BRAVE NEW WORLD - WELCOME BACK TO WINDSURFING
PETER HART MASTERCLASS
(This Technique feature originally appeared in the September 2013 issue of Windsurf Magazine. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE.)
If you’ve been away from this wonderful sport of ours for a while on account of intensive parenting, a bad back, prison, whatever, you may return a little confused. In a two-part series Peter Hart notes the changes in kit and sailing style, explains the thinking behind them and steers you towards good choices. Even if you haven’t been away, he may well answer the questions you’ve been too embarrassed to ask …
Those of a certain vintage will remember the satirical TV program ‘Not the Nine o’clock News.’ One classic sketch featured Mel Smith (recently and very sadly deceased) walking into a Hi-Fi Shop looking to by a new stereo from the deliberately unhelpful, jumped-up spiv of a salesman played by Rowan Atkinson.
“I’d like to buy a Gramophone please.” He says. “A GRAMOPHONE!!!! We don’t have any GRAM-O-PHONES here Granddad.” Replied the salesman.
“What’s that then?” Says Mel pointing to a record deck. “That’s a ‘Trio Automatic Direct Drive Turntable’, unless I’m very much mistaken.”
And so his humiliation continues as he’s asked to make choices about watts, amps, woofers and tweeters, when all he wants is a device to play his old 78s.
It encapsulated how vulnerable and insecure we can made to feel when trying to buy a technical item from someone who is unsympathetic to, and even revels in, our ignorance.
These are feelings you may experience when returning to the world of windsurfing. You’re after a new Gramophone only to find they’re not called that any more.
Immediately I must leap to the defence of our retail industry and state that I’ve never met a salesman in the mode of the hi-fi Nazi.
They’re all enthusiastic, sensitive and obliging. However they – and the online shops and magazines dare I say – tend to preach to the modern converted – and may start speaking in a language that just didn’t exist when you were dragging your last ‘all-round funboard’ up the banks of the reservoir.
‘Free-ride’, ‘free-race,’ ‘free-move,’ ‘old skool,’ ‘new skool’ ‘WindSUPs’ etc. – there have been a lot of changes.
The good news is that they’re all good (and a lot of them ‘free’, apparently). The original, joyful, speedy blasting experience that dominated the scene in the early days is still there.
It’s just been made easier. Those basic blasting skills (good power control/harness work, early planing etc.) are now merely the foundation to explore a myriad of different avenues.
The massive improvements in and diversification of kit has set the bar way higher for the common man. Disciplines, notably wave sailing and high-end speed and slalom, that were once the sole preserve of dreadlocked youths and bulbous athletes, are now being challenged by people with proper jobs and even by those who can get to the beach by bus for free.
Choice is brilliant, so long as you make the right ones.
So for those of you who’ve been out of it, or are in it and just a bit confused, here’s an abridged overview of modern windsurfing.
The pros have always had a strong influence on windsurfing’s direction, so let’s start by identifying the competitive disciplines.
THE LONG and the SHORT of it
It’s fascinating being presented with such tear-jerking examples of the ancient kit and I thank Simon Bassett of 2XS for giving me access to his kit museum. We afford ourselves a little chuckle; however, most design features that we believe to be recent inventions, were in fact discovered way back. For example, 35 years ago we already knew that a shorter board would be more manoeuvrable, that thick wide tail would plane early and jump well. In truth the improvements have been achieved through a million tiny tweaks to rocker, rails, hull and outline that have totally refined those original design ideas. 
The famous 290cm ‘Icarus’ (circa 1981), the fastest production board of its time, atop a modern 130 ltr free-ride. The fat, square tail was fast but gybing was a mission. The modern version has all the width and volume but has the curves to produce a sweet gybe.
In the past you gauged your speedy progress by how far back you could stand on the board. Amateurs stood in the front set of straps, pros in the back set. Today it’s by how far outboard you stand. By the way, that domed deck is way ahead of its time.
Long and narrow remains the best shape for light winds – but why were they SO narrow? It’s a mystery. No wonder it was so darned difficult. The modern SUP with a mastfoot does the same job but is a full 6 inches wider.
THE RACING STABLES
In the 80s and 90s equipment design was totally dominated by competition. Race results were so vital to a brand’s success that the designers spent a disproportionate amount of time on prototypes for the team riders.
How about this for a stat? In 1991 80% of sails sold by the UK’s most prolific manufacturer were cambered race sails. Today it’s less than 2%.
Competition is still very much alive, but far more time is spent on ‘all-round’ kit, and the relationship between competition and recreational designs is more symbiotic.
The features that make say a slalom board earlier to plane or a wave board exit the turn faster, will find their way into the versatile models. But it also works the other way round.
There is nothing big or clever about a board that is difficult to sail. The more comfortable it feels the more confidently you can push it.
Those features that have made the slightly de-tuned models easy under the feet of the part-timer, find their way back into the pro models.
Hence even the most dedicated models now easily fall into the reach of the keen amateur. You may have no desire to compete, but knowing a little about the disciplines can help make you understand where the boards are coming from and help you make a choice.
