc.) should get good enough footage. A mount at the clew gives a great perspective. If someone can film you from land or standing in the water, that's just as good.

it is very hard to know what you are doing wrong if you don't have video footage. Typically, the big mistakes are made much earlier than you'd think. Good instructors will be able to spot the first thing you need to change.

Watching instruction videos can be somewhat helpful. My favorite is Dasher's 12-step jibe. Guy Cribb has a bunch of really good points, too, though, especially the "core skills" and 3-step approach (practice on land, then in light wind, then in high wind). After I concentrated on Guy Cribb's "Boom Shaka" (moving the hand towards the front of the boom before the flip), my dry rate in difficult conditions improved dramatically.

Definitely use the bigger (95 l+) board to work on jibes. Jibing does get a lot harder in big chop and high wind. When you practice, focus on just one thing each session, starting at the preparation / entry phase.

Totally agree with boardsurfr - best way is a clinic. A couple of coaches run a clinic over here once a year so keep an eye out on seabreeze and there are loads overseas.

You can also ask your local shop as they should have access to someone qualified to give you lessons.

I have been windsurfing for many years but it was a couple of clinics that helped me with my gybes and half of it was setting my gear up properly !

I then did lots of "on land" practice to get the foot movement and rig flip right.

You can also check out many on line vid's to help you understand the movements. This one is particularly good:



And get someone to video you so you can play it back and see what you are doing wrong (this is a real help).

DONT GIVE UP - its a great sport.

Yes try and practice in flat water, it's much easier, then when you go out in chop bend the knees a lot more and stay low. Flipping the rig, move the mast accross to the other side before flipping. Don't give up, I started learning at 55. Also Guy Cribb comes to WA every year, it's worthwhile doing one of his 3 day courses.

Practice on flat water to embed the technique. Sailing at Lake George for 2 1/2 weeks last Feb did wonders for my gybing technique.

It's like a golf swing. Or so I'm told, I'm rubbish at golf.

My point is so much has to come together in a brief time. Some people learn it by feel, but I need to understand what I'm trying to do. My recommendation is to know your technique inside out so that you can analyse where the wheels are falling off. There'll probably be one small tip that will revolutionalise your u-turns, you just gotta find it!

How?

Get some tuition, or one of the several excellent instructional videos (Cribby's 'Intuition' is my personal fave) to tap into the wisdom of the professionals for a reasonable price. If you self-educate, footage of yourself gybing is fantastic because watching that in retrospect can make it plainly obvious where you're faltering. You may be surprised that what you think you're doing is not what you're actually doing! Once you can identify what's wrong, you're over halfway there.

Train yourself out of grabbing the mast, that held me back for a long while too. Google 'Guy Cribb boom shaka-laka' for some more details on that.

Most importantly persevere! Make your sessions about becoming a better gyber. Once you crack the code, your sailing sessions will be so much more enjoyable. If you can sail comfortably in the harness and straps, you got all you need to gybe.

Good luck.

A planing gybe is probably one of the hardest techniques on a windsurfer's too bag. I have noticed many of them with decades of experience, still do the hurried sinking gybes. To them, a gybe is merely a move to get them around and sail in the opposite direction again, without falling in. Myself, being an old-fashion windsurfer, a good gybe is one of the moves that sets you apart from the rest.

Like you, I suffered from the indignity of repeated water christening. I fell in when I got too aggressive. I fell in when I become too timid. I fell in even just by thinking about falling in! So after a long period of failures, I asked Hans who ran a windsurfer rental. Hans gave me a a very straight forward advice.
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He reckoned that if you are afraid of falling in, then why even bother. So go for it. You must have SPEED. You try to break down a gybe into stages. (1). The bearing off for max speed, (2). Leaning into the turn by shifting your weight, (3). Carving and maintain your weight pressure on the inside rail as you travel through the downwind stage, (4). Sail flipping, and (5). Foot swap.
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He said that I should never contemplate getting it all together without lots of falls, as gybes are bloody hard. He suggested I should try to do one of these stages well and be confident in move to the next stage.

He believed that each person will "endure" a certain number of falls until he/she will get it. What he really meant is that some folks will get it sooner than other, depending on one's natural abilities, water conditions, as well as time on water. However, if you keep trying, sooner or later you will get it.

Please note that contrary to some believes, you want to pick a day when it is windy, but controllable. That way you have the speed to work on. I suggest a full body wet suit is a big help as you would expect a lot of falls. With a full protection, you are less weary about injuries. You see, a good gybe is about "going for it".

I don't want to write a book. There are already quite a few threads about this topic here. Please check them out.

Thanks you all for your gybing tips :)

I will spent some time looking at some windsurfing videos and see if someone can video me :)

I bet you are doing the following:

- Leaving the flip to late - your flip should take place when you are pointing downwind. Before you go out find a downwind landmark for each sailing direction and aim to get your rig flip happening when the board is pointing at it.

- Looking down. Don't look down! It's really hard not to but keep your head level and eyes horizontal. Look for your downwind landmark, not your feet.

- Back hand too far forward. Move your back hand waaay back on the boom before you start the turn. It helps get the rig in the right position as you go round and helps you get the rig flip happening.

can i offer some advice, ive been sailing since the mid eighties was a competent sailer once i restarted sailing in my 50tys i was like a beginner make sure your sail is set absolutely correct other wise this will up set your balance into and out of the gybe ,sheet in when you enter the gybe and start carving the board keep your knees bent and don't carve to tight as you go throught the down wind positioned look to were you are going , allow the sail to flip and flat en out the gybe get power back in your sail and start geting back into your straps only then start to go up wind and on to your new course. this will take practice and confidences so don't loose sight of the fact that you can do something the majority of people in the world can not do, it ant meant to be easy but awesome when done , stick at it

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Dogged said..
>>

I sail on the sea and it's never flat when I go out , it's very choppy! My problem is probably a combination of the rig flip and not moving my feet quicker enough.

When I go into a gybe I don't normally get blown downwind. What happens is…..The rig comes around, I grab the mast ( the board has turned around through the wind). The board then stops moving and becomes unbalanced, and I fall in ready to do a water-start straight away, it's a kind of wet gybe. It's so near yet so far !

I think I will hire a 95 litre board, and go out when it's not so windy as then the water state is flatter, and see how I get on. :)

So on the ocean, try and gybe on a wave, start the gybe just before you reach it, then as you are on the wall, you can push a bit harder on the inside rail, as the wave takes the sideways force. But if you go over the top of the wave while pushing hard you'll spin out, so if this happens you need to start the turn a bit earlier. The advantage of this is surfing the wave on the way out helps to keep your speed up.
Agree with others teach yourself not to grab the mast, you can get away with it on a big slow board, but on a smaller board that technique is too slow.

If you're slowing right down your feet need to be closer to the centre of the board so you don't sink the tail or the inside rail.
It may be worth going somewhere with flat water, just to sort your gybes out. Personally I'm addicted to flat water, but really flat with more than 15kts is hard to find, but there are places around here.

flat water is a big plus plus!!!
95 litre board , nice and stable and big enough for you to maintain speed and keep balance throughout transition.
nice consistant wind
on water instruction - and also watch Guy CRIBB Intuition video its all about gybing!!
watch others who can do it properly
plenty of youtube watches

you will get it, keep on trying