5aday (oh bum!) BY GUY CRIBB I ve been working on a new tuning guide recently; an easy way to tweak kit for the conditions. My guests on a recent course in Morocco all commented on how well it worked, and some of them were big names in windsurfing! This got me thinking I should make it into an article myself. Then the amazing weeks of May winds blew and I found myself wave sailing at Kimmeridge on the biggest waves I ve ever seen in England. Overpowered on my 5.2m Zone, but in control on my JP Radical Wave 69 litre board with my Nik Baker 22cm wave fin, I was well equipped to handle the mast-and-ahalf-high heavy wave at on the Bench, on the westward point of Kimmeridge. So long as I sailed with full commitment. Mast and a half high on the Bench, means if I fell off, I might drown. Which is no longer an option now I m a dad. And since the other sailors out there were sailing with 4.7 s on bigger boards, they were able to sail on the shoulder a bit more cautiously and at slower speeds. On my kit I was committed to sailing this monster wave at full tilt, laying into my bottom turns at about 100mph partly to ditch the power of my 5.2m, partly because this board is designed to be sailed at full speed on it s rail and partly because it feels great to go really deep, drop down the face of a twenty foot high wall, lay into the turn and look back up at the lip you re about to smack as it s jagged teeth are glistening back at you. Anyway, my 5-a-day was vital at Kimmeridge on that day, but is also very useful for anyone freeride cruising, wanting to get the most out of their kit. 5- a-day is making five changes to your kit every time you go windsurfing. At Kimmeridge, I moved my mast track further forwards to give my board more control, pulled my outhaul on to give my sail more control, moved my boom down to get more weight onto my front foot for more control (and to help me keep my legs bent for longer in the side onshore wave riding conditions), pushed my harness down to keep all my kit under control when I was blasting and adjusted my attitude to how I should be sailing the Bench. Those five changes are all typical useful adjustments you can make to your kit to maximise your windsurfing potential- whether you want to get into your footstraps easier, plane earlier, gybe smoother or handle mast and a half high heavy waves at a hundred miles an hour. OH BUM! O - Outhaul H - Harness B - Boom height U - You M - Mast track Adjust these five aspects of your windsurfing kit every time you go sailing to experience just how versatile your kit is and feel immediate improvement to your windsurfing. WINDSURF JULY 2006 000
5 A DAY (OH BUM!) OUTHAUL There is no single correct setting for your outhaul. It should be adjusted frequently to cater for the fluctuating conditions in any day s windsurfing. Pulling your outhaul on flattens your sail and tightens the area around the clew, giving you more control. Letting your outhaul off makes your sail fuller (like a spinnaker) giving you more power. Find the correct setting for the particular conditions you re in by looking at the sail where it bellows out and touches the boom. If the boom is touching cloth for more than two feet, you ve got too little outhaul- even in light winds when you need the sail as full as possible. In light winds, in a gust, let the sail sag over the boom for a maximum of about 18 inches. If you re out of control, pull the outhaul on. In a big gust, with the outhaul pulled on, the sail will still sag and might touch the boom. If you re really over powered, pull the outhaul on until it s just off the boom even in the biggest gusts. Pull the outhaul on if you re overpowered. Let the outhaul off if you need more power. Most outhaul systems allow you to cleat the rope off and not need to tie any knots. With no knots to untie, you ll feel more encouraged to quickly uncleat your outhaul and make a fast adjustment. 000 WINDSURF JULY 2006
HARNESS Waist harness All waist harnesses slide up your body when you re using them. The higher the hook goes, the less Downforce you generate into the board (and therefore less control - see http://www.guycribb.com/technique/magazine articles/downforce) Every time your fall off, push your harness back down. Every time I gybe, I suck my gut in to allow my harness to slip back down. Many of the World Cup windsurfers wear their waist harness very loosely, so it keeps falling down to their hips. But they have triangular physiques where the wide side is across their shoulders, not their waists Those of us with a beer gut should use it to prevent our harness from rising. Always put your waist harness on your pelvis so your harness hook is about two inches below your belly button. Every time you fall in, push it back down (as it will surely rise.) Straps Any webbing will absorb water and expand, so readjust straps after they re wet. Seat harnesses Anyone wearing seat harnesses should consider moving to a waist harness for the following reasons: They re easier to hook in and out of. More flexibility in your legs (for instance waterstarting). Create better posture on the approach to manoeuvres like carve gibing. Warmer. More buoyancy (waterstaring). Quicker and easier to get you into the footstraps and harness and blasting comfortably. 