So I'm still not hitting my jybes after the third month. I'm trying to go down wind, focus on the board not the wing and find that after I've flipped the wing, the board stalls and I fall backwards (never forwards). I know I need to practice switch stance more on windier days but I'm looking to see if anyone could share their breakthrough moment/trick?
DC
If you have any surfing or foil surfing experience, I like to pretend I'm high lining down a wave backside and then do a cutback to the power source of the wave. This sort of visualization can help breakthrough that wall of turning downwind through to the other side of the wind window. Helps commit to the turn/carve. Dealing with the wing is the other half of the equation haha
would be good to see your stance. i was helping a guy out w/ his jibes and he had his front foot very biased toward the heel side rail and counterbalanced that w/ the back foot on the leeward rail, so he was always really turning w/ his back foot only instead of surfing the foil. also, like a windsurfing jibe it can help to go off the wind first to pick up speed and shorten the carve... esp if you end on a downwind course... your an do a 90-110 degree turn instead of a full 180. as you turn downwind, make sure you have feedback/pressure on your front foot. more speed you'll get more glide. finally when trying to sail switch most people have the wing very overhead at first... the wing needs to go forward to generate forward drive.
when in doubt go into it faster.
usually people rush the gybe and so the advice is to glide longer before finishing, but in your case if you are stalling then that isn't the problem. Maybe try to push your strut across the window to flip the wing more aggressively so you can finish the turn sooner. Really reach to grab the back handle which will both (a) give you some power to keep your glide on the finish and (b) give you an additional point of stability.
the other issue could just be that you aren't gliding efficiently and need to put more weight on the front foo through the turn.
Select to expand quoteMidAtlanticFoil said..
If you have any surfing or foil surfing experience, I like to pretend I'm high lining down a wave backside and then do a cutback to the power source of the wave. This sort of visualization can help breakthrough that wall of turning downwind through to the other side of the wind window. Helps commit to the turn/carve. Dealing with the wing is the other half of the equation haha
To add to the Gold advice above. Come in with controlled speed, lift the wing above you and ride the foil as though you don't even have a wing. Concentrate riding the foil, forget about the wing.
even if you spend a session riding the foil around on the gybe, with wing held horizontally above your head but sink and fall down before your engage the wing - eventually you will add the wing reengagement part and the timing required.
Even try the above and add a slight pump as you travel around this can eventually give you that extra glide needed to then reengage the wing power.
A lot of times now I actually flag the wing completely and pump around the gybe. Good practise for entering waves and also if winging in moderate wind conditions.
but yeh get that wing above you and ride the foil only around the gybe, is the key because that is what we forget to do - worried about that damn wing. Wing is only there as a means to generate enough power to foil!
As above. Wing foiling is mostly a board/foil sport. The wing's only there to provide enough power to get you going.
By far the most important thing is to practice with a fair bit more wind than you think you need. Power solves all problems.
I like to line up a wave. Carve the turn on the wave. Glide around. Get comfortable in the new direction. Then think about the wing.
When initiating the turn I might give the wing a pump or two on entry to get a bit more speed. It's not that important on a decent wave or bit of chop.
Get the wing up and out of the way. If you don't it will flop down and block your vision. It's possibly better in the long term to tow the wing behind you, but that can complicate bringing it back to get power.
If you're comfortable on your bit of chop then you don't need to finish the turn, you can just keep gliding on. The important thing is to be comfortable and gliding. Then you can take your time to bring the wing around.
When you've swapped the wing, if you're not comfortable with toe side then continue off downwind. The more time you spend in that position the more comfortable you get, then you can start biasing the direction upwind.
Mine are still hit and miss but I would like to add, tighter arc when the wind is light so that you get power in your wing quicker i.e. before losing speed and stall; wider arc in stronger wind. Constant arc in both cases.
There's great advice in here so far. For me it was about getting my weight forwards to prevent the stall you describe. Speed helps going in to it. I do the wing hand switch earlier than I thought I would have to so I can take advantage of it's power right away to point upwind and generate apparent wind. I look ahead when jibing and try not to focus my attention on the wing.
Lots of good advice here and interesting to hear some different techniques.
For myself a breakthrough when learning was actually delaying the hand switch and holding more power into the jybe. I like to enter with good speed and keep plenty of back hand pressure and power in the wing until I am well into the turn. Then release backhand and carve through the turn. The hand switch is then easier as I am already heading in the other direction.
As I have progressed this technique has been good to get more power and speed in my jybes.
As far as general jybing tips I think the 3 most obvious ones are-
Dont forget to drive the foil through the turn focus on keeping it flying actively. Throw in a few pumps if necessary.
