evlPanda said..
The back foot is on the accelerator. Push down on it until the board is flat.

Hands should be light on the boom. Light = fast.

Now look; the board is flat left to right, but is it flat fore and aft? Do you need to move the mast base forward or backward (easy)? Or the foot straps (fn hard)?

How's the sail? Is it powered, or is it driving? Comfortable; smiling? Adjust the harness lines (easy peasy). Then adjust the downhaul (more important), then the outhaul (easy). Get one of those North extensions with the lever; can adjust while on the plane(!/no ****).

Can you push on the fin, to accelerate, to drive? It should accelerate when pushed against. Fins are best bang-for-buck. Like a prime lens.

Once everything is trimmed so it is light, and comfortable, and "driving" .... well, that's as fast as your gear will go.

Be nice if you sailed somewhere you could use a decent fin rather than deltas.. still it does get you into smooth water..

That's how you fly the fin roll the board and it will release the board and more speed will follow!

Windxtasy said..

stroppo said..
That's how you fly the fin roll the board and it will release the board and more speed will follow!

so how exactly do you do that?

I think the comment earlier by decrepit, about having as much of the board as possible out of the water is a pertinent point and talks to the above.

my way to do this is moving the mast back back to free the board. When the mast goes back in the track it allows me to raise the boom up higher, this then helps the board come out of the water. I will then move my weight forward a little and hang off the boom more to keep the board flat.

there is fine line between too much lift a front foot lifting. But if I get it right the board floats above the chop and I can still push hard with the back foot for more drive.

but then again I'm not that fast so you can take my advice with caveat emptor :)

windward rail raised gives you aerodynamic lift, so you need less board in the water. So yes, the fast guys are doing this intentionally. Having the right sized fin helps, too big and you'll get too much lift and tailwalk

Easier to explain in person to many words !

To get the windward rail up two things are used. First if we tilt the board away from us, it wants to bear away. If we rake the rig back, the board wants to luff up or turn into yhe wind. If we do both, the board goes straight, but the trim is way better because the rig is raked back so its force is against the fin rather than the rail. The board is slightly tilted so the tilted fin gives a little bit of vertical lift, which even though its not much, helps r
the trim of the board, allowing weight furthrr back and the the front of the board comes out of the water more and it trims to a flatter faster angle. What is hard to grasp at first is that to do this, you need your foot straps out on the rail, well maybe not with delta fins or formula boards down wind, but for slalom boards deffinitely outboard straps and roll the board away with your toes. You want to feel like you are bearing away with your feet, butluffing up with your rig. Its way easier to do than explain.

The best way to get the windward rail up -

Use a fin that is big enough relative to the width of the board.

Put as much of your weight on to the back foot as is possible ( around 90 percent )

Dig your back foot toes in to maximum - simultaneously lifting our heel.

This will lift the windward rail - period.

Trick then is to keep the windward rail there for as long as possible - till you gybe.

Not easy!

In the gusts I still maintain this technique - but I compensate by pushing my upper body weight FORWARD to keep the nose down.

In the lulls I do the opposite - I pull back in my harness - keeping my upper body weight BACK to increase the board lift.

Hope the above is not too complicated to understand.

bartontb said..

evlPanda said..
The back foot is on the accelerator. Push down on it until the board is flat.

Question: is 'the board is flat' actually the fastest? That is what I have been striving for but recently I noticed that the pros here on Bonaire (and the fast amateurs) all seem to sail with the windward rail slightly higher than the leeward rail. Is this by choice or because they are powered to the limit and holding down the gear by really loading up the pressure on the fin?

Simply put yes as a perfectly flat board offers the least amount of resistance

the biggest factor that slows a board down at the top end is bouncing usually caused by chop. every time the board bounces it increases drag.

to avoid this we load up the fin with a slight angle to get most of the board out of the water and form a cushion of air under the board. this allows you to ride over the top of small chop without bouncing the board.

Ideally when its up and flying you want the water line to be hitting the board half way between the foot straps . with good tuning your center of balance on the sail body board and water line should all line up to be directly over this point. this will reduce the verticle roll on the board and stop the bounce.

The water line point is tuned simply by moving the mast track - pushing the mast base forward will move tje water line forward etc

Top end speed is more about control and balance than pure power.

fin lift diagram - giving the fin more angle in the water increases lift



Anders here shows this nicely

Windxtasy said..
But how do you lift the windward rail when your weight is trying to sink it?

Daffy gave me a great tip. I was having trouble edging the leeward rail in on my boards especially my 75 wide inboard strapped freemove. I was trying to weight my toes and had to get more upright and inboard.. he said angle your rear heel back which then allows your ankle to rotate more and wolla! edging..works a treat!.. Still only flown the fin once or twice but boy it feels good when i do.. Can anyone do it with a 20cm delta?
If you put the mastfoot forward in flatwater doesn't that slow you down? If you do put it forward I assume you have to move your harness lines back a corresponding distance?

Yeah you can fly the fin on a delta but you need to be powered up!

stroppo said..
Yeah you can fly the fin on a delta but you need to be powered up!

Yep. I was tail walking with a 20cm delta in my 57 wide slalom board so switched to a 17cm delta which was the perfect balance between lift and control. The 20cm Delta is perfect in my 100ltr slalom with up to a 7.3.

N1GEL said..

sboardcrazy said..

stroppo said..
Yeah you can fly the fin on a delta but you need to be powered up!

I find I can only get my act together upwind ( board angle trim etc) when really powered up..So if you have a decent fin can you do it less powered up?

I find it much easier to keep the board trimmed and get more lift while heading up wind if I take my back foot out of the strap and place it further in the middle of the deck. I've noticed others, like Matt D, doing this. When fully powered I don't need to do it, but it certainly helps a lot when under done.

I do that a lot with my 89 falcon..phew ..it's not a bad habit..?

Piv said..
To get the windward rail up two things are used. First if we tilt the board away from us, it wants to bear away. If we rake the rig back, the board wants to luff up or turn into yhe wind. If we do both, the board goes straight, but the trim is way better because the rig is raked back so its force is against the fin rather than the rail. The board is slightly tilted so the tilted fin gives a little bit of vertical lift, which even though its not much, helps r
the trim of the board, allowing weight furthrr back and the the front of the board comes out of the water more and it trims to a flatter faster angle. What is hard to grasp at first is that to do this, you need your foot straps out on the rail, well maybe not with delta fins or formula boards down wind, but for slalom boards deffinitely outboard straps and roll the board away with your toes. You want to feel like you are bearing away with your feet, butluffing up with your rig. Its way easier to do than explain.

For me the further the back foot is out on the rail the easier is to get the board to rail windward. On my slalom board I have the straps out and back.

The other day I was feeling like I needed to have my foot out further on the rail. I found that my footsteps had loosened up a bit. Tightening the back straps pushed my back foot out more and helped me to point my toes. It had an instant effect on making the board rail and free from the chop, gps speed improved noticeably.

however when it comes to using a delta fin ( which I've only done a couple of times ) it wasnt very forgiving on too much sideways force.