Competition loosely falls into 2 categories, judged and non-judged – racing being non-judged and waves and freestyle being judged. Lets start with racing.
Raceboard
It’s as you remember it – big fleets racing up, down and across the wind in planing and, crucially, non-planing conditions. So racing happens from force 1 upwards.
The boards are modern versions of those old classics such as the Mistral Equipe, the F2 Lightning and the Fanatic Racy Cat – long (380cm +) with daggerboards.
They now use bigger 9 sq m rigs. The class is currently enjoying something of a resurgence.
Olympic
Windsurfing continues as an Olympic sport despite having been temporarily voted off last year in favour of kiteboarding.
It’s classic course racing around trapezoid courses with more emphasis on up and downwind rather than reaching. The chosen one design board since the Beijing Games of 2008, is the RS:X, a 286cm hybrid – short enough to plane early on the fin and carve turns, long enough to take a daggerboard and perform off-the-plane – although nothing like as well as a Raceboard.
The men use a 9.5 sq m cambered rig, the women 8.5. The biggest and most successful one Class Design is the Bic Techno – the youth feeder class for the RS:X.
Formula
Presenting the weirdest looking bit of kit ever – strange but devastatingly effective. Formula was developed at the end of the 90s to help lower the wind minimums needed to plane and hence ensure more high speed racing and less hanging around waiting.
The boards are around just 220 cm long but over one metre wide and, thanks to a massive 70cm fin, support a rig of 10 sq m or more.
Planing racing takes place in as little as 7 knots. It’s very technical, very physical, involves a lot of tweaking and is adored by kit freaks.
Slalom
As it’s always been, slalom is the most popular racing format because it involves what most do for fun, which is sitting on loads of power, screeching across the wind and doing high speed carving turns.
It follows a knockout format but is different from the earliest days of slalom in that the courses may be longer and more varied with more sailors per heat.
The new boards and rigs allow racing to happen in a lot less wind.
Freestyle
To the windsurfing pioneers, freestyle meant rail-riding, head-dipping, standing inside the boom of a Windsurfer Regatta.
For the next generation it meant duck gybing, carving 360s, chop hops. Well all those moves are highly relevant today but fall under the ‘old skool’ banner.
‘New skool’ freestyle is a totally different animal. If you’ve been away from the beach for a decade or more, it will blow your watery mind.
The culture of the discipline and the tricks themselves borrow much from skateboarding. The moves happen at speed, on the plane and then mostly in the air.
It started at the end of the Millennium with variations of an aerial gybe. During the next decade the youth of the world took it to places it had no right to go.
It’s brought us a whole new language (Spocks, Punetas, Kabikuchis etc. Mostly based on excellently rude words from the freestyle hotbeds of South America), totally new designs, a new way of sailing and a whole bunch of new injuries, from which young people seem to recover very quickly.
Competitions take place in heats before a panel of judges from the lakes of Austria to the wild seas of the Canary Islands.
Wavesailing
The format remains the same, heats of sailors (usually four) jumping and riding before a judging panel, but the level, even since the reign of King Naish, has gone through-the-roof.
At pro level, you wont get through a heat unless you can nail a double loop.
Refined, multi-fin board designs are allowing riders to tuck into the hollowest pockets on the wave and freestyle has brought a crazy aerial off-the-lip element to many of the classic wave-riding moves.
CATEGORIES ‘SCHMATEGORIES’
Categories are a useful guide – but the borders are ever so blurred, especially between the middle free race/ride/move group. I’m just off the phone to someone intimately involved in a leading brand who, when asked, was unsure whether a certain model was ‘free-ride’ or ‘free-move’.
It’s more a reflection on the board’s versatility than his ignorance. Forgetting the categories, the main cut-off point is whether a board offers inboard straps where BOTH feet are over the centre-line and whether it works with a sub 30cm fin.
If it does you’re into freestyle and waves. If it doesn’t, speedy fun is your main focus. Looking at a design and noting footstrap options, fin size, width, thickness of tail and rail, you can easily surmise in which areas it’s going to perform without relying so much on the label.
Three boards between 90-100 ltrs. The single back straps reveal they are all manoeuvre oriented but the difference in tail shape tells the full story. Furthest away is the chunky tail of the dedicated freestyle board. In the middle lies the freestyle wave, enough thickness to ‘pop’ out off flat water but thin enough to grip through carved turns; and nearest, the thin rails of the wave board are all about holding an edge at extreme angles.
The two extremes of inboard and outboard footstrap positions. Although the Free-race has inboard strap options, it’s too wide for them to be mounted right on the centre-line. The 103 ltr freestyle wave design on the left is the really the most versatile all-rounder as it’s narrow enough to offer both.
EQUIPMENT – an overview
Equipment choice has always been straightforward if you’re looking to compete or at least excel in a specific discipline – you get the dedicated board and rig.
And now that most pros compete with standard production models, you’re getting the real deal. But the vast majority don’t want to compete nor be too specialist.
They want to cover as many bases as possible with the least amount of kit – and so it is that most boards (and sails) aim to do a bit of everything.
