What's the common cause of Spinout? Seems to happen to me/my board a great deal. Poor stance/technique related?

Some details - Starboard Futura111, 38cm stock fin, strap set to inboard position. Sails 6.5 and 7.5 mostly.

More than often happens when sailing upwind though not always the case.

Lots of possibilities!

If your fin is in good condition, no nicks or scratches, and it's not super shiny gloss, then it's something you're doing!

I would have said that a 38 was ambitious for a 7.5, but that depends largely on your skill, and the shape/style of the fin. The freestyle guys go upwind quite happily on tiny 19cm fins with 5-6m sails.

Where are your harness lines? (I'm assuming that you're planing, and in the harness) If you have them too far forward, you'll be pulling with your back hand and loading up the fin through your back foot more than you should. I'm a fan of the Jem Hall Guy Cribb technique of having the front line at 1/3, and the back line a handwidth behind that. You have a bit more pull in your front hand than the back, and feel perilously close to catapulting for a while until you get used to it, but it does seem to be faster/more powerful, and spinout is much decreased.

Failing that, try getting a bit more speed before you hook upwind. The fin can support a lot more lateral load when it's going faster.

Cheers 555!

Fin is near new so no damage, nicks, etc. Matt like finish I guess. Stock Drake. I also have a new MFC 32cm liquid pro.

So your saying the 38 could be too large? What would be suggested for the 6.5m to 7.5m sail range?

My harness lines are also 1/3 the way back measured with a Cribb sheet line. Also a hands width apart, forearm length.....28 inch I think.

Will play around a bit more with fins, etc. Cheers again!

I had some major problems with spinout on my 105l board with a 32cm freeride fin and 6.6m sail, especially in choppy water. The solution for me was more downhaul on the sail (making the leech floppy down to the 3rd or 4th batten instead of just to the 2nd), and that's reduced spinout by a LOT (probably around 90%).

Also try to hang down into the harness more instead of just leaning out, which by its self puts a lot of lateral weight on the fin.

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ejmack said...
So your saying the 38 could be too large? What would be suggested for the 6.5m to 7.5m sail range?

I use a 40cm fin from my big board on my 105l in lighter winds (i.e. just planing up to about 20kts of wind), it works pretty well. It's a handful in stronger wind though.

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ejmack said...

Cheers 555!

Fin is near new so no damage, nicks, etc. Matt like finish I guess. Stock Drake. I also have a new MFC 32cm liquid pro.

So your saying the 38 could be too large? What would be suggested for the 6.5m to 7.5m sail range?

My harness lines are also 1/3 the way back measured with a Cribb sheet line. Also a hands width apart, forearm length.....28 inch I think.

Will play around a bit more with fins, etc. Cheers again!

I think 555 was saying the fin was too small. The lower the wind (ie the slower you go) the larger the fin you need to eliminate spin out. This works in reverse when over powered with a large fin, board is difficult to control and just wants to rail upwind.

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sausage said...
I think 555 was saying the fin was too small. The lower the wind (ie the slower you go) the larger the fin you need to eliminate spin out. This works in reverse when over powered with a large fin, board is difficult to control and just wants to rail upwind.

Yep - thanks for clearing that up sausage..

I have a 46 that I use with a 7.0, and also a 52. Both work well and can take more than I can give (reasonably) them before spinning out. Obviously I can spin them out on purpose, but neither has let go when I wasn't expecting it. Apart from that jellyfish incident...

It does depend a lot on the shape of the foil, and the shape of the fin. A narrow fin offers less spinout resistance at lower speeds than a wider one, but is more efficient at higher speeds while the wider one will reach a threshold where it just won't go any faster much sooner.

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sausage said...
This works in reverse when over powered with a large fin, board is difficult to control and just wants to rail upwind.

By which he means that the upwind rail lifts up, and you head off uncontrollably downwind in a screaming hurry! Worse if you have the straps inboard!

A 38 will work, but you'll need to have a bit more finesse or speed is all.

ejmack,

Fin Shape, profile etc are very important.

I agree with some of what 555 says (technique tips) but not that your fin size is too small - I think 38 on 6.5 -7.5 is about right. Depending on board width you could go to a 41/42 max.

I Can sail a 7.0 with a 30cm fin - this is right 'on the edge' in terms of providing enough lift to get planing and to point OK in light winds (15 knots). (c3 Venom - great fins)

For 105L litre and 7.0m (13-17 knot wind range) I usually run a 33-37 cm fin. (Select superfast/viper) I would not run a bigger fin than this on a 105 litre board (62cm wide).

As for fin width/speed performance etc.. - My Selects (24 & 28) cm speed fins are both narrower than my 26 cm c3 Venom - but the Selects are no where near as stable or as fast as the wider fin - interesting.

General tips on running downwind to get a bit of speed up helps the fin performance in some case.

All of the above etc...

If it's the "Drake Freeslalom Swift 380" the BLUE one with 2million layers of blue paint and a transfer that's about 1mm thick which acts like a big scratch??

