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Any vids of really fast alphas ?

Woody Mark.

GPSTC will show you the fastest U-Turns within the rules and look here for some inspiration (check out his other videos as well ):

See below

Looks so easy .

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Imax1 said..
Looks so easy .

It always does when I see videos of blokes doing them..insert eye roll icon

I can't gybe like that but if the water on the bay was as smooth as the water they are on I bet I'd be a lot closer.

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RumChaser said..
I can't gybe like that but if the water on the bay was as smooth as the water they are on I bet I'd be a lot closer.

Yep, dead flat water is the key, But there is usually a bit of a trade off, and it's what makes the water flat, -- WEED, you need the right fin, needs to have enough lift to get your square runs in and out as high as possible, but also needs minimum drag in the weed. Slowing down in the gybe, can loose a lot of acceleration out of the gybe as you sink deeper into the weed.
This was my problem last Albany session, I was getting 27kts square, start of gybe at 30kts, but not flipping quick enough, dropping to 10kts and getting too much weed drag coming out of the gybe.

^ yeah I can see why a lot of people at places like Lake George use the delta style or fangy fins. Some people use them here for shallows/weeds but I haven't seen a fangy. My MUF weed slalom fins will catch a lot of drag in the jibe if there are thick weeds. I can feel it. But for me personally that was 10% of the problem, the rest was just a skill issue on my part. If you're making planing jibes though (I'm soo freaking close but not quite) it would make a huge difference in coming out much faster.

Front hand palm up! What??

this one helped me a lot, not sure if the dvd is still available

That Intuition Core Skills DVD was in caravan i got off old windsurfers.

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AUS1111 said..
Front hand palm up! What??

It's surprising howy many really good sailors don't use textbook technique. Just goes to show , if it works don't worry!

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powersloshin said..
this one helped me a lot, not sure if the dvd is still available

I think I've got that in a cupboard somewhere? The old VHS.

Good lookin board in that first video

What sort of minimum speeds do you do to in a gybe? I'm just about doing plining gybes. I think I've done one with a minimum speed of 10 kts.

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shannon19 said..
What sort of minimum speeds do you do to in a gybe? I'm just about doing plining gybes. I think I've done one with a minimum speed of 10 kts.

For me it's close to 15, tipping in at about 30. I tried once at 40 and it doesn't work at all. Getting the power on quickly is the key to a quick Alpha...and flat water, footwork, turning etc

coming out at 10kts is probably planning. 15 or 16 is the best I've done

I'm just happy to stay dry

Yeah it feels like I am planning out of them. I am also much better turning right than turning left as well but I am sure that is just practice.

just need some wind in Queensland so we can practice!

Planing threshold in jibes is somewhere between 6 and 8 knots. 8 knots is clearly planed through on a slalom board; 6 knots means the board never really sank down, and it looks like a planed through jibe to observers. Small speed boards may have somewhat higher numbers. These numbers may seem low, but keep in mind that the lowest speeds in a decent jibe are usually just for a couple of seconds or less. Often, it's just a single point, with nearby points being 0.5 to 1 knot higher. Measuring at 5-10 hz instead of 1 hz will typically result in a 0.5 knot drop in reported minimum speed.

As Kato said, very good jibers often have minimum speeds around 15 knots. Here are the jibes from his 29 knot hour this year on Lake George:

The best windsurf jibes I have seen in GPS tracks are from Slowboat this spring in Albany, with a couple of jibes above 20 knots minimum speed:

In the data above, you can see keeping 50% of the entry speed in jibes is very good for windsurfers, and 60% is outstanding. With a foil, it's easy to keep a lot more of the entry speed, even in much tighter turns and chop. Here's and example of an average session from a good winger:

I really like that turn analysis feature. I'm still working on fin jibes, hoping for more wind and better conditions soon, because per that I got up to 130deg off wind on the new side, doing 8kts, before I flipped poorly and fell off plane. I know I'm very close. It's helping me getting more in sync with what I think is happening from feel vs. real data.

It also shows that I have lots of room for improvement on race foils. I am flying thru at 10kts but I know I could get up to 15kts or maybe more. Freeride foils it's harder to say but I'm sure I could bring up the minimum speed there.

