I had two great downwinders in the northerlies of the last 2 days... glad to get a day of rest !

What is it with the wind forecasts at the moment? Friday, I don't think there was any real wind predicted - went to have a lazy paddle downbreeze, but ended up with epic blast down the coast. Yesterday, I couldn't sleep half the night thinking about the 25 knots predicted early for saturday morning (seabreeze, willyweather, buoyweather all saying the same thing) and over 30 in the arvo (two runs... cool!). It ends up being 5kt offshore till lunchtime - never thought I'd complain about that . Then the wind picks up, seabreeze says its 15kt gusts, but it was blowing a lot, lot harder than that.

Here's the video of yesterday. It was pretty hard work as my route was basically convex around the headlands - so had to haul it to get out past the first one with lots of side wind, then really bouncy conditions with waves reflecting off the headlands, but didn't want to get to buggered paddling out further as I knew the winds were going to be offshore later in the run. Which they were... at this stage there were some great runners pushing out to sea, but I had to ignore those. I found I was having to do a fair bit of navigating to get a good line, and it was 50/50 whether to land on the beach or sneak around into the river and paddle against the tide. As it turned out, I got straight to where I wanted without any dramas, but something I'll always be wary of.

Some of the runners were really great - I didn't get some of the best ones on the video as the gopro got folded down when I pearled on the first one and I didn't fix it up for while. For some reason, I can't seem to tighten up my gopro mount enough these days to stop that happening - anybody have this problem? All the water drops are because I got some sunscreen on the lens - the old lick and wipe doesn't work so well then - I'll have give it a good wash.

DavidJohn said..

Nice..

Re your problem with the GoPro moving.. Are you using a screw driver.. or just your fingers?

Also just wondering.. what you're looking at when you look around ?

DJ

Just fingers - used to work fine. I guess screwdriver now.

Yeah I look around a bit hey? A bit of it was just keeping an eye on where I was heading. the headland in the middle of the track is called flat rock, and funnily enough is really flat. With high tide and all the whitewater around yesterday it was actually a bit tricky to see where the reef ended and I was heading for it pretty quickly (21km/hr peak speed right before I head SE again). Other times I guess I'm taking in the view (I really really like downwinding) - or, well I dunno, just looking around. I must do it a lot because its certainly been commented on before: www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/The-long-road-to-proficient-downwinding/. It just seems unnatural to me as a long time surfer not to watch the waves sneaking up behind me. I'm trying to stop.

DavidJohn said..


I'll try and do a vid soon with my helmet cam and talk while I'm chasing down runners and you will see what I mean.

DJ

That would be awesome DJ, will be looking forward to it!

DavidJohn said..A big part of downwinding is reading the water ahead.. and to read the water ahead you need to be looking 'way' ahead.. About half way from your board to the horizon is about where I'm looking.. and when I see something I keep my eyes on it till I'm there.. You just use your peripheral vision to see what's happening right in front of your board and only look down there when you really have to.

I'll try and do a vid soon with my helmet cam and talk while I'm chasing down runners and you will see what I mean.

That would be interesting to see the helmet cam, although as you say, peripheral vision comes into it too - so the commentary will be even more interesting. You wouldn't want to hear the commentary when I'm out there. It sort or reminds of Aliens "in space no one can hear you scream" - except in my case I'm usually underwater.

Thinking about it more - the main reason I look over my left shoulder is that I want to know what's happening with the ocean swell and what I try to do is catch the wind runners going down into a trough of an ocean swell. Fully agree it's a bad habit that's not helping.

With the looking way ahead thing, geez I dunno DJ - I don't think I understand what you're saying. I can understand watching the wave in front as this is helping to form the trough you're on, or maybe even in front of that (the trough you want to try and link into) but hundreds of metres in front? Is that what you meant?

KennyK said..Pickin up the runners pretty easy, I'm jealous.

Thanks, video editing is a beautiful thing
In fact, I'd have to say that yes, I'm finding that picking up short runners is getting much easier. Linking them up and getting right down the slope of some of those trenches out there is what I really want to do though. When I can do that consistently I'll be a very happy chap.

