Comments on my planing techique?

[DelCarpenter]

Thank you to all for the helpful comments. I had guessed I need to make several adjustments which I will work on.

I should have some good wind tomorrow & maybe a few other times to try adjustments before my next races on the 19th & 20th (Wind Power Championships, Fond du Lac WI) and 26th & 27th (Mille Lacs Challenge & Kona Cup, Garrison MN) for a good end to this month.

Joethewindsurfa, my understanding is the Kona One step tail is intended to be mostly out of the water for light wind sailing and then in the water, extending the stern length of the board, when the nose comes up while planing. I believe that is supposed to give more speed because the stern section being added to the water is narrower than the nose section that is coming out thereby reducing drag.

[Sailboarder]

It's exactly the opposite. For heavier guys like me, the tail goes in the water in light wind sailing. It extends the length of the board, helping with speed. Lighter people don't have this advantage, but the board is faster for them since it doesn't displace as much water. This leverage the competition.

When planing, the water releases from the bottom part and the tail almost never touches the water, even if the nose is up. It will touch if you wheelie the board and get the nose very high(tailwalk). This brakes the board a lot.

So the tail is not normally used while planing and the board behaves similar to a 130-140 l freeride shortboard.

[swchandler]

Seems to me that the Kona One's nose rides too high. Although being in the straps would lessen this to some degree, it still appears to be higher than what would be optimum. I'm thinking that characteristic ends up adding a lot of drag by the need to push air as it moves along. Also, the fact that the nose is so wide, it only serves to offer more unnecessary drag. If I was a longboard designer, I would definitely narrow the nose outline a lot. I understand why a wide nose improves the nose riding capability in surfing, but I could never see any real benefit in windsurfing.

Del, I'm curious why you weren't in the straps. Although you might be planing, not being in the straps only allows a small faction of the speed possible. While I've never ridden a Kona One, I know with all my boards there is a huge difference being in the straps versus out of them. Moreover, I should point out that there is still quite of difference in speed being in only the front strap versus in both straps. Taking full advantage of a board's rockerline necessitates being in both straps. Lastly, having the straps in the rear most positions is markedly faster than when located in the forward most positions.

Regarding sail positioning, the sail needs to be raked back and pulled in where the bottom of the sail essentially endplates in a zone from the board's outline to the middle of the deck. From the video, you're far from that zone, and as a result, you're only capturing a fraction of the power of the sail, and the alignment between the sail and the fin is off. A better alignment between the sail and fin will be more slippery overall, and full directional power will be on tap.

[westender]

I'll look for the one where the guy really hauls ass but these guys look to be having a good time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyOWs4z4c-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEuTATZaHT8

This one's my favorite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbqeW-U3MNU

[joethewindsufa]

almost all the pics n vids with the K1 planing seem to be "riding the tail"/nose too high
i have not seen Sailboarder planing and when i went to the K1 worlds near Trois Rivières, it was LIGHT wind ...
i always thought the idea was keep it flat front to back, side to side and sail upright and closed for SPEED
like A² in this image speed sailin'



or Whitey flyin'



The Exocet RSD2 rides with the nose up, but I thought the K1 was not that kind of animal ...
especially with the "step tail" ...

[DelCarpenter]

Solutions for me: boom higher, harness lines further back, weight further back, get into or be able to get into footstraps, sheet in more.

Why am I not in the straps; 31 seasons, still not in the straps? One reason is my planing runs are nearly always less than 500 meters long. South shore to north shore, the direction of travel in my video is just barely 500 meters. I turned at the end of the video because I ran out of room. Another reason, in the 25 years of living in our current house when faced with a choice between traveling an hour one way with a chance of getting better I almost always chose instead to travel only 10 minutes one way & was rewarded with sailing an extra 90-100 minutes.

Sheet in more: that one is easy enough to do, but problematic because it is also easy to sheet in too much and choke off the wind. I've been working recently to keep from choking off the wind. Finding the right foil exposure is tricky for me. As suggested I know raking back the sail more will help & that will be aided by a higher boom and moving harness lines back.

Step tail effect: I sit corrected, I believe Sailboarder is right about the intention of the step tail to help heavier sailors when not planing. I also think those of who plane inefficiently as demonstrated in my video do fully engage and benefit from all of the tail. We need an underwater Go-Pro video to prove that.

Kona nose angle while planing: The video links in westender's post show better Kona sailors have nose angle's that are sometimes similar to mine, but are usually flatter and often with more of the board out of the water. I think some of the height above the water comes from overall board length. If formula & shortboards were longer the ends of their noses might also be high above the water.

[joethewindsufa]

since the Kona has a step tail and it rides with less surface area while planing,and thus acts as a "shorter board", I was under the impression it planed flatter like a shortboard rather than "nose in the air" like a longboard

in this photo from peconic puffin, it looks fairly flat ...
as you have said , have seen others riding fast and more angle ...

[jingebritsen]

there are benefits of a wider nose that some may not perceive of they not actually ridden an all around board or planform like the kona 1.

i do speed tacks to either clear weeds or cap off a back side wave ride. i have learned to plane backwards, stepping on the nose. wider nose makes tacking far easier. kona one is a great mix of easy and high performance. not the best at lots of more narrow pursuits, but high marks at being fun.

[Darbonne]

Del,

I have been struggling with planing in the straps as well. I was out last Saturday on my K1 with a Sailworks Retro 9.0. Wind was 10-15 MPH with gusts in the 20's Moving the harness lines back and using my weight to sheet in made a huge difference in the gusts. The wind was very gusty and unsteady. When it dropped off my lines were way too far back which made sailing up wind difficult. I have heard of some folks actually using two sets of harness lines. Seems like there would be a lot of stuff on the boom. Like you, I always seem to stand right in front of the straps.

[Sailboarder]