AoetearoaSailor forum posts in last 60 days

Congratulations! It took me 9 months. ...but I'm a bit obsessive - I probably did about 2,000 gybe attempts in that time + plus had two hours carve gybe coaching, which may have accelerated things a tad. It's a great feeling when the board just carries on gliding effortlessly out of a gybe - the feeling never gets old.

Once you've nailed it and got the feeling - you are well on your way to upping your success rate. One BIG thing for me has been learning to exit the gybe on a deep broad reach - which really keeps things on the fly.

A completely flying foiling gybe with no touchdowns still completely eludes me - so you've got one on me there.

Nice one!

I think Cookie is questioning (probably prevalent) usage of the term in coaching circles when teaching beginners / intermediates / improvers. To the uninitiated - the concept of mast foot/ mast base pressure, can be easily misunderstood - and may lead to perverse outcomes, such as the ridiculous 'hanging off the boom' bit he demonstrates during the video.
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Mast pressure pretty much drives all all windsurfing maneuvers, but it is quite a subtle technique. Most of the time I'm not even aware I'm applying it. If I tried to focus only on applying 'mast pressure' when learning to beach start / plane / get in the harness / gybe, but didn't even know what doing it correctly it felt like, I'd probably start doing all sorts of weird stuff.
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Importantly, if we learn to do maneuvers optimally from the outset, mast base pressure is just a natural consequence of good body position, balance and vision.