Improve your stance

[sukhdev]

my 0.0002 cents in an article i've been working on for some time. read it at:

http://www.bluefinz.com/technique/stance/index.html

[hiwindjunkie]

nice article!

just wondering, what are the changes in stance for diff points of sail on a formula gear?

[sukhdev]

WIP (work in progress)      

but here are some tips..

for upwind, lean the body forward,try to get your head almost in line with the mast while keeping square to the sail. its critical to keep the rig upright and sheeted in.

for downwind, roll into the rig, stay slightly more upright. DONT LEAN BACK to the tail; this will just make you round up wind again. its counter intuitive but the best way to deal with big gust going downwind is to go with it till the board begins to just lose speed and then head up again. this is where if your sail is not twisting enough you are going to get thrown.

reaching..easiest, square to sail, pressure equally balanced between mast foot, front foot and back foot.

picture sequences in the works...but will be a while..

[<Igor D>]

Hi Sukhdev,

Very nice article indeed! Great pictures and explanations helped me identify my own mistakes easily. Great stuff!

I am a little confused with "for downwind, roll into the rig" - how do you achieve this using your stance? I am not native English speaker, so could explain this in another words?

Thanks,

Igor D

[sukhdev]

Igor, hope this makes sense...

When you turn downwind from a beam reach, there is a subtle change in the sail's sheeting angle and the pull on the harness is different. If you keep going deeper, you will feel the sail is now pulling you forward, almost diagonally across the board. At this point, many sailors will resist this pull by leaning back more; the end result is the board turns back upwind.

If when you feel the pull, you stand a bit more upright, let the rig stay away from you with straight arms, and heel the board slightly onto the lee rail, you will find you can go deeper.

Its scary at first, instead of resisting the pull you are going with it (ie your body "rolls" a bit into the downwind angle).

This is what makes the difference in angle. Very good sailors are able to go much deeper in angle because of the ability to sense how much to roll into the downwind run.

[<Igor D>]

Thanks Sukhdev. I think I understand what you mean. I have seen this on Rob Hartman's Winning Formula 1 video. I am going to take another look at it.

Best regards,

Igor D

[<GU>]

I sail in England and regularly read your forum.
On viewing the pictures of Meng and Edgar, I think that the most outstanding difference between their two stances is the unmentioned fact that Meng is using a seat harness and Edgar a waist.
We have had beginner/intermediate sailors on my beach who struggled to control the wider style boards using waist harnesses and improved dramatically once they started using seat harnesses. It enables you to'hike out' your whole torso instead of your upper back and sticking your bottom out. Just thinking about it from a physics point of view, you must get more leverage from a seat harness.
KP himself switches to a seat and the only top English sailor who uses a waist is Ross Williams, but he has grown up with one and is strong and fit enough to use a waist harness.
I do agree with ALL your other tips but perhaps you might consider the harness??

[sukhdev]

Hi,

actually Edgar is using a combo seat/waist harness (dakine surf seat). the whole issue of harness is contentious. In the early stages I usually suggest a waist harness as hooking in/hooking out is more intuitive and easier. As the sailor progresses and is able to better handle the rig and board, then a seat harness becomes more useful.

You are right to point out that more leverage can be obtained from a seat; personally I prefer a waist harness for anything under a 7.x, though on occasion i'll use a waist even with large sails.

My experience is that moving a sailor too quickly to a seat harness sometimes makes them end up using a boom setting thats too low and lines that are too short. Once this habit is ingrained its really hard to get rid of it.

thanks for pointing it out..i considered it during the article but felt it would detract from the core message of "hiking out".

[<kc>]

hi sukhdev,

fantastic article.  explains quite a lot why i always get passed by relaxed looking sailors while my arms are getting ripped off...

[<AJ>]

Hi sukdev,

Thanks for putting together your excellent article.  The pictures really helped.  When you get advice on a forum and they say point your toes and roll your shoulder its kinda confusing to visualise what they're trying to say so the pictures were great.  It really helped me out and I've been smokin on my gt75 since I changed to a more upright stance over the weekend.  In the past I was hiked out but I was in a sitting position with to much weight on my legs.  

I'm really looking forward to your sailing upwind article and could you also talk about the phenonenon known as pushing across the fin.  There is a discussion going on about this on the  Starboard forum right now and its just made it more confusing.

Thanks,
AJ
New Zealand

[sukhdev]

KC, AJ, thanks, i'm glad you found it of some use.

AJ, its ok, that discussion confused me too! Re upwind its in the works but will be a while as it needs the right illustrations (pictures = 1000 words etc).

What is up next is something equally confusing, the subject of masts. I've been working on this one a while and being stuck in various hotel rooms and lounges the past few days allowed me to wrap it up, hope to post in the next few days when i find the time to add illustrations.

re pushing the fin; my take is if you get the stance right you will naturally develop the feel for pushing the fin as you are now sailing a board that skims rather than ploughs. Trying to teach "pushing the fin" in isolation as a technique is like trying to teach algebra without learning arithmetic, but then thats just my 2 cents..

[<Juri Munkki>]

Here's Martin van Meurs writes about riding Hypersonic-style shapes in the "Hypersonic Speed with GPS" thread on the Starboard bulletin board :

"There is a HUGE difference in sailing a conventional slalomboard on which you have to "drive" the fin to get the board out of the water and reduce drag and hyper oriented shapes which you have to let go to find their own balance. If you adapt the same style as you are used to on a slalomboard you are gonna be SLOWWWW."

Another interesting tidbit from the same thread:

"To me it seems the racers simply do not take the time to get the best out of the hyper shape. They rely on what they know is fast and leave the board to the in-experienced. When passing them they merely see it as proof the regular shape is faster."

http://www.star-board.com/forum/starbulletin/read.asp?ID=2579

So, does the Hypersonic need its own article on stance & how to ride it fast?

[sukhdev]

Juri, agree its much needed. i'm going to try out the 111 soon and compare with the 105. one thing i felt about the 105/125 is alot of the problems stemmed from sailors tuning rigs/fins as for old style boards. maybe i'm weird but i felt most at home on both boards on as small a sail and as small a fin as possible.

[<Juri Munkki>]

I agree with your sentiment about going small. 5.8 & a 30 cm fin on the Hypersonic was a true eye-opener and it wasn't really all that windy when I used that combination.

On many boards, the key is to maximize power. On the Hypersonic, I think the key is to minimize drag (both from the sail and the fin) while still having enough power to keep going all the time.

I'm ready to change to a smaller sail much earlier than others with similar sails. Formula sailors are really puzzled, as they are still happy on a 11 sqm when I'm quite powered on the 6.8...

I think that it is very good news for light weight sailors.

[<Igor D>]

I just noticed one thing on the picture of Kevin P. His harness lines are balanced and set so that the V of the lines point midway between his feet/footstraps when the gap is closed. This should provide equal weight distribution between his feet on the board and should make it easier to maintain his stance and control of the sail, board and fin.

Is my observation correct?