No-one seems to talk about theses. Are they a useful tactic freeriding in rough water?

I'd love to get some tips on doing them.

Love doing lay down jibes. Best tips.....over sheet the sail
Straight front arm...... Lye the rig down, count to 1,Look backwards , then flip the rig. Great fun

its one move l world love to do.tryed it so many times but never nailed it. It looks easy & such a classy jibe.dont see them a lot these days.

Spock knows how to do em pretty good!

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ikw777 said..
No-one seems to talk about theses. Are they a useful tactic freeriding in rough water?

I'd love to get some tips on doing them.

I don't know if a classic 'kissing the water' full laydown is always necessary for rough water. Certainly an aggressive TUCK of the sail (back hand waaaaay down the boom - much further down than he is in the above photo - and pulling up on the back of the sail) helps lock the rail of the board and allows you to push through nasty chop and turn. If you watch PWA racing nobody is fully laying the sail down as it's slower to bring back up (and more work).

The windier and choppier it gets the more you need to trust your fin not to slip as you really put a lot of pressure on it doing hard tuck/laydown gybes but there is really no other way to gybe when it's rough to lock the rail in on the turn.

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ikw777 said..

I'd love to get some tips on doing them.

That's about the right level of tuck to get the rail locked without going in to a full laydown. Note back hand is way back almost to my outhaul cleats (and I run them pretty far back). Lean forward and actually use your FRONT foot in the strap to drive the board through the turn as you pull aggressively the back end of the boom upwards to get it out of the water (i'm not doing a good job of getting the sail out of the water in these photos but the bottom one is a 9.0m! Your front hand is just a guide to tip the front of the sail downwards (all the work is from the back hand). If it's done well you should be able to take your front hand off the boom... all the weight is in the back hand.

Once you are halfway through the turn, really aggressively pull the sail forwards then upright then with your back hand actually PUSH the sail through the sail flip (can use your front hand to pull and help whip the sail around). The slowest part of the gybe is the sail flip so if you can speed that up that's where the gains are...

I usually like over hand grip with the front hand for the gybes ... must have been tired that day.

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ikw777 said..
No-one seems to talk about theses. Are they a useful tactic freeriding in rough water?

I'd love to get some tips on doing them.

I'm no expert on gybing but if you've ever sailed in light winds with a big sail in ripple flat water you will have found yourself going well above the real wind speed. When you gybe and come to the rig flip you may well find the sail blows you backwards off the board. If you do manage to punch the sail through the wind you will find it will slow you down significantly.

That's where a laydown is superior. If you do it correctly you can slice the sail up through the wind so that by the time it's upright the clew is past the nose and the apparent headwind actually helps from then on.

This doesn't apply in rough water though.

Nice wrap Sean thanks

Sean had some good points on the lay down jibe.

I remembered a older video from Severne Sail we made at Woodmans Point - WA, where we throw a few lay down jibes, - video by Matt Holder:



Lay down jibes is for sure a lot easier in flat water. For rough conditions (like Sean pointed out) , you would jibe more like his pictures above shows, to keep control over the rail of the board,,

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Troppo said..
Spock knows how to do em pretty good!

Awesome laydown Spock, you magnificent bastard!

I prefer a nice quick afternoon laydown.


some key points if you do want to try them.

bend the knees
find the balance point of your sail, often just either side of the harness lines or if going one handed smack bang on them
look where you want to go....forwards or towards the tip of the sail. or if there is a camera look at the camera,, smile.
practice doing laydown 360's this will give you the timing for the rig flip as you will be able to feel when you are about to get back winded and slammed on your arse before it happens.
back hand, sheet in and slightly raked back. if you rake it back too far you will put too much pressure on the tail and generally stall when your coming out of the gybe, you want to keep forward momentum.
slice the sail through the wind and guide it around ready for the catch. crucial in keeping forward momentum
if you try lift it up before you are ready to flip its generally going to flatten you.
did is say bend the knees??


not many are seen in racing as its quite hard to adjust the radius of your turn once its been set. at a crowded gybe mark this is pretty important.

also they are not as fast for Gps alphas, the turn is too drawn out for really good numbers.

they just look way more speccy and stylish and you get to throw some buckets off the tail.

Great tips! I am looking gorward to some practice now.

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ikw777 said...
Great tips! I am looking gorward to some practice now.

........ and then I can copy you

From what I remember the old longer narrower and boxy rail boards from the ninetys like the torquays wind tech and cavemans Sputniks etc it was the only way to gybe them or they spat you off big time !

And then I will try and copy both of you !!!!

Laydowns are an important part of sailing for a few reasons, other than impressing your mates. Sometimes when your mega powered its hard to huck into a gybe, so you can use the laydown to exhaust most of the power in the sail, while using the center of balance (sail) as a pivot point for your gybe. It`s good to wash off excess speed also. Just watch the crew at Luderitz after their run.
The best way to learn is on the flattest water possible, POWERED UP. You might also find that its easier on a certain tack, so try both.
It`s gonna be windy tomorrow!