Get some wet n dry and at least sand off the transfer, I sanded all the paint off as well and now rarely spins out. (but a crap fin will always be crap)
(this was "Rogers" suggestion on the Starboard forum)

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ejmack said...

What's the common cause of Spinout?

Too many forwards mucking with your inner ear (I wish (bugger it, I'm just gonna go for one soon)).

I use a 40cm MFC Liquid Pro on my 7.2 and a 34-36 with a 5.9 or a 6.5. This is on a 111l Carve. I think your fin size is about right, or we're both wrong.

When I was using the factory 34cm drake and was really broad reaching sometime I simply couldn't recover from cavitation and had to crash land.

I find I still spin out a bit across chop, but am learning to use Mast Base Pressure more than loading the fin up these days. Or a balance of the two.

Would this be the technique we are both missing? To use more mast base pressure?

It's quite likely I think evlPanda.....

Actually, only last sail I concentrated on applying more MFP/downforce through harness lines etc. and was surprised with how much nicer the board behaved, especially over chop, etc. Will go from there and see if I have as much problem with spinout.

Fin size seems to be right from what I'm reading at various websites - seems as though the supplied fin size is in the centre of the sail range suggested for my board. Which is 5m-8m metres or thereabouts. So the 6.5m would be about right for the 38cm, maybe for the 7.5m it's slightly too small...... at a guess.

Anyway, quite a bit to work from now following all the suggestions etc.

ducati - it is the Drake Freeslalom Swift 380. So not the best fins eh? Have to be honest, I know very little about fins, ie. - what's good & what's not.

Cheers all!

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ejmack said...

What's the common cause of Spinout?

- Standing up too quickly
- Too much baccy in the mix - so someone told me

Seriously though, probably excess pressure on the back foot from trying to point upwind?
Is it usually choppy when you're spinning out, as I sometimes notice if I'm bouncing over chop the fin will come out of the water a bit and if I don't ease off the pressure on it then I'll spin out.

too many drugs ?

Hey 555 - "If you have them too far forward, you'll be pulling with your back hand and loading up the fin through your back foot "

Just figured this out myself over the last couple of weeks and am glad to get some supporting evidence! I reckon I've spent the last 2 years sailing with my harness lines not dialled in and it's made a huge positive difference to my sailing to get this right. Probably the single biggest contributor to getting rid of frequent spinouts.

I think your fin size is ok. I sail a 7.0m with 34cm freeride fin on a 110l board and almost never spin out on choppy port philip, except when screwing up landing a jump or when seriously overpowered. I can sail my 7.0m with a 29cm freestye-wave fin, but I wouldn't recommend that.

But I remember a large amount of spinouts after transition from a bigger board with wide 50cm fin. With the big fin I got very used to putting too much of my weight on my back foot. This didn't work well with the small fin.

So I started to a) put as much weight as possible into the mast foot and b) more evenly distribute the remaining weight on both front foot and back foot. Also I try to avoid sudden lateral pressure by sailing light-footed, absorbing any shocks as best as possible.

This works very well for me . Now I just have to work on properly landing jumps...

And yeah as the other guys said you definitely need to have your harness lines and everything else setup so that you don't have put unnecessary pressure on the back foot.

Does a sailors weight play into this problem?
I have a Futura 111 with the fin that came with the board and sail with a 7.5 Gaastra and have never noticed the problem in wind 12 to 17 knots

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ejmack said...

More than often happens when sailing upwind though not always the case.

for upwind you can take some of the pressure off the fin by.

twisting your back foot so that your heel is pointing more towards the nose of the board.

make sure you back leg is almost straight and your front leg is bent (at the knee) which helps to swing your body weight forward at the hips

look forwards and upwind while racking the rig back with your arms.

also be very concious not to oversheet the sail. (having harness lines to far apart or too far back will do this) also grip the boom with your hands close to each other.

on big boards railing the board to leeward helps engage more rail and get the wind under the board.

on small boards try to keep the board flat.

if you find your sail doesn't feel fast and "slippery" while heading upwind this is a usual sign you don't have enough outhaul.

spinout heading downwind is usually because you are not driving through the front foot enough or downhaul related or any of the items mentioned already.

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Gestalt said...

on big boards railing the board to leeward helps engage more rail and get the wind under the board.

on small boards try to keep the board flat.

Last weekend I could get my board to spinout going upwind every time, just by railing the board to leeward. It was very noticeable, easy to verify, happened every time. I was trying to get the board 'flying' off the fin, bear in mind I had a small 29 cm fin with a 6.8, it was a good combination to test the limits of spinout due to the high fin loading.

Board is iSonic 94, not exactly big but not a small board either.

not enough downhaul / fin scratched or just crappy design (yes this happens sometimes with all brands) or not screwed in like a rock, or boom not high enough, (adjust boom to comfortable sailing position.....then raise it 4 inches!!!!!)

and sometimes it's just from too much grass-in-the-water man

Hi Nebbian,

yeah good point, i guess to me anything over 140 lt or 80cm wide or a longboard is big.

