Hello everyone!If someone has the time and the nerves to make some things clear for me I really would appreciate it. I am a beginner so bear with me .1. How do you carve and what conditions/equipment are required?

2. When carving, do you steer with the sail at all?3. I can now manage the basic maneuvers like the basic tack and jibe. What would be the next core skills to learn?

4. Here in Finland our season is relatively short. Any advice how or what to train during the winter season when sea is frozen?

Thanks in advance!

-Anselmiini

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anselmiini said..
Hello everyone!If someone has the time and the nerves to make some things clear for me I really would appreciate it. I am a beginner so bear with me .1. How do you carve and what conditions/equipment are required?

2. When carving, do you steer with the sail at all?3. I can now manage the basic maneuvers like the basic tack and jibe. What would be the next core skills to learn?

4. Here in Finland our season is relatively short. Any advice how or what to train during the winter season when sea is frozen?

Thanks in advance!

-Anselmiini

Ice sailing maybe?? brrrrrrr, the guys in WA complaining its cold in winter might need to visit your local.

Select to expand quote

anselmiini said..
Hello everyone!If someone has the time and the nerves to make some things clear for me I really would appreciate it. I am a beginner so bear with me .1. How do you carve and what conditions/equipment are required?

2. When carving, do you steer with the sail at all?3. I can now manage the basic maneuvers like the basic tack and jibe. What would be the next core skills to learn?

4. Here in Finland our season is relatively short. Any advice how or what to train during the winter season when sea is frozen?

Thanks in advance!

-Anselmiini

You need to be planing to carve - the faster the better. How tight you can carve depends a lot on your speed and the shape of the board. A wide board with a straight rail and little tail rocker will tend to need a big arc to carve.
The sail is more of a hindrance than a help if you are going really fast and when you are going slow, the sail gets used more to help the carve.

Windsurfing is mostly about sail control, so you can do a lot of practising with the sail in the winter just by fixing the mast base to the ground.
Getting used to gybing, tacking, sailing clew first, sailing on the wrong side of the sail when you are leaning and pushing on the sail. Using the sail to lower yourself down onto the ground and up again - to get used to controlling the power and to get yourself ready for waterstarting when the spring comes.
You could also practice using a harness and hooking in and out.

Select to expand quote

anselmiini said..


3. I can now manage the basic maneuvers like the basic tack and jibe. What would be the next core skills to learn?

4. Here in Finland our season is relatively short. Any advice how or what to train during the winter season when sea is frozen?

Thanks in advance!

-Anselmiini

Hi there

3. Learn planing in the harness and foot-straps next.

4. Go somewhere warm in the winter, WA for example.

Lots of instructionon carve gybing on YouTube.

DVD. Beginner to winner and guy cribb are very usefull

What terminal said. I sometimes get the board out, lay it on the board bag and rig a sail to go on it. With this set-up you can practice your basic moves, and more advanced if you want, get used to the weight of the sail and where you put your feet etc. Should help pass the time over a long Winter and get you tuned and fired up for Summer.
Carve gybing needs speed and commitment and plenty of practice, if you perservere long enough you will get it. I've watched it hundreds of times on videos, it is surprising what you pick up from them and I still notice things that I can improve. I'd try practicing the move and then comparing it to what happens on the screen. Most important tip I can give you is to try to keep your weight forward so as not to sink the tail.
You don't use your sail for steering in the carve, it is all foot steering. As you are travelling off the wind there is no weight in the sail to use for steering anyway.
Next core skill? Whatever you like to practice. If you can't water start that is probably a biggie.

Thanks a lot for all your replies! This did make things much clearer and yes that sail control training during the winter time sounds like a very good idea. This appears to be an excellent forum to learn new things..-Anselmiini

I used a simulator like this at the place where I first hired a windsurfer.

This one is rotating a bit too freely, it should have a bit of drag to simulate the board turning in the water, but it is a stage up from just bolting the mast base onto a large plank.

You don't need a windsurf board, just a large sheet of plywood if you wanted to build one, but you can do a lot of sail training with the mast just bolted onto a static wood plank.

Sam Ross does the best online videos

Terve,Answers to your questions:1. All boards and sails do carve, but you had to plane before that. 2. No3. Learn to plane footstraps and harness lines attached. Also water start is good to learn. After that it's time to focus carve jibes.4. Freeskate or skimbat! Some of us also travel in wintertime for windsurfing. You can also spent some time in www.purjealutaliitto.fi ;)