Tips & Techniques

One of the problems with the Windsurfer class in the past has been the lack of information on how to sail and own the old plank. Please submit any information you have to help to build up our version of Wallypedia.

TAMING THE WALLY

For a board that’s been around as long as the old Windy, there’s not much that’s been written about technique. What we really need is for one of the legends to spill the beans, but until that happens, here’s some ideas that seem to work.

UPWIND

One thing I’m learning is that the Windy doesn’t really have a “groove” upwind like most other boats and boards do. There’s no place where the board really “locks in” and wants to go. In a way it’s a pity, but once we accept it, we can stop getting frustrated trying to find an easy path. The board will just wobble, rattle and bounce its way along and we can just relax and accept it.

Interestingly, my initial reaction is that the modern version of the Wally, the Exocet Kona, doesn’t feel as good as the Wally upwind. Maybe you can’t get a longboard that tacks well and drives hard.

UPWIND IN A BREEZE

Sailors moving from other boards can find the Windy a bit of a pain upwind in a breeze, because it wants to round up into the wind. There are various cures. One simple and easy one is to kick the centerboard back about 10-15 degrees. That moves the Centre of Lateral Resistance further back and allows the nose to fall away. It also reduces the tendency for the board to rail-ride and capsize. My old board was flat so I had to do this in light winds and a chop, so I can move aft and keep the bow up.

The Windy, as far as I know, responds well to hard driving, sheeting in hard and leaning back. I notice that the end of my boom is often above the windward side of the stern when I’m going fast. Stu Gilbert, as we all know, is amazing in a breeze and he seems to have the rig raked well to windward. Among medium weights Stu is unbeatable and I’d love to know what else he does…..only for the purposes of this article, of course I wouldn’t try to use his info to beat him! The same applies to Adam Keyes-Tilley and others who are really quick upwind in a breeze. So please, guys, fill us in.

DOWNWIND - Staying on

It seems that the most common problem in staying upright downwind is that you fall into windward. We all know the feeling; we accelerate down a wave, the rig we’re leaning again suddenly goes weightless, and we fall backwards and too windward.

One trick that seem to work is to “pre weight” yourself to leeward. The old Lechner/Div II boards made Windys seem as stable as a raft downwind, and what seemed to work in those wonderful beasts was to put the windward foot just to windward of centerline – maybe 15cm – and the leeward foot well down to leeward, near the lee rail.

You end up with most of your body weight on the leeward side of the board. If you start to fall to leeward, it’s an easy matter to ease the back hand and spill a bit of wind to regain balance. The important thing is that, by moving your weight to leeward, you have less tendency to fall over to windward when the rig goes light.

Many sailors stand a loooooong way back in a breeze and chop, with their feet side by side, to stop catapults and nosedives. The faster guys seem to stay further forward, bracing themselves by having the windward foot forward. The board trims flatter (because the weight is further forward) and goes faster, so the apparent wind is reduced and there’s less tendency to nosedive. You may also have better steering with the feet spread fore-and-aft.

Nosediving is a Windy speciality. Aggressiveness may be a protection here; if you are pumping hard and sailing tighter angles, you will be moving faster. The faster you go, the more the dynamic lift of planing lifts the board, so the bow lifts AND you can move further back without dragging the tail. Two benefits in one!

Another point is to watch the bow intently. You’ll be able to see when you are about to nosedive, and that will give you time to ease sheet, stand back, luff, panic, scream or do all at once.

But perhaps the most important ways to improve your square running in a breeze are (a) “just doing it”; and (b) “just not doing it”. To be a bit less confusing, you can learn an enormous amount by “just doing it”; going out in nasty conditions and deliberately running square through chop. Sure, you’ll fall, but every time you fall you can stop, think, analyse the problem, work out a solution, and then apply it. It’s amazing how quickly you can solve a problem with a dedicated training run or two, maybe just before or after a regular sail.

The other way – “just not doing it” applies when racing. The terror of the gybe encourages people to run square, which is a nasty angle. Instead, most of the faster sailors normally tack downwind, working the gusts and sailing maybe 20 degrees above dead downwind.

The “stalled” air over the rig starts to flow again at these angles, so you’ve got a steadier rig to lean against when you need support. Pumping is easier, because you can pump normally instead of “air rowing”. You’ll plane higher and be safer and faster. OK, at some stage you’ll have to gybe – but only once or twice, and if you gybe aggressively even if you DO fall, the rig will normally fall into a fairly good position for a restart onto a reach. That’s much better news than falling repeatedly while running square and slow, because those falls tend to be nasty tangles, and re-starting on a square run is not fun at all.

GYBING

In various boats I’ve spent a lot of time working on really schmick high-speed effortless planing gybes. Now I think that while they are fun, it’s more effective to do inelegant but reliable gybes.

Many of the most common problems, it’s well known, come from flipping the rig from side to side while holding it at arm’s length. If anything goes wrong, you have very little control over it out there. Sheet on, and it’s often instantly blown out of your grip.

It’s always seemed better, in my limited experience, to bring the mast fairly close to the body and nose as it flips. That way it’s close to you when you sheet in and you have some space in which to absorb the shock. Also, if you have the rig close to you, you may be able to sheet in by straightening the front arm as well as pulling in the back arm. This is faster and easier than just relying on pulling in the back arm, and sheeting on slowly is dangerous.

An alternative is to rake the rig well aft as it flips. That seems to give you good leverage and perhaps pushed the forces down the mast, rather than straight into the sailor who is trying to sheet back in. Gybes like this are not attractive but you can gain a lot more by going out and catching a single decent gust than you lose in the gybe.

I’m not good enough at Windsurfer ODs to carve them around like a slalom board, wave board or Mistral, although I know the good guys can do it. When it’s really stinking and the board is flat chat, it seems that you can just gybe “Elvis style”. I just switch my feet into the correct position for the new gybe as (or before) I bear away, then just sort of twist the board around with the feet, using the rig to hold your upper body as the hips and legs twist and boogy. There’s no carving of the rail, just a slide under foot and rig pressure. Once again, the rig is slipped past the schnoz and the mast is a bit to windward before sheeting on in the new gybe.

TACKING

Can someone tell me how to do it, please?