Like most sailors I have had a couple of problems with my sailing, one of which I didn't even know I had.
Firstly carve gybe- no surprises there, and secondly, planing up-wind.
When I gybe, I seem to always have a good, fast entry, awesome carve and hopeless exit. I seem to drop off the plane with alarming regularity.
I think I may of finally worked it out. To explain, I played basketball for about 25 years, I am very fast and light on my feet. When I switch feet on the gybe, I couldn't even tell you how I did it, it just seems to happen. Because of this ease in getting around, I always thought that that was the least of my troubles but I gave it some thought and now I think I was wrong.
Today in what were very marginal planing conditions, I made myself do the classic step-gybe foot change. The first 2 times, I actually fell off the back of the board. It felt like the board had accelerated when I changed my feet. I know this is not possible but it does show how much my board was slowing before and I was compensating for it. I figure that I am now stepping much farther up the board on the change and not weighting the tail and putting the brakes on. As I come out of the turn my front foot is now up near the mast base which must be at least a foot further forward than before.
The second problem I didn't even know I had. I usually sail by myself and you sail out and back again, a little up-wind if you want to but usually straight out and back. I thought I was going quite well. However whenever I do get to sail with others, I seemed to always be a little off the pace and especially up-wind. The other guys just fly past and when I tried to get up-wind a little, I would slow even further. I always just blamed my gear, I always use a weed-fin and thought this was the problem.
Had another light-bulb moment. Today instead of really working the sail and board to get up-wind, all I did was ease the sail a little. Bingo. When I was struggling before, I figure what I was doing was over-sheeting and wrecking the flow of air over the sail. I was feeling force on the sail but was not getting any forward thrust and the harder I tried, the more I was sheeting in and slowing down.
Today, even in marginal conditions, I was planing upwind on a much tighter angle with none of the fighting of the sail I used to. I just always thought that once you were hooked in some magic happened and the sail just trimmed itself but by consciously trimming the sail the board seemed to perform much better.
I would really like to hear what everyone thinks of these two adjustments, am I just deluding myself on how I went today or have I really been so stupid all this time not to see what I was doing wrong??? It seems so logical now.
If I am on the right track, maybe someone else reading this could be saved a little frustration.
so you have resolved your dodgy strap-to-strap wave gybes by changing to the slalom step-gybe?
i dont really think you have solved the original problem.
Agree big time on the the sheeting out to get upwind - major difference.
I now run my harness lines further forward on port side as in a WA seabreeze heading out on port tack is the push hard upwind kinda deal after riding a wave
Iceman you've got a pretty strong windsurfing community in Tasmania.
Check out gpsteamchallenge.com.au with the Tassie team being
Tassie Speed Seekers. These guys will share whatever tips you may need:-)
BTW you don't have to be fast to join up but having a gps helps...
Good luck.
Agree on the slight sheeting out to help with getting upwind. It's the icing on the cake.
Oversheeting while sailing upwind is the major reason many sailors can't get upwind.
As you point higher into the wind you need to ease the sheeting angle out to maintain the sail angle to the wind.
You also want to be sure you don't pull the rig over on you.
Keep the rig as upright as possible and you can do this by moving the front harness line back (which lets the front of the rig stand up) until its just about pulling all the time on your front arm.
In light winds, when you run out of puff, let the harness line go and grab the uphaul rope and use this to stand the rig more upright. This usually gets you another 10 degrees of upwind angle in the light stuff.
Also stand with your feet splayed and heels together.
This helps you to load the fin the correct way for going upwind. You don't want to be pushing sideways at it.
if you slowing down in carve gybees so much its usually because you are not committing yourself enuf. bend the knees and lean into it more :)
At fist you will find it feels really wierd as tho the sail is going to catapult you,
if you do it right tho the sail becomes almost waitless for the few seconds when it flips.
to maintain speed you actually need to slow the rate of turn of the board to get the sail all the way round and powered up again then accelerate back out as you bring the board around the last 45 degrees.
^^^ +1 Aim at doing a lay down gybe. You probably won't succeed but the extra commitment of the lay down movement will put you in the right place for doing a good carving gybe.
For getting good at going upwind you need to ... go upwind.
Pick a spot upwind of your launch site and ride to it. Then pick another spot and ride to that. Repeat then reward yourself with a mega downwind blast at the end.
It's even more fun if you can ride from your beach, to the next beach up and further. Stop in, wave to the locals and ride on. (Who was that masked man?)
Don't think too much about holding the sail in a special way or doing tricky things with your feet or body. That all comes naturally from doing it.
The only things you must do are:
- maintain a comfortable, planing position so you are riding with everything nicely balanced. Sail in a good position. Comfortable stance. Sufficient load on the fin.
- don't ride too fast, or even worse, don't ride too slow. A decent moderate speed is all it takes.
I don't always step gybe with my smaller board ( too lazy to relearn and planing out of gybes if powered up) but its prob worth relearning it .Changing the feet after I gybe I think my feet are too far back and slowing things ( + I lean back a bit sometimes).
I've found different boards need a different technique for carve gybes, but yeah generally most people including myself especially have too much weight on the back of the board. It's not a skateboard!
I've found carve gybing easiest on a free-wave style board, almost too easy. I've found a really aggressive turn works best on my free-ride board. The best gybes I can feel my inside foot touching the front strap, the other is still in the strap.
As for planing upwind I've recently found the opposite of what you describe, but only on free-ride/race gear. I imagine slalom is the same, you can really crank them upwind to the point where the apparent wind requires you to sheet right in and back. Freestyle-wave boards I sheet out a little and put the rig forwards, you can feel the sail getting sucked upwind.
A light touch is best.
Actually I quite like going upwind, feels like you're really flying.
my problem on the carve gybe was pointing too high up wind at the end of it. i now sheet in (if im moving fast enough) while travelling down wind slightly, then point up as i regain speed. 
speed. hard to sheet in when going slow down wind. no need to sheet in a lot though - enough to keep planing and feel comfy is all.
i catch the boom from an over hand grip, or above, if that is what u mean.
Macro- Imagine the gybe as a K - start heading downwind and finish heading downwind.
You are not trying to turn thru 180 deg, only about 100-120deg and then one planing out on exit and back in straps then you round up to complete the 180