Another little bit of advice/knowledge I've been given (thanks Noel !) that is also somewhat obvious, but surprisingly beneficial is simply that "little runners turn into big runners". Some of my best ones have been just getting onto a small runner, concentrating on staying with it (say like at 2:38 in the vid), then all of sudden it just takes a couple of strokes to get into a nice one.

TheGoodDr said..

DavidJohn said..

A screw driver will fix your problem.

Looking around.. To the side or back.. is a bad habit.. and looking down at the nose of your board or the water just in front of your board is an even worse habit.. IMO.

A big part of downwinding is reading the water ahead.. and to read the water ahead you need to be looking 'way' ahead.. About half way from your board to the horizon is about where I'm looking.. and when I see something I keep my eyes on it till I'm there.. You just use your peripheral vision to see what's happening right in front of your board and only look down there when you really have to.

I'll try and do a vid soon with my helmet cam and talk while I'm chasing down runners and you will see what I mean.

DJ

Hi DJ,
Could you expand a little about these points? I'm intrigued by what you've said.
Do the regulars who dw with you do the same?
Cheers, Bob

Watch this vid..from 5.03 till 5.37.. you will see what i mean.

Here.. www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/2014-Fanatic-Falcon-DW-Vid/

When I watch that vid I'm looking where I would normally be looking and at 5.03 I see that wave way up ahead.. I keep my eyes fixed on that wave.. Watch where the peak is moving and try to run it down.. They do come back to you (you actually catch up to them) and if you keep your eyes on it it helps you line it up to be in the best position to catch it.. Remember you are trying to get in behind it.. Not surf the front of it like in the surf.. Unfortunately he must have fallen.. as I often do because you often dig so deep to catch it you often pull yourself off balance.. That's why I like smaller blades.. That wave was moving to the right so you need to head even more right so you meet together eventually.. Our waves usually move across to the left.. I think the direction that they move has more to do with the direction the shore/land is rather than the wind direction.. Sometimes they are building and when you get there they are epic.. Sometimes they are dropping/dieing and you chase them down only to find it's a fizzer because the wave has died off... You never really know.

DJ

Hey Foamballer, you are getting much better each time. Keep up the good work.

The open ocean waters that you are paddling in are a whole lot more difficult than what those guys in Melbourne paddle in, especially when going N-S. Those headlands make things very tricky, as you are finding out, especially when you are relatively close to shore. With where you are at I would hold onto my recommendations on where to focus your attention. Maybe when you a lot more experienced you can start start aiming to link a lot more further ahead. Right now just keep it simple and get rid of the bad habit of looking behind you.

Keep you videos coming...

Come up for a paddle up this way (GC) some time and I will help you out in the water.

foamballer said..


One thing I would really like some tips on is keeping a heading paddling in a side wind. For example, paddling towards the SE (or ESE) when the wind is strong N. I just get turned toward the south and would be lucky to maintain a SSE heading. The first part of the track shown at the in my original post is about the absolute best I can do (wind was directly N)

I was almost tempted to come up on those last southerlies you guys had - looked really good. Thanks for the invite.

As you don't have a rudder system (yet?) you will have to work a whole lot harder to track up wind/swell. What you have to try focus on to start with is only going in the direction of the wind/swell to catch the run. Once you feel the lift then angle up (in your case turn left). So in your example only paddle S to catch the run then immediately hook left to ride the run SSE or SE. Of course you may need to keep changing directions to chase the trough.

It's a lot easier, up in these waters, to learn on the S-N runs than on the N-S runs. Those S-N runs up here on the GC are the easiest to do and once you start getting the hang of things you can start working on those harder/technical ones.

You have some of the best downwind waters we have up here near you. Once you find your feet you will have a ball out there.

foamballer said..

DavidJohn said..Watch this vid..from 5.03 till 5.37.. you will see what i mean.

I had a look at that video - some good runners - nice one skebstebamal.