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NotWal said..

I'm no expert on gybing but if you've ever sailed in light winds with a big sail in ripple flat water you will have found yourself going well above the real wind speed. When you gybe and come to the rig flip you may well find the sail blows you backwards off the board. If you do manage to punch the sail through the wind you will find it will slow you down significantly.

That's where a laydown is superior. If you do it correctly you can slice the sail up through the wind so that by the time it's upright the clew is past the nose and the apparent headwind actually helps from then on.

This doesn't apply in rough water though.

I've been blown off my board backwards many times. Would love to blame excessive speed, but that's not always true...

If you're going into a jibe with board speed that is significantly higher than the wind speed, how you guide the sail forward becomes really important. You want to slice it forward, without any power in it. Once it's far enough to the front, you can backwind it a bit, which will initiate the sail rotation. I think pulling the rig to leeward with the front arm to get backwinded works better than pushing out with your back hand. If everything is timed right, you get an effortless sail rotation without loosing much speed. Pretty cool feeling. I can't reproduce it often, but I love it when it happens.

It's possible that a laydown jibe makes the slicing and timing easier. Could also be that the laydown dumps more speed. I don't do laydown jibes, so I don't know. But I do know that you can do the sail rotation while still going faster than the wind without a laydown. Slalom sailors often go faster than the wind, and rarely laydown; I'd think they often have to deal with headwind during the sail flip.

A few years ago, I asked a windsurf instructor about this. The guy was a very good sailor, but he only sailed in chop and waves, never on flat water. He had absolutely no clue what I was talking about - I don't think he ever went faster than the wind. I eventually learned this from another instructor who used to be a top-level racer.

Ultimate laydown gybe!

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jusavina said..
Ultimate laydown gybe!

I would rather learn from her than either Ian or Glenn !!

come on guys she's 15... :-)

if riccardo can do a freestyle one handed aerial jibe like he did at pozo a couple of years ago .then l think it can't be that hard to do a lay down in flatwater.l must admit it is a showey jibe which you dont see performed much these days.

I do enjoy a good lay down...



One of these was a bit better than the other...

The first one was truly a 'Laydown Gybe!

I recon 'Laydown Gybes fall into the same category as those jumps kiters do right in front of the bikini girls on the beach! LOL!

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jimbob SA said..
From what I remember the old longer narrower and boxy rail boards from the ninetys like the torquays wind tech and cavemans Sputniks etc it was the only way to gybe them or they spat you off big time !

The problem I have with laydowns on my new gear is that if I time it properly and get some decent rail pressure the board snaps around so quickly that the gybe is over in moments and my favourite type of laydown is one with a wider arc. I feel like pulling out my old caveman sometimes for that reason. It does great laydowns without a neck snapping radius.

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berowne said..
New guide to gybing - pretty aggressive and only a few degrees off a full lay down...
http://boards.mpora.com/technique/4-steps-to-the-perfect-slalom-gybe-with-kurosh-kiani.html

MM think i may have found out why i trip a rail going into gybes in chop sometimes. he says if you don't commit enough to get the rail to carve in at the start ( with back foot pressue ) the board is too flat and can trip..

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sboardcrazy said..

berowne said..
New guide to gybing - pretty aggressive and only a few degrees off a full lay down...
http://boards.mpora.com/technique/4-steps-to-the-perfect-slalom-gybe-with-kurosh-kiani.html

MM think i may have found out why i trip a rail going into gybes in chop sometimes. he says if you don't commit enough to get the rail to carve in at the start ( with back foot pressue ) the board is too flat and can trip..

Can you see the gallery pictures they talk about Sue? I can't.

^^^ Never mind. Its Adblock.

A few pictures to help tell the story... from last weekend GPS TC.

Way back in the late 90's when we used to slalom race loads we had some amazing spots to sail in with turquoise water and beautiful reefs. At the time I was fairly good at doing them and I remember how the cool bit was sometimes the sail (VX3) would drag in the water and you could clearly see the fish scattering!

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Cluffy said..
The problem I have with laydowns on my new gear is that if I time it properly and get some decent rail pressure the board snaps around so quickly that the gybe is over in moments and my favourite type of laydown is one with a wider arc. I feel like pulling out my old caveman sometimes for that reason. It does great laydowns without a neck snapping radius.

Me too...the very action of laying down the sail pulls me right to the inside of the turn, really banking the board and tightening the carve. The very moment the sail is down I feel it go light and know it's time to get on the other side of it if I want to plane out. This gives me zero time to enjoy the actual moment of the laydown itself. So I'm experimenting with a touch more outer foot pressure to counter the weight of the sail when it's so low and keep the board from banking over so hard. I've not pulled it off it yet, but my theory is that this should give me more time, but it's hard to overcome my habit of keeping the mast perpendicular to the board in my turns.