I feel that I am almost there with my gybing and usually get 80 to 90% of them in a session. When I do muck up though it is nearly always in one of two ways. As I lean in hard on the inside rail and flip the rig, the clew of the sail will skim the surface of the water and then not rotate around for me. Am I leaning too hard on the rail or is it something about the timing of my rig flip???
The second way is as I am carving my board around in an arc, when I am pointing downwind or more,
suddenly the board will shoot ahead in a straight line (coming out of the turning arc required) despite me leaning on the inside rail. Any suggestions on how to avoid these 2 mistakes that are spoiling my quest for 100%? I do nearly all my sailing in bump and jump conditions and I usually sail an 86 l Tabou 3s.

make sure you are reaching back down the boom a long way just before you gybe and make sure you are trying to extend your front arm as you go into the turn. This will put your rig in a better position and stop it digging in

When you are about to flip the sail you need to lift the mast up so the clew clears the water.

Watch how how low this guy drops his mast but clew Is fine.

Wrt straightening up, if you really still pressing hard on the inside rail, it must mean you or the mast is pressing equally hard on the outside rail To level out the board. It's simple physics And friction. Trying pulling up more with your outside foot.

suddenly the board will shoot ahead in a straight line (coming out of the turning arc required) despite me leaning on the inside rail.

The whole rail needs to be engaged, not just the tail end. Have your front arm straighter and your weight further forward. More mast foot pressure.

"The second way is as I am carving my board around in an arc, when I am pointing downwind or more, suddenly the board will shoot ahead in a straight line (coming out of the turning arc required) despite me leaning on the inside rail."

Pretty sure this is because you have lost too much speed and steering with the rig is now having a greater affect than carving. You either need more speed or to steer with the sail i.e. move it to the outside of the arc like you are sub planing. Then you can correct your arc and then flip the rig.

Thanks all. Had a sail tonight and keeping the front arm more extended did the trick of keeping the clew off the water. No issues tonight with keeping the board on the arc. Will keep experimenting with your various suggestions. Speed shouldn't be an issue as it occurs when I'm on the full plane. More likely need more forward weight and mfp I suspect. Thanks everyone.

Try to pick a wave/swell to turn on going down the face will help keep the momentum up. The following clip is a good example of board speed carving down wind and sail rotation. Keep Knees bent but don't lean upper body too far forward, also experiment with foot pressure and placement to find the boards sweet spot, so to speak. you may need to apply varying rail pressure throughout the jibe.

My top tip is to get some one to video you attempting a number of jibs then compare with training video. I was surprised how much I was getting wrong when viewed. Am still bit shaky but am getting better.

Sounds like what Haggar said, the sail is taking over while you lose speed traveling downwind. You could try moving your hips over the inside rail by pivoting on your carving foot. This will get you in a good position for the rig flip and move the sail to the outside of the turn which will aid in turning the board.

I've been watching your gybes recently (because we've been riding together). You start off ok, but then you straighten your body and lean back and let the board and rig take over. You stop carving. The tail of the board sinks. You go over backwards.

Lean forward more aggressively. Front arm straight. Lean the rig into the turn. Bend the knees. Head and shoulders over the centre line. Over sheet on the back hand. Flip the sail while you're still carving with your arms straight. Don't choke the sail against your body.

For messed up gybes, most people accept that a mess up is followed by a fall. That is not necessarily the case. Learn to move around on the board and counter balance with the rig. You should be able to stand there and balance quite happily on any size board as long as there is a little forward motion and a little power in the sail.

The other thing is to learn to sail clew first with a little power. That way you can stall in your gybe but still sail away with some style.

99% of windsurfers do the following things:
- stand up straight mid gybe and stall the board and sail
- choke the sail during the transition ending with the backward fall with the sail on top of you.
- continue to overdo the turn after everything has stalled resulting in the board round up into wind and the consequent wrestle with the rig

Go and watch some old school windsurfing videos of all the legends doing lay down gybes. That is the starting point for everything.

