There was a fickle southwest breeze on Sunday- just enough to take advantage of with a formula sail and big sail. Shawn captured some good photos of me from the beach. More importantly, he captured a critical moment in mid pump. The photo above shows how essential it is to hang your weight from your booms and unweight the board to get going. Notice too, how my feet arn't on the rail yet. To get going in the light stuff you need to get the leach moving and air flow attached with some big solid pumps first then gradually taper them off once you get planning. Check out the rest of the photos sequence here at Shawn Davis's site
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
light wind training
There was a fickle southwest breeze on Sunday- just enough to take advantage of with a formula sail and big sail. Shawn captured some good photos of me from the beach. More importantly, he captured a critical moment in mid pump. The photo above shows how essential it is to hang your weight from your booms and unweight the board to get going. Notice too, how my feet arn't on the rail yet. To get going in the light stuff you need to get the leach moving and air flow attached with some big solid pumps first then gradually taper them off once you get planning. Check out the rest of the photos sequence here at Shawn Davis's site
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5 comments:
Steve, your technique was definitely working. There were a couple other sailors out that same day and they were just bobbing around. A few well timed pumps made all the difference between drifting and flying. Once you got your apparent wind up, you had no problem planing all across the bay.
Stevo,
What was the windspeed, there don't appear to be any whitecaps, where you using your 11.8 70cm Kashy? I need help in light winds and it looks like you have it nailed.
George
G-
Good to hear form you and glad you're enjoying the new blog.
Sundays session was light- 6-10k. It was windier earlier but dying so I was stuck on 11- trying to make it as efficient as possible. I using a debocheit r17 s-- + 5 fin.
In regards light air technique- try to put all you effort in the first few pumps to get it going with a really big pumps- sheeting out and opening the leach - then rapidly bringing the clew in and throwing it back forward again to repeat. Think of your pumps as a continuous motion- following an oval path in the air. You want to get the air and keep it attached to the sail. Its important in these first few pumps to hang your weight form the booms as the photos shows. Once you can get the board up and going (not quite planning yet) - switch to a smaller leach pump where you dont sheet out as much but are still moving the leach.
Once you know how to do it- its actually quite easy but learning it is the hard part.
Enjoy the process
Steve
Steve,
I rode the F2 formula board with limited success last year. I am wondering if you were able to make it go and what settings/fins you used. I tied all kinds of different things but found when it got windy the board was a lot to handle. MacRae Wylde
I didnt use the 2007 F2 board much last year as the ML7 was the choice for a comfortable ride. The f2 was more technical but I think once you found the right tuning, it could go well. Its best performance was in flat water and light wind- after that it began to suffer against the other 07 boards.
I think using a soft fin would be the best option for this board.
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