5 A DAY (OH BUM!) More flattering But if you re racing sailing completely over-powered to a National level, they don t give you quite as much control (but this is only important for about a hundred people in the UK). If you don t like a waist harness, it s because you re wearing it wrong. Or you re a girl. And girls are generally a better off wearing a seat harness because waist harnesses always end up in your narrow waist section, which on most women is well above your belly button. In this case adjust your seat harness to that your hook is just below your belly button. Keep pushing your waist harness down at all times- I push mine down probably every five minutes which quickly adds up to about a hundred times a session. There are some great ratchet harnesses out there, which stay tight. If you don t have a ratchet harness, make sure your webbing is as tight as possible, and retighten regularly during each session, as it stretches and slides when wet. I wear my rashy over the top of my harness, to prevent the harness riding up on the smooth rashvest-material. 086 WINDSURF JUNE 2006
5 A DAY (OH BUM!) BOOM HEIGHT Lowering your boom height puts more weight onto your front foot. Raising your boom puts more weight onto the mast foot (and since it takes it off your front foot it feels like it puts more onto your back foot once you re blasting.) Raising the boom, increasing weight onto the mast foot, bang smack in the middle of the board, levels the board off in the water so it s flatter in every dimension (front to back and side to side.) This reduces the drag and thus improves early planing. So, if the wind drops and you need to improve your early planing, raise your boom by as much as two or three inches. Or if you re learning how to use the footstraps, to make it easier to move your front foot, raise your boom to take the weight off it. Lowering your boom puts more weight onto your front foot. This is useful for board control when it s really rough water or if you re over powered. Lower your boom by as much as two or three inches of your starting point (up to an astonishing six inches below your early planing / flat water boom height option!) With more weight on your front foot the board sails slightly on it s windward edge. This slices through the chop easier (rather than slapping into it) and makes the board act like a spoiler, with the wind blowing against the deck holding down to earth (water), rather than getting underneath it and blowing off the water. Boom height should start around shoulder height (more INfo at guycribb.com/technique) but move up to improve your early planing or in flat water, and down for control if overpowered or in rough water. Don t use a boom bra - your boom almost certainly doesn t touch the nose of your board anyway, so the boom bra just gets in the way of adjusting your boom height, and prevents your hands from doing a decent Boomshaka when flipping the rig (guycribb.com/technique/coreskills/boomshaka) If you insist on using a boom bra, for best results attach it to the mast just above and below the boom, making it into a boom thong instead. 088 WINDSURF JUNE 2006
YOU 5 A DAY (OH BUM!) You need adjusting too. Whether it s stopping for a drink or a think, it s worth stopping every so often rather than blasting back and forth aimlessly. It s easy to get caught up in the windsurfing zone and only when you come ashore exhausted at the end of your session you suddenly remember what you were intending on trying that day. Better to come ashore and think about what you wanted to try, visualise it, and get back out there. Why not bring some INtuition magazine features down the beach to refer to in mid-session whilst eating a banana and some Jaffa Cakes? Download any of my INtuition features from guycribb.com for free, or buy my forth coming Gybing DVD and play it in your in car entertainment system! Stop and think about what you re doing, and try something new every time you go sailing. Download some INtuition features from guycribb.com, laminate them and keep them in your sailing bag. Come on an INtuition course with me and get loads of tips for you to work on to ensure the fastest possible progression in windsurfing. WINDSURF JUNE 2006 089
