Learn Jibing Once and For All, here are my best tips for you
The Jibe is often the first proper planing move you learn as windsurfer, yet to perfect a nice racing jibe a lot of windsurfers never stop working on it. The ultimate goal while jibing is soon no longer just getting around without falling off, but being in total control of where and how you carve through your jibe and of course most importantly, not loosing speed while accelerating out of your turns!
The key areas to focus on while jibing are:
- Hand position on the boom.
- Foot position on the board.
Body position and where you are looking.
A fast jibe usually takes around 5 seconds, jet I would split the jibe into the following 4 phases:
1 - Preparing to Jibe
2 - Entering the Jibe
3 - Rigflip and Footchange
4 - Exit
Let’s have a look at what you should be doing during each of these steps:
1 - Preparing The Jibe ‘preparation is key’ - Unhook and move the back hand further far back on the boom. - Take the back foot out of the strap and place it forwards and between the two back straps and with your body ‘hang off the boom’ ready to bear away downwind with speed.
2 - Entering the Jibe ‘How you go in will most likely determine how you go out’
Focus on keeping your speed while entering the jibe, bend your legs (a lot!) and lean into the turn allowing you to rail and carve your board. Your front foot should be in the straps, you are probably on your toes pressing the top of your foot firmly into the strap to help rail the board more, your back foot has moved from the centre of the board to the opposite side of the board and is also pushing the rail more into the water. Lean the mast towards the nose of your board so that the sail is already forward when you get to the moment where you need to do the rig flip. Look past your mast forwards into the turn while you are leaning the rig forwards
3 - Rig-flip and Foot-change ‘It happens almost at the same time’ Bring the sail forward with both hands, just before the rig flip you need to slide your front hand all the way up to the boom head and only then let go with your back hand and grab the sail from the other side. Just before the rig flip you will want to slide your front foot to the centre of the board and your Blackfoot goes just in front of your new front foot strap. During the foot change, look out of the turn, one of the biggest mistakes is to look down at your feet or at what your hands are doing. I like to my feet just before the rig flip, so I can be ready for the exit.
4 - Exit ‘get low and accelerate out’
When you receive the sail on the new side it is essential to drop your weight back and get low, to prevent the sail from being able to pull you off the board and use the energy recreated by the sail refilling with wind on your new reaching course to quickly accelerate out. Being low and with your weight on your back foot will also allow you to quickly slip the new front foot into the strap and further increase acceleration out of the turn. Hook in again, back foot inv the strap and - Voila.
When the wind is light and you need to add a few pumps to get going the low position when you receive the sail is also a great position to start pumping from.
Key Points To Remember:
- Your legs should be bent throughout the whole of the manoeuvre the lower you get the more stable you will be on the board.
- Moving your hands on the boom backwards and forwards on the boom is key for being able to place the mast and rig in the right position during the manoeuvre.
Lean into the turn and lean the mast towards the nose of your board (not the back!)
Always look forwards into the turn and out of the turn, never at your hand or feet!