Advice needed

[<Novice>]

Dear Mr. Sudev,

I'm new to windsurfing and started just begining of last year. I enjoy seeing ppl on small gear and stuff doing great style move. I sail in PASC and had tried to ask around for some advice on freestyle and wave sailing but none seems to be interested to tell me or with any constructive  advice.

So I heard that you are the only person that I could approach. Could you give some advice on how to chop hop, jump gybe and doing a forward loop.
Thanks in advance and really looking forward for your advice, Hope I'm not asking too much from you.

[sukhdev]

do a search with google, a couple of sites have picture sequences of chop hops. ask around for past issues of magazines, this is one topic the magazines have beaten to death. you can chop hop any board, couple of years ago, Oka Sulaksana jumped clean over the finish buoy on an IMCO at the Tudor race. Bo Ruamsap got pretty decent height right in front of me on a SB 186X Formula in one event about a year ago. one of the best jump i've seen was Vincent (f2/midnite cowboy) trying to overtake me in a slalom in kuantan two years ago, we had a wave peel up in front of us, i stalled on purpose to go over it, he hit it hard and man did he get some height (he wiped out though, bad thing in a race!). still remember staring up at him floating up...

re jump gybes, I hated them for ages because could never land right, it was finally Sam Connely the former manamana coach who told me my mistake, i wasn't looking down at my feet. again tons of articles and stuff.

re forward my last attempt made jon ho of manamana get a good laugh, up in the air, then a straight nose down wipeout (ouch). now i'm too old and too fragile (for the moment). again, tons of stuff on the net and in magazines. most of the manamana hard core regular crew have tried something crazy at some point [right Pete?        ]

go to the url below for a good sequence on forwards:  Chris Calthrops forward loop lesson

[<Noob>]

Sukhdev for me even just to make a small jump would be something. I saw on your Exocet Turbo Boost review at the end there is a picture of you jumping the board in flat water. How do you do that?

[sukhdev]

re jumping in flat water..

easiest way i can explain it is this way: go find a really old useless short board with footstraps and take off the fin if there is one. put it on grass, get in the straps and try to jump it off the ground. thats the basis of the chop chop.

ok ok, there is more to it than that. first get decent speed. unhook. crouch down, put pressure on the legs and then spring up, pulling up the front leg. scoop the boom up as if you are using a shovel. this will easily get the nose high (as in the picture you mentioned). In order to clear the fin, you pull your back leg up tight under your rear end.

basically its a coiling/uncoiling action. this will work in flat water. if you add in even a small piece of chop it gets easier, you do the same as soon as the nose of the board leaves the chop.

[sukhdev]

forgot to add one thing, the exocet tb75 is very easy to jump, don't know why, but the other owners made the same comment.

[<Soul Rider>]

One more thing to add on, VERY VERY important to keep or maintain your sail sheeted in as you going through the whole process of chop hopping. You should come in clean landing on nose first after getting some air over chop. You'll be surprise to see that the board will continue planing without much stalling instead of going for the usual tail landing first. Things are difficult before they are easy, so go for it and make it happen Duke !