DJ - Here's a screen shot at 5:03 and I've highlighted the two main crests I can see. Are you talking further forward than these? I know a still image doesn't do it justice but maybe this will help explain it? I'm not sure which wave you're referring to. At around 5:08/5:09 there's a whitecap that breaks quite a bit ahead. That one?

In my neck of the woods a northerly wind is accompanied by a NE swell. So the wind runners seem to go slightly left, but it is always tempting to go right and chase a swell. My problem being that the swell is going way faster than I am, so it'll leave me behind. Where a wind trough and a swell trough coincide looks like a good spot to be, but I have trouble staying with this sweet spot.

In the picture, I would tend to try and surf slightly left along the current trough, but in the video you'll see that opportunity evaporates about a second later

No .. Not even close.. .. It's here.. See my screen shots.

After looking at these pics watch the vid again from 5.03.. It's the same wave coming back to you..

Once I had seen that wave at 5.03 I would not take my eyes off it the whole way till I'm in there behind it at the 5.31 mark.

Btw.. IMO reading the water ahead is the same for open ocean.. Bays.. Lakes.. and even rivers.. It's all just water.. We don't have a different kind of water here in Melbourne..

DJ

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Here's the vid again...

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I'd tend to disagree with DJ on that one - I read his comment about looking "way ahead" as per his pics above and tried it today. Definitely did not work for me. I have to keep focus on whats happening right in front of the nose of the board (like first long green line in one of the pics above) - that's where I look to see if there is something to accelerate into. The key to going fast is linking lots of little ones into bigger ones, looking ahead for the bigger ones would make me miss all the smaller ones.

If I'm lazy I'll only focus on the bigger ones (but still looking just ahead) that give nice acceleration and sometimes a longer ride, but if I want to go fast i paddle hard for all the small ones and that keeps the average speed up. I never, ever, look back except to look out for mates.

Yesterday was a cracker, I got a 250m run (2.5x the length of a football field) on my GPS where I averaged 18.2km/h - I was about 30meters behind our fastest junior Ethan Koopmans when I got it....when it fizzled out about a minute later he was 60meters ahead.....the kid is flying now on the LE! Winds was ave.22kn gusting to 30 with solid swell running.

DJ - from what I can gather the underlying swell makes a lot of difference. The conditions I see in some of your videos are just great and your approach obviously makes the most of it. It may not be that I'll be able to apply what you're saying in my case, but there's still something to be learned there I feel. I'm like you - I'd rather some many epic runners, rather than lots of little ones or being the fastest overall. I'll never be the fastest overall anyway . I find it hard to methodically milk a little runner to the end, when I'm getting distracted by bigger stuff going on around me.

Peter, the video you posted quite a while back: has some great stuff, Chris is just a freak in those conditions - that's not saying you're a slouch either . I'd love to be able to downwind like that (back and knee problems aside!). Conditions are a bit more similar to here I feel, with diagonal interference being the norm. In your post I was particularly interested in the run you quoted in your post as a comparison. My best one for my last session was either 200m @ 14.4km/hr average or 180m @ 16.2km/hr (depending on where you start/finish on the speed trace), with a peak of 21.4 km/hr - that was a true runner not catching a wave at the end. Unfortunately that wasn't one of the ones that didn't film on the gopro, but was a good example of what really gets me froth'n.

Incidentally, my average run speed was just under 10km/hr from the motion-x GPX file. In a previous post I'd quoted 13km/hr average for what seemed slower run and I remember you guys being impressed with that. On this run it was again implying around 13km/hr "1 minute averages" on the iPhone app itself, but when I work it out properly from the speed graph on the computer it is more like 10km/hr (not so impressive after all). Something to be aware of if you use this app.

PeterP said..I never, ever, look back except to look out for mates.

But it sounds like they're all out in front of you anyway

Although I'm not a racer or particularly turned on by the concept even though I'm also competitive by nature, it's hard to deny that speed is fun. My motivation for look at the speed chart/track is more of a reality check against other examples like you posted above and (since it is one of the few easily measurable parameters) also as a gauge of personal improvement.

foamballer said..

thanks Mike,

I'd love to ride a longer board with rudder, but one thing I like about the 14'er is that I can still carry it to the beach easily from where I live (only need to swap arms twice !). A heavier board would not be quite as versatile. I was thinking in term of not catching runners at all, simply the paddling bit. How do you maintain a cross-wind heading when paddling a 14'er even in flat water? I start another thread on that.