Catch a wave/bump and surf it around. Not always possible if conditions are really flat but even a tiny bump can be helpful.
Don't get lost downwind in your jybe. If you do too loose of an arc you will lose power and drop off the foil. Especially bad if the wind is light. When learning its important to focus on getting momentum in the other direction. Sometimes a lot of pumping of wing and foil is needed to save the jybe as you start in the other direction.
All awesome advice above.
Maybe see if someone can get some footage of you from behind, as you gybe.
Watching yourself back will help identify what is going on, and also allows others to give their thoughts.
As for my light bulb moment, it was actually moving my mast position!
I actually moved the mast back 5 or 6 cm.
When learning to foil, I has set the wing forward to help get early lift. And was riding front foot heavy.
Coincidentally when coming out of a gybe, my board turned into a bucking bronco, and I would fall off the back.
So plenty of advice here, but mine would be to check your mast position and ensure that you are riding with equal weight on both feel.
Thank you all, this is very helpful. If I could summarize:
1) Watch foot placement on the board, make sure my feet aren't too off center
2) Keep up the front foot pressure and ensure I have speed going into the turn
3) Don't drag out the turn too much in lighter wind situations as you lose power
4) Look where you are going, not at feet or wing (big help in windsurfing too)
5) Focus on foil first, then wing, pump foil if losing speed and keep the front foot pressure
6) Wing in front not over the head to keep power going
7) Use chop/swell where possible to push into the turn
8) Mast placement (unfortunately, I already have the mast all the way back, seems to work best with Axis foil and Quatro Board.
Thanks again, all, really appreciate your insights.
DC
Hey DC,
I'll start by saying I'm not nailing my gybes either. They're tricky bastards. Some things that have helped me get a few in recent times are the stuff above (especially concentrating on the foil and disregarding the wing). Plus...
I'm learning in choppy waters. I started using the 80cm mast instead of the 60 and things got smoother. I think having the foil set at a deeper depth means it's getting less influence from the chop and that's making things better. If you have a longer mast, maybe try that?
Also, I've struggling with coming out of gybes and riding toeside. I'm just bloody useless at it, so naturally (from years of windsurfing) am switching feet mid gybe cause that feels right (even though it might not be). Everything gets wobbly when you shuffle your feet. So to practice getting towards some toeside, I'm going into the gybe and when I'm facing almost dead downwind, am then turning out of the gybe and continuing on the way I was (so not completing the gybe). I'm looking to practice doing some downwind 'S' shaped turns to get my head into thinking about riding toeside. It seems to be helping a bit.
Hope that helps.
Additional tip that worked for me: really finish the turn. First few times I tried to jibe (especially going from heelside to toeside) I wasn't finishing my jibes properly. I would initiate the turn, switch my hands, and then would lose power in the wing and not be able to keep flying the foil bc of a stall. Turns out that the reason I was losing power is because I was going straight downwind, and unless it's nuking, it's easy to travel at the same speed of the wind so that it feels like there's no power in the wing and you lose your speed.
What I learned is that at that point you have to keep turning until you're properly going toeside into the wind again, to build up apparent wind and not stall.
So for me, learning to properly go upwind toeside massively helped with my jibes (from heelside to toeside). I wear a GPS watch and would always analyze my upwind angles after each session, and turns out that initially even though I thought I was going upwind toeside, I was really only going on a beam reach. I tweaked my technique, opened up my shoulders, and now I'm able to get better upwind angles toeside than twintip kitesurfers heelside.
And then another trick that really helps me is hand positioning when switching hands. What I now do is: once I've let go of the back hand and grabbed the front handle, i bring the front handle up to my ear so that the back handle is easier to grab with my new back hand. So for example if I'm doing a heelside to toeside jibe: (1) I will let go of the back handle with my right hand, then (2) grab the front handle with my right hand, (3) let go of the front handle with my left hand, and then the "trick" (4) bring the front handle which is now held by my right hand close to my right ear, so that the back handle is now (5) easier to grab with my left hand.
I find that this "trick" of bringing the handle to my ear makes everything much more "balanced" as I don't have to reach and go search for that back handle.
Hope this explanation above makes sense at all and it's useful.
Hey that's a good tip. Will try it although I suspect I'm doing that anyway but it's worth being conscious about it.
Been reading this thread the last few days, went out and nailed my first 3 jibes today! For me the trick was to look where I want to go and to turn more of then I think I need. Now got to learn to ride toe-side
Been reading this thread the last few days, went out and nailed my first 3 jibes today! For me the trick was to look where I want to go and to turn more of then I think I need. Now got to learn to ride toe-side
