Do you think a different board would help with carve jibes?

[rangerider]

All interesting conversation. The simmer freemove is out of stock so I am left to choose between Firemove 122, Atomiq 120, and Magic ride 118 - none of which are narrower at the widest point than my xcite-ride 145 - all are narrower in the tail and have thinner rails however. My hope is that the rail carves more and bounces less with the new board. Again, I know my technique is the main issue but I need another board anyway so my goal is to buy one with the best chance of helping me jibe given my usual conditions - typical is gusty with ideal sails 6.5 to 9.5. As an aside I weigh 175. I like speed also so I'm leaning towards the starboard given the construction /rocker / cutouts. I love my ultrasonic so I am drawn to the Starboard product.

As to different kinds of gybes - I have tried the duck jibe with the 6.4 sail which I thought would really make things easier but unfortunately it doesn't pin the board down at all and the twitchiness/bouncing is more of a problem for me. I like the sail but it is a bad match for the 145.

[jingebritsen]

exocet s-cross 126: smooth, fast early to plane and to someone that's been planing thru jibes for over 20 years, seemingly jibes itself.

exocet cross 114 same.

is that more politically correct to say it with that extra bunch of typing?

[jingebritsen]

looking for spots with little to less chop does help.

in my local launch there are a couple of dredging spoil islands. they have longish sand spits shaped by prevailing wind and chop. on northerly winds one can sail down wind of these spits and get an extra boost of wind that would rather wrap around the islands than go thru or over them, with very little chop. the venturi of the extra boost of wind comes in handy too. extra power helps tons.

in the gorge, at the hatchery there is a spot called the jibatorium. it has a trifle less wind, but very flat water. nearly the same effect, yet one must execute the turn well because the wind is a bit waffly at times.

wider boards need power on to keep from dragging. sail flips have to be done earlier and quicker. carves have to be tighter as well.

[boardsurfr]

I had windsurfed for 25 years before I started planing out of jibes with some consistency. I had taken a number of lessons with teachers of various ability. One great teacher did not work much on my jibe, but decided he had to fix my stance first. He was correct. Another teacher helped me to plane through my first jibe in chop, but I had a hard time reproducing it.

My breakthrough came at my first ABK camp in Bonaire. I was at a similar point as you are - going into the jibe felt good, but I lost the plane when I flipped the sail. Much to my surprise, all corrections the ABK teachers made were at the entry: entering more slowly, and oversheeting more. That let me keep enough speed to plane out.

I still had problems planing out of jibes in chop after that, even when nicely powered. Using a Clew-View mounted GoPro was essential for further progress. I thought I was doing everything that Dasher and ABK teach, but instead, I was just repeating the old, bad habits that I had formed in 2 decades. Just adding the "boom shaka" (mast hand slides all the way to the mast before the flip) consistently improved my dry rate in bad chop a lot. Oversheeting with an extended front arm and a bent back arm, and letting the sail drop towards the water, made the bigger difference. You'll know when you do this right - the carve becomes so smooth that the chop seems to disappear entirely (as Alan Cadiz said on his jibe video). In the Dasher video, check the jibes of the young guy who oversheets behind his back. Aim for jibing like he does, or for something in between his jibe and Dasher's jibes.

So here are my top tips for improving your jibe (most or all have been mentioned already):
- Get good instruction as soon as you can. ABK camps rule, WorldWinds in Corpus Christi is great, and there are many other good instructors.
- See yourself. Make Clew-View GoPro videos, or get someone to film you. You'll be surprised at the differences between what you think you're doing and what you are really doing. Movies are also great to get specific rather than general feedback.
- Concentrate on one thing at a time. Find one thing you need to improve, and work on only that. Once you got it nailed, go on to the next thing.

Great instructors help because they excel at finding the thing that needs to be improved first, and tell you how to improve it. This is not a trivial task - even in a decent jibe, there are typically many things that can be improved.

[whitevan01]

[isobars]

What I meant when I said the same thing about the E-Rock and the Ecstasy long ago was that even before I could jibe anything else, I could plane through jibes on those two all day. They, and I'm sure many other boards by now, really did jibe in a class by themselves for folks with marginal jibing skills.

[rangerider]

Well, after reading a bunch of reviews I ordered a Fanatic Gecko 120 in bamboo construction. Since it isn't a super high performance shape I didn't think I needed to spend another $400 for the carbon - save it for another sail or next year's new board or whatever. I will report back if it helps my jibing or no.

[J64TWB]

I am sure you will love it. Keep us posted on the gybes! Good call on bamboo. I spoke with Andy at JP a while back wondering if I should go carbon on my JP board. He said surprisingly, the carbon version tested no faster than Epoxy sandwich, but once you try them, they feel faster and you don't want to go back. Also, the epoxy sandwich is very forgiving on knees in chop.

[NOVAAN]

Wide boards don't bonce more in a turn. Like someone else stated when you turn the board it should stay on its rail. A board on its edge doesn't see any width. At high speed just before going into the turn you might feel a bit more bonce. As soon as you go to the rail the bonce goes away. The wetted area of a wide and short board, on its rail in a turn is actually less than that of a longer narrow board.. Its works!!!!

[NOVAAN]

Another thought while I wait for the wind to pick up. Add in the fact that the new wide boards are thinner than the longer narrow boards. Again adding to less wetted surface on the rail. Oh so little but still its less.....