My board is a 14' with a rudder - you don't have to go longer than that if you don't want to. You would have to get a custom as I don't think anyone makes a stock 14 with a rudder(?). It's also only about 11kg after over 4 years so is easy to carry.

I think its time to go back and have another read of the other thread on this
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Downwinder-Frustration-Please-help/?page=1

A lot of what we are going though has already been dealt with. It might make more sense now that you've got a few more paddles under your belt.

The "pissy little ones" are your bread and butter and are much easier to catch and hold than the bigger ones. Of course you want those bigger ones too. Don't waste any of that free energy the ocean throws your way. I will show you all this when you come for a paddle on the next southerly. Just keep it simple for now.

mikeman said..

foamballer said..

thanks Mike,

I'd love to ride a longer board with rudder, but one thing I like about the 14'er is that I can still carry it to the beach easily from where I live (only need to swap arms twice !). A heavier board would not be quite as versatile. I was thinking in term of not catching runners at all, simply the paddling bit. How do you maintain a cross-wind heading when paddling a 14'er even in flat water? I start another thread on that.

My board is a 14' with a rudder - you don't have to go longer than that if you don't want to. You would have to get a custom as I don't think anyone makes a stock 14 with a rudder(?). It's also only about 11kg after over 4 years so is easy to carry.

I think its time to go back and have another read of the other thread on this
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Downwinder-Frustration-Please-help/?page=1

A lot of what we are going though has already been dealt with. It might make more sense now that you've got a few more paddles under your belt.

The "pissy little ones" are your bread and butter and are much easier to catch and hold than the bigger ones. Of course you want those bigger ones too. Don't waste any of that free energy the ocean throws your way. I will show you all this when you come for a paddle on the next southerly. Just keep it simple for now.

i totally agree with mike here. don't waste any bump- they are all free. you need to keep the board moving


and the pissy little ones more often then not are the ones that take you for the longest rides with the most connections- speed bumps. maybe this applies to the ocean only?



and you are getting way to far in front of yourself. i like your hunger but think 'KISS' for the moment

all the best

mikeman said..I think its time to go back and have another read of the other thread on this
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Downwinder-Frustration-Please-help/?page=1

A lot of what we are going though has already been dealt with. It might make more sense now that you've got a few more paddles under your belt.

I've actually looked a thread a few times since it was spawned... good discussion there. It all made sense then, it's just putting it into practice that's the hard part. Like I've said before I'm more than happy to listen to any advice anyone wants to offer.

mikeman said..I will show you all this when you come for a paddle on the next southerly. Just keep it simple for now.

Looking forward to it

laceys lane said..and you are getting way to far in front of yourself. i like your hunger but think 'KISS' for the moment
all the best

Hah! I thought I was Lacey !

foamballer said..

mikeman said..My board is a 14' with a rudder - you don't have to go longer than that if you don't want to. You would have to get a custom as I don't think anyone makes a stock 14 with a rudder(?). It's also only about 11kg after over 4 years so is easy to carry.

Maybe that's the next evolution - I've got an order in for the 2014 Glide, which I think will be a nifty board for me. So that'll be my next one. There's no doubt that rudders are a cool thing though.

11kg sounds very light - is that carbon or just a light glass job? Looking forward to seeing it - who built it?

I was watching this the other day which I thought showed a good combo of rudder and tail turns. Looks like a very narrow/long board:

That's Jeremy Riggs on his 17'6" x 24" wide Bullet.. His new board is the same length but only 22" wide.. He is amazing..

I wonder if he likes to line up the big ones..

DJ

On the subject of keeping it simple... no one noticed that I replaced my manky stretched out - tangled up - read to fail coiled calf legrope. That one's for river paddling only now. Just gone for simple straight ankle version... didn't tread on it once, so all's good there.