Another good thing to practice is to try for carving 360's. You won't make it around but the body position for the first 1/2 of the rotation is exactly what you want for a carving gybe.

The other thing that is good to practice is what I call "lazy sailing". Just doob around in relatively underpowered conditions. Practice clew first water starts and clew first sailing. Do some flare gybes. See how many gybes you can get done in a 20-30m length. Try some sail handling tricks. The idea is to be comfortable in really wrong positions so you can turn them into right positions.

Successful Carve Gybes need a few of these components to become a planing gybe.
1: Speed
2: Positional awareness
3: confidence
4: Commitment
5: Persistence

Unlike a Duck Gybe, a Carve Gybe does not have the sail to provide power throughout the gybe. As soon as you flip the sail, the duration when the sail rotates around to the new tack, you have no contribution from the sail in terms of forward power. Momentum carries you through the gybe. Hence the importance of speed.

As ridiculous as it sound, when you enter into a gybe, you are almost sailing blind ! Why? Because now you have a board that is wobbly on choppy water. A sail that is nothing but a nuisance which obscures your forward vision, and worse still, it can move in any direction, including falling out of your hand. Then you have to be mindful of where your feet are, your hands, the angle you banked into. On top of all these, you don't know if you have gone too far and pointed too much upwind on your exit. So it pays to have a "mental picture" of where you are relative to the wind.

I like to break down the gybe into 4 portions. For the 180 degree turn, each portion is about 45 degrees. These are:

#1:
Bearing off. This gives you an extra burst of speed as you bear-off at 45 degree.

#2:
Carving. You begin to lay your sail into the turn. Not as hard as a lay-down gybe. You bring your fore-hand closer to the harness line, and your back-hand further from it. As you sheet in hard with your back-hand, you will push the mast more forward towards the front of the board, as well as towards the inside of the turn. Your body is forced to move forward and lean inside of the board. Such action will initiate the carving motion. Ideally, you want to bend your knees to absorb the bounce, as well as lower the C.G. for better stability.

Imagine a cone shape. Your body is at the very base of it. So essentially not only you are leaning inward, you also lean forward. Now this part will take up the next 45 degrees of the turn. So you are now 90 degrees into the turn.

#3:
Sail rotation. As I said early, unlike a Duck Gybe, a Carve Gybe does not get any assistance from the sail once you released the sail. So momentum is king. It carries you, hopefully still on the plane. Now don't panic as you release the sail. Most failed gybes are caused by sudden movement such as shifting your body away from the inside rail as well as leaning toward the tail of the board. Such sudden change of posture will mean only one thing...stalling. Your board will stop carving, and its backend also sinks. Not good.

So be brave. Hold your posture, grit your teeth. Many failed gybes are caused by the fact that the sail rotated too far away from you. That is because you didn't push the sail more forward. By pushing the sail forward, the "Centre of Effort" of the sail is closer to the vertical axis of the mast. So as it rotates, the "Centre of Effort" rotates close to the vertical axis of the mast, and hence it does not swing away. Whether you choose to go "boom to boom" or "boom to mast" is a matter of personal choice and habit. This takes care of the third 45 degrees. You are now 135 degrees into the turn...nearly home.

#4:
Sailing on new tack. This stage will determine you come out planing, or stalling. I have seen many sailors did all the right things until this very last bit. They begin to change foot positions, and in the process, forgotten about maintaining the carving motion. Even at this stage, your body should still be subscribing a circle as described in #2.

Now what about your feet? After years of practice, I found the best way to keep the momentum up, and not to disturb the posture, is to sail "wrong footed". Yes, it is a bit weird but if you do it often enough, you don't even notice you are sailing with your front foot on the other side of the board! With such posture, you can actually steer the board very well. By lifting it ever so slightly, you can make the board bank a bit sharper.

