The Wing Tack

I've had a few flatwater wing sessions recently that allowed me to work on the wing tack. I've started this the Andy Brandt-suggested way: straight from a jibe into a tack, so it's actually a 360. Here's are GPS tracks for one 360 from a couple of sessions ago: 

I was happy with that - it was dry, one of 5 dry tacks in this session. But I was pretty far from foiling through it, with my speed dropping down to 2.2 knots. For comparison, here's a tack from Nina:

She foiled cleanly through this one, keeping a minimum speed of 7 knots.

The difference? She started her tack with a speed of 15 knots. I started my jibe with a similar speed, but by the time I had turned 180 degrees and was riding toe side, I had lost 5 knots. We both lost about 8 knots speed in the tack - but since I entered the upwind turn with 5 knots less than she did, she kept enough speed (7 knots) to stay up on the foil, why my speed dropped below the stall speed of the foil.

Theoretically, I'd could pick up a lot of speed riding toeside before doing the tack, but that's rather hard; I'm always a few knots slower toeside. The alternative is to step to toeside instead of jibing into it - that's a lot faster and should be possible with less speed loss. But every time I try, my feet get stuck next to each other.

I've been looking for tutorials on how to go switch, and this is an interesting one I found: 

It's actually quite similar to what Andy Brandt teaches - 4 little steps instead of 2 big ones. Andy teaches to take the first step with the front foot going back, but that's largely because most of his students are windsurfers, who have stepped this way every time they jibed on a windsurfer. It took me a long time to break that habit! But the similarity is the breaking down of the movement into smaller steps. One thing I liked in the tutorial video was that they said that it's ok to wing a while with the feet next to each other, before taking the next step.

By change, I saw a video from a top racer today. It's Sean Herbert, who has won multiple national titles in New Zealand, and just placed third in the world in formula wing racing. Here's a series of how he switched his feet:

 

 

 

Four small steps - right, left,right, left. The wing is powered for the first step, and then progressively depowered for the next three steps. 

My tries to switch the feet were a bit different. I'd start bringing the rear foot forward a bit, and the second step would be another step forward so both feet at in the front. Then I'd either go down slowly (my trim is front foot heavy), or I'd decide the only foot I could move was the one I just move forward, and then move it back. Needless to say, neither got me to switch! Now I know what to try - the only question is if the temperatures will drop so quickly that I stop trying new things so I don't fall. I've seen the first frost warning of the season for tonight!

More Wing Jibe Progress

Here's a picture of my (partial) tracks from my last wing session:

In near-perfect conditions, I did 67 jibes in 70 minutes, and 60 of them were dry. The longest run was 17 foiled jibes in a row. I'm very happy about that - this is the best I ever jibed winging. On my good side, 33 of 34 jibes were dry. On the bad side, that number drops to 27 good jibes out of 33. This was my 297th wing session, so yes, I am a slow learner. But then, I am stubborn, too.

There's still plenty to improve. If you compare the jibes to my last post, you may notice that the speed drops more in most jibes. That's because I switched to a smaller stabilizer: the Axis speed 400/60, instead of the anhedral freeride 500/90. The smaller stab seems to be about half the size of the bigger one, and it makes the board much more sensitive to foot placement and weight changes. On my good side (port), the board touched down very briefly after the foot switch in most jibes; only about 5 were without any water contact, and some of these were wobbly. On the bad side, I somehow have a hard time convincing myself to switch the feet in the air, so many foot switches happened only after the board touched down. It usually pops right back up after the old front foot steps back, but any water contact means loosing a knot or two of speed. 

For the next flat water sessions, I'll go back to the larger stab to practice the foot switch in the air a bit more. That was a suggestion in a foot switch tutorial video that I found really helpful. Another helpful suggestion from the video was to practice foot switches on land. I added a little variation to that: I place yoga blocks under the board to feel right away if my steps are off. Here's an image that shows the setup:

In the next image, I moved my feet closer together, so that I can put a lot of weight on the back foot for carving without raising the nose of the board: 

If I step too far to the front, the nose dips down:

If the step back is too far back, the tail dips:

 

And if the step is too far towards the edge, the board dips to the side:

 

For the first few steps, I look down to see where my feet are; but after that, for the next 100 or 200 reps, the board reaction tells me if the step was good enough. This "yoga block stand foot switch exercise" helps to reduce one error I often made: making steps that are too large. 

Some jibe tutorials suggest to use foot straps, at least in front, since they make sure that your foot ends up in the right position. I've tried that, but found it to be quite the opposite of helpful. Without looking, my foot would often end up on top of the foot strap, or cleverly avoid it and step over it to land in front of it - a sure recipe for a touch down or nose dive. 

From watching jibe tutorials and lectures, I concluded that there are two ways to avoid the touchdown. Check out some Johnny Heineken videos for examples of the first approach - let's call it the "dynamic" foot switch. Before switching feet, extra pressure on the back foot pushes the nose of the board up. Then when the back foot steps forward, the weight shift "catches" the nose and prevents it from rising too much, and the old front foot steps back before the nose goes down too much.

The second school of thought on foot switches aims to minimize any pitch changes of the board. There are different variations on this: hopping to switch both feet at the same time, and quickly; starting with the feet close together, or even next to each other on both sides of the centerline; breaking the foot switch down into several mini steps; switching the feet without shifting the hips; and various combinations of these and more things. 

On flat water, the "feet close together" seems to work quite well for me, but I wonder if it really will work in chop, where I often need to widen my stance to control pitch when sailing in a straight line. Also, experts often switch feet "strap to strap", which makes for extra-wide rather than narrower steps. But the same experts can usually jibe at least 10 different ways without ever touching down. So there's definitely still a lot to try and learn!