Latest video from Albany Nov3/4. Initially I was just trying to get a few shots of Woody's Alphas as he is on mission to crack 30 but a few other sailors in there doing some nice Alpha's including Decrepits very tidy effort of 23.7 and Rondog (27.47), Stretch (25.66) very smooth turns. Somehow I completely missed Dodi who just beat Woody's Alpha of 28.441 and quite a few other sailors (Jay, Boz, Antman and probably others) pulling 25+ Alpha's I missed getting good/any shots of. My lowly efforts (the POV shots) were around 22 with top of 23.5 as my cross wind speed/speed in general is terrible. Despite checking the tune in this video prior to uploading it unfortunately blocked in the US so you will have to use VPN to watch there.

Fantastic Jim! First time I've had a good look at my feet and hand movements. It's how I do a strap to strap, I seem to have got this one fairly right.

So since Jim has given me this I'll post the sequence here.
You can see this in action around 5' 30", don't get confused though there's a nice view of Ron Dog around the same time, he' also on a Wave Wands board and orange Koncept. He's much faster than me, I'm now where near that good.

Gybe entry.


Foot has gone to inside rail and starting to carve


Mid carve, old back foot just behind new front strap, old front foot still in old front strap


Sail coming back up ready to flip, feet haven't moved, still carving.


Back hand moved forward ready to flip, feet haven't moved, still carving



rig has just flipped, back foot starting to move forward, still carving


old back foot in new front strap, old front foot moving to back strap not quite carving


Both feet in straps, looking to hook in


This slowed me down a bit, took too long to hook in and get the power down

Great Video! I'm surprised at the amount of strap-to-strap gybing. I thought you'd all be step gybing in that flat water.

For me step gybing is only for chop, flat water is for strap to strap.

Very cool squence. I reckon its getting the new back foot in the strap that is holding me up.

I'm a step gyber. Looks like I need to learn strap to strap

I can't watch the video in the US, due to copyright issues with the music used. Bummer.

Mike jibes better than I do, but his picture sequences shows a small drawback of the sail-first jibe. The board is nice and flat at the jibe entry, but before and after the sail flip, the nose comes up, and the tail throws a lot of water. A step at the time of the sail flip would flatten the board out, and keep more speed - as long it happens at the right time, and the foot ends up at the right place. If the step is too late, or the foot placement is off (two things I excel at), things can slow down a lot.

I'd love to see a picture sequence of a slowboat jibe for comparison.

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boardsurfr said..
The board is nice and flat at the jibe entry, but before and after the sail flip, the nose comes up, and the tail throws a lot of water. A step at the time of the sail flip would flatten the board out, and keep more speed - as long it happens at the right time, and the foot ends up at the right place. If the step is too late, or the foot placement is off (two things I excel at), things can slow down a lot.

I'd love to see a picture sequence of a slowboat jibe for comparison.

Yes a step gybe, allows average speed to be higher, but I'm sure when done well, a strap to strap is faster to get hooked in and powered up.
I'm very rusty at the moment, in the gybe above, I shouldn't be looking to get hooked in, that should happen as soon as the sail has flipped, not as a separate movement. If it's done quickly enough, the slow down is minimal.

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Flex2 said..
Latest video from Albany Nov3/4. Initially I was just trying to get a few shots of Woody's Alphas as he is on mission to crack 30 but a few other sailors in there doing some nice Alpha's including Decrepits very tidy effort of 23.7 and Rondog (27.47), Stretch (25.66) very smooth turns. Somehow I completely missed Dodi who just beat Woody's Alpha of 28.441 and quite a few other sailors (Jay, Boz, Antman and probably others) pulling 25+ Alpha's I missed getting good/any shots of. My lowly efforts (the POV shots) were around 22 with top of 23.5 as my cross wind speed/speed in general is terrible. Despite checking the tune in this video prior to uploading it unfortunately blocked in the US so you will have to use VPN to watch there.

Thats great footage but what impressed me most is your flying skills, FPV? What drone do you use?