By now, you have done a 180 degrees turn. With the board still planing, and the sail in the correct position, you can change your foot positions.

Throughout all these, you need to be aware, mentally, where you are in relation to the turn. I often use land marks as a guide. The beach is the obvious target. A float, or a boat, or a distant mountain range, or buildings.

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Jupiter said..

Now what about your feet? After years of practice, I found the best way to keep the momentum up, and not to disturb the posture, is to sail "wrong footed". Yes, it is a bit weird but if you do it often enough, you don't even notice you are sailing with your front foot on the other side of the board! With such posture, you can actually steer the board very well. By lifting it ever so slightly, you can make the board bank a bit sharper.

People all develop their own technique, however, often it is not a good idea to follow. Most of Jupiter's post above is good, however, I feel that the advise above regarding feet is not a good idea. I do understand what he is getting at, for many years, I also gybed like this and occasionally I do use this technique, particularly in very overpowered or choppy situations. Ultimately it is not the best or fastest way to gybe, switching your feet at the right time and coming out of the gybe low and driving off the front foot will keep the board planing much better.

The link to Sam Ross' video is one of the best gybing films I have seen. I recommend that you study it and try to replicate each stage that he describes.



Even though I race slalom reasonably successfully, I often watch this film and actively try to go through it on my next sailing session in order to iron out bad habits

I bet when you go straight ahead, that is where you are looking!

Watch the Sam Ross video.. At every step he says look to the inside of the turn

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baywavebill said..
I feel that I am almost there with my gybing and usually get 80 to 90% of them in a session. When I do muck up though it is nearly always in one of two ways. As I lean in hard on the inside rail and flip the rig, the clew of the sail will skim the surface of the water and then not rotate around for me. Am I leaning too hard on the rail or is it something about the timing of my rig flip???
The second way is as I am carving my board around in an arc, when I am pointing downwind or more,
suddenly the board will shoot ahead in a straight line (coming out of the turning arc required) despite me leaning on the inside rail.

Everything Gorgo said makes sense. Follow his suggestions, and you'll see improvement.

There are two common reasons why a board stops carving mid-turn: 1. Loosing speed (not planing anymore), and 2. the sail working against the board. You are probably dealing with #2. When you carved to downwind, you still have power in the sail, but the mast is leaning into the turn. So the power in the sail wants to turn the nose back, counteracting the carve, and you go nowhere.

In Dasher's 12-step jibe breakdown, focus on step 9: "Move the mast to the outside, while your hips roll in". Move the mast from the inside of the turn to the outside, and counter-balance the weight by rolling your hips to the inside. This naturally leads to changing your feet next. Since the mast is on the outside and more upright, the clew will not catch anymore when you flip it.

If you should lost too much speed and stop planing, then sail out clew-first (the clew-first drills that Gorgo suggested really help here). In that case, don't flip until you are on a beam reach or slightly downwind on the new course. But if you keep your speed in the jibe, flip the sail right away after changing your feet.

The other thing you could also try is to over sheet more. If you get the sail completely depowered, it's easy to move around, and you have to be in a balanced position instead of leaning back, which helps during the sail flip and in chop. But how much you over sheet is a bit a matter of preference (and conditions). Dasher shows both ways in his video: the young guy fully over sheets, even pulling the clew behind him; Dasher sheets in less, and keeps a little power in the sail. Obviously, either way can work. For me, fully over sheeting works better when fully powered.

Some good stuff guys , but it all depends on so many different factors ! individually , you can all talk till your blue in the face , but let me know who's serious about a gybe clinic down my way I I will try help you guys out ,and I can put something together at Cowes on Phillip Island in Vico ok ,actions speak louder than words

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Yuppy said..
I bet when you go straight ahead, that is where you are looking!

Watch the Sam Ross video.. At every step he says look to the inside of the turn

Everytime I stuff a gybe I find I was generally looking at the boom or board rather than the exit. Looking at the exit really puts your body in a good position.

That goes without saying ??