10 COACHING WINDWISE TECHNIQUE
Early planing is much harder when you ‘move down to
smaller boards’ (often too soon) or simply the wind drops
more than you’d like. However, even on exactly the right
size board and sail, you’ll get ‘slow starters’ with tails
sinking, boards luffing, decks submerging and seemingly
stuck to the water. Most people struggle to ‘get going’
because their board is NOT flat and the rig is too SHEETED
OUT, and the back leg is over-weighted. All of this is due to
destroying that Windwise ‘7’ shape stance by over flexing
the mast arm and front leg. All of which kills your early
planing potential.
How you actually learn to plane early…
These ‘wise’ words and core skills are applicable to any early
planing situation, be that beginner, expert, eight-metre
140L+ on a lake, six-metre first time planing on a 100L or
four-metre on a wave board if the wind drops! So enough
faffing, let’s get going!
uk
WIND
SURFING
Windwise early planing principles
Vision: look forward, not at the kit. It’s more important than
you’ll ever realise…..
Trim: flat is fast. Both feet MUST be forward!
Opposition: getting that rig forward enables you to angle the
body back in a more dynamic position.
Stance: to create acceleration accentuate our Straight 7 –
with a very tight torso! As the board accelerates sheet the rig
in and back and lean forward.
Counter intuitive moment 1 –
HEAD UPWIND…FIRST!
It is a bit of a fallacy that you must constantly or massively bear
away to get going. Doing so often leads people to stand too far
back on the board, sink the tail too much and sheet out.
Heading upwind allows you to bring both feet forward to help
flatten the board and sheet the sail in. Also, if you look
upwind you’ll see the gust coming, so you can be proactive
to drop, push and work that rig just as the gust hits, rather
than feel the gust and be too slow to react.