5 A DAY (OH BUM!) MAST TRACK Moving your mast track forwards puts more of the board into the water, increasing drag but giving you more control. Moving the mast track back reduces drag making the board much more lively. There s never a days windsurfing quite like another and thus my mast track is used in all sorts of different positions. At Kimmeridge that big day I was bottom turning right under the lip of about a thousand gallons of English Channel, with my board banked over at almost 90 degrees racing along literally at 35 knots, I needed all the control I could possibly get, which is why after my second wave, I moved my mast track right to the very front of the track. Three days later and I m freestyle sailing in Poole harbour on a JP Freestyle 100 in flat water needing all the pop I could muster to jump into Spocks, and my mast track has moved back to make my board more lively and jumpable. Then I m running a coaching course and I m sailing an X Cite ride 135 with an 8.2 Neil Pryde Saber and I want to go fast, so I bring the mast track back to reduce the drag and I m flying along, albeit without much control. When I give the kit to a guest to try, I move the track further forwards to improve the directional stability of the board, giving him more control blasting and improving his gybes by engaging more rail. A good way of relating mast track position to sail size is to imagine the sail is the engine and the board is the wheels- the bigger the engine the bigger the wheels you ll need to handle cornering and prevent wheel spins whilst you re trying to get going. So using my big 8.2m, I need a big set of wheels and got them by moving my track forwards. The alternative would have been to use a bigger board. When you need more control, for instance wave 090 WINDSURF JUNE 2006 riding, carve gibing, sailing overpowered or in rough water, or if you want your board to go in a straighter line, for instance when learning how to use the footstraps, or if you re using a massive engine, move you mast track forwards. If you want to go faster (but can handle a lack of control with advanced technique), or if you want your board to feel livelier (have a mind of it s own) then move your mast track back. Plonk your mast foot in the middle of your track to begin with and after sailing for a while come ashore and ask yourself- do I want to go faster? Or do I want to gybe better? Move it back for the first one, or forwards for the second, but make sure you move it.
5 A DAY (OH BUM!) YOU VE GOT TO MOVE IT, MOVE IT! Sod all this five fruits a day- a bottle of wine in the evening has got more fruit in it than a glass of orange juice for breakfast, but as for 5 a Day on the water - Oh bum, get INto it! It s windsurfing s healthy option. What else? This article assumes your downhaul and harness lines are set up correctly using a Cribb Sheet or years of experience. As a general rule neither your downhaul or harness line position changes as the weather changes. However experts might fractionally adjust their downhaul to make the most of the conditions, but I m not even going to go there because the majority of windsurfers still don t apply enough downhaul in the first place. And your harness line position doesn t change because they position the rig to the correct angle regardless of how the sail is pulling. But there s other things you could change like fin size (or position on U.S. boxes (bytheway, U.S. boxes used to be called classic box until people pointed out how stupid they were, hence the name U.S. box!) I digress. Try adjusting your footstrap size- make them bigger than you think for gibing, freestyling, bump n jump and wave sailing, or smaller for racing, tighten your battens, tighten the front end of your boom, and more- all found on the Tuning Cribb Sheets available at guycribb.com/shop. SUMMARY Next time you re sailing, think Oh Bum! to remember your five a day. O - Outhaul H - Harness B - Boom height U - You M - Mast track Adjust all of them frequently- an absolute minimum of once each, but for best results, for an average windsurfing session of two hours, approx five times on the outhaul, fifty times on your harness, three times on your boom height, twice on you and twice on your mast track. Use your INtuition! INtuition: Designed and delivered exclusively by Guy Cribb Britain s professional windsurf coaching Windsurfing coaching exclusively designed and delivered by Guy Cribb, professional windsurfer and twelve times British Champion. Clear, concise and accurate. Catch him if you can on this year s INtuition UK Tour, bringing the best windsurfing coaching to your doorstep throughout the summer, or join him for the ultimate windsurfing holiday overseas, only at the best venues, at the right time of year to ensure perfect conditions, only using the very best windsurfing rental centres. Use your INtuition. INtuition Holidays - Planet Windsurf 0870 7491959 INtuition UK courses - see advert in mag or email guy@guycribb.com Private coaching in Poole - email guy@guycribb.com Pics by Thorsten Indra, JC and Guy Cribb INtuition Copyright Guy Cribb 2006 www.guycribb.com www.planetwindsurf.co.uk 000 WINDSURF JULY 2006