WA must be treating you well. 94lt is my small board.


Hi Greenleader.

couldn't agree more, lift the boom!!!!

lol. we had a theory in brisy that you can tell a goldy sailor by the height of their boom.

you just proved that theory wrong. [}:)]

well gestation, i keep tellin them until i'm blue in the face!!

but the way to beat someone on the broadwater is to out point em.

hard to get em to bear off hey.

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evlPanda said...

Too many forwards mucking with your inner ear (I wish (bugger it, I'm just gonna go for one soon)).

Just do it! next time your out. the first attemp IS the hardest after that its not so bad.

Boom is already at bottom of neck height. If I lift it another four inches I'd have to cut my sail to extend the cutout!

Regarding downhaul - one of the many good thing about Ezzy's is their visual guides for down and outhaul.

I was spinning-out heaps until I asked the question here. It's basically too much weight on your back foot, or you're pushing laterally against your fin too much (you need to push against your fin to get good speeds, but too much will result in spinout). Lifting your boom won't help if you're not committing to your harness, or your lines are too long that you're not able to put enough downward pressure on the mastbase.

In saying that, I moved my lines back, and concentrated on my stance, making sure that I balanced the weight between mast (harness/lines), front, and back foot to suit what sort of sailing I'm doing. Now when I spinout, it's usually when I've had a good sesh, and either tired, or being lazy, or pushing against the fin whilst chop-hopping!

going against the grain here, for what it's worth - but i find high boom is great if you are on a board with a wide tail or a good amount of volume in the tail, but on something like a low volume waveboard a lower boom helps get more weight / power into/onto the front leg

Cheers again everyone! To be honest, it's probably a bit of all the above!

I do seem to apply a lot of pressure through the back leg so maybe I have to ease up on that a little. Also, I often return from a sail with white fingers and assume it's because I'm gripping to the boom too tightly - not commiting to the harness enough. When I do let the harness take all of my weight the board does feel more in control, level, etc. so this is probably a good place to start (stance and harness use)and see how things go before looking at new fins, etc.

Sailhack - sorry, I should have done a search on spinout before posting. Comments appreciated!
Haircut - At the moment the 111 is my smallest. Wont be long though though before I'm onto something smaller..... I can already feel that the 111 is too big sometimes. Will keep that in mind. My boom height changes from a hands width of the tail of the board to a couple of fingers, but normally I set it around a hands width, which to me feels the best. I've tried it quite a bit lower but really dont like it.

... anybody else only ever spinout on one tack, their stronger side?

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Haircut said...

going against the grain here, for what it's worth - but i find high boom is great if you are on a board with a wide tail or a good amount of volume in the tail, but on something like a low volume waveboard a lower boom helps get more weight / power into/onto the front leg

haircut gave me this advice a while back and it works a treat on my wave kit.

i also use a slightly lower boom on the wave gear and using a little more front foot pressure made a big difference going upwind.

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evlPanda said...

... anybody else only ever spinout on one tack, their stronger side?

I tend to spinout mostly when on a starboard tack (me thinks that's right??) anyways, when my left leg is at the back, due to my right knee being a tad dodgy (thanks footy!), and I'm not putting enough pressure on it, especially after a big day!

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Gestalt said...

ejmack said...

More than often happens when sailing upwind though not always the case.

for upwind you can take some of the pressure off the fin by.

twisting your back foot so that your heel is pointing more towards the nose of the board.

make sure you back leg is almost straight and your front leg is bent (at the knee) which helps to swing your body weight forward at the hips

look forwards and upwind while racking the rig back with your arms.

also be very concious not to oversheet the sail. (having harness lines to far apart or too far back will do this) also grip the boom with your hands close to each other.

on big boards railing the board to leeward helps engage more rail and get the wind under the board.

on small boards try to keep the board flat.

if you find your sail doesn't feel fast and "slippery" while heading upwind this is a usual sign you don't have enough outhaul.

spinout heading downwind is usually because you are not driving through the front foot enough or downhaul related or any of the items mentioned already.

In addition to Gestalt's advice, in marginal conditions I will sail with my back foot out of the strap and place it further up the board which keeps me planning and all but eliminates spinout. For me this is very comfortable although you have to be alert not to over balance (catapult) as the gusts come through. Ideally i would love to have an additional strap forward of the back one as it feels more natural when cruising. This is a remnant from my sailing days as a 17y.o. on a home made board which had the footstraps quite close to each other.

If it's anything like my Drake Isonic Fin they are prone to spin out, they're pretty crappy in that regards. Moreover Starboards seem to like a lot of fin, so combine this with an average fin and spin out is easy.

Having said this, with good technique and set up you can avoid spin out, as per all the other tips...hang your body weight of the rig and drive the power down through the mast.

But I don't believe in having to work too hard on a board, it should be more about fun, so do yourself a favour and try a decent fin (or go bigger), it will be a lot more forgiving of technique.