But you still have to make your mind up as to which ‘bit of everything’ you most want to do. In simple terms you have a spectrum and at one end lies speed (slalom kit) and at the other lies manoeuvrability (wave kit) and you have to decide where on that line you want to buy in.
The board categories in between are useful in that they describe roughly where on that speed/manoeuvre line the board lies. Lets give it a go, starting at the speedy end.
SLALOM BOARDS
Sizes 80 – 140 litres
Slalom boards are unrecognisable from the long ‘gunny’ shapes of the last century. They are short, very wide, very light and much faster than the old designs primarily because they’ll support much bigger rigs which they can do thanks to much bigger, better fins.
For example the rig range of a 117 might be 7.0 up to 9.2. It’ll also take a fin as big as 46cm. In 15 knots of wind, you’ll find yourself doing one and half times the wind speed.
The 1995 equivalent would only take a 6.5 rig and a 32 fin at a push. They’re ‘technical’ to sail’ because to get the most of a small, flat-rockered board with a big rig, you have to be very cute with the power distribution to keep it gliding level.
They’re ‘difficult’ in so far as they only work when fully powered-up with a cambered race sail. So you have to get used to extreme outboard footstrap positions to balance the lift from that big fin.
Once you get them wound-up, they’re very comfortable at speed – but balls of a certain size are required. And yes they will carve a sweet gybe – but it has to be a long one.
FREE-RACE
Sizes 90 -150 litres
They’re de-tuned versions of the above. Similar outline, similar rocker, very fast but with the tricky edges knocked off.
They’ll offer the option of easier inboard footstrap positions and will work better when less powered up. Softer rails in the nose make them more forgiving over chop and around the gybes.
Although still quite technical to sail, they fall well within the technical reach of the Average Joe. Manufacturers might also offer them in a more durable, less exotic and expensive construction.
When conditions go nuts, even the best may opt for a Free-race model, just because they’re more controllable.
FREE-RIDE
Sizes 110- 170 litres
This is the widest and most nebulous category. ‘Free-ride’ was as label first coined by the snowboard industry in the early 90s to describe the act of riding the whole mountain and having to deal with whatever was in front of you.
For that they needed a very versatile stick. In windsurfing the Free-ride board sits right in the middle of speed/manoeuvrability continuum.
Compared to the Free-race it has more curve in the plan shape (board as viewed from above). Curves equate to manoeuvrability, straight lines to speed. The tail may be narrower and thinner for tighter carved turns.
Features such as more ‘vee’ underneath, more rounded rails (edges) and more nose rocker, produce a softer, less clattery ride over chop at the expense of a knot or two.
Still very fast, but easier around-the-corners, thanks sometimes also to a less racy fin with a little sweep in the tip. The biggest free-rides, a.k.a. ‘progressive free-ride’ can be used by light beginners or be the first step down (in size, not ability) for those looking to their first planing experiences.
They may have a soft, friendly, ‘EVA’ deck and a multitude of footstraps positions, some way forward so you can get used to the feeling of the feet being locked in, off the plane - at a very gentle place.
THE PROGRESSION of FREESTLYE
Freestyle of the ‘new school’ variety has become a leading professional discipline. It’s engaged the youth of the world and brought the dynamism and athleticism of wave-sailing to flat water.
It’s not freestyle as you may once have known it. You won’t believe what’s now possible with a board and rig. It may not be something that your dodgy joints would ever consider but you may still be up for a bit of ‘old school …’
Old ‘old school’ freestyle of the early years, still practised by many, is doing anything on a big board apart from sailing it normally – i.e. usually on the rail, preferably on the wrong side of the sail. It remains the best light wind training for all disciplines.
Old school’ freestlyle comprises the classic short board planing tricks such as bodydrags, duck gybes, one handed gybes and, as seen here, carving 360s. Most of it, gratefully, takes place actually on the water.
Very ‘new school!’ Most trick are variations of jumps, mid air spins and on water slides with a thousand variations. Most tricks are performed on the plane with both feet in the straps.
FREE-MOVE
Sizes 100-140 litres
It’s the latest of the categories and a kind of sub-division of ‘free-ride.’ There’s more emphasis on manoeuvrability thanks to super-thin edges (even on the bigger ones), which grip the water in carved turns and ape the sensation of a much smaller board.
FREESTYLE BOARDS
80-110 litres
It’s the most specialist category out there designed uniquely to perform the aerial and sliding tricks of new skool freestyle.
The fin is worryingly tiny (22cm or less), hardly a fin at all really, to allow them to break it out of the water and then slide and spin.
The tail and rails are thick as a brick to help you cork or ‘pop’ the board up to initiate a rotation. That volume and flat, fast rocker make them plane very early with a small sail (freestylers rarely use a rig bigger than 5.8 and preferably a lot less).
Ironically they are not very manoeuvrable in the traditional carving sense – the rails are too thick and bouncy. For the same reason, they’re not comfortable powered up at speed in chop, so are absolutely NOT to be bought as a ‘good all-rounder.’
WAVE BOARDS
60-100 litres
Although the least significant in terms of numbers sold, wave boards continuously see the most radical developments.
Mainly because that’s where most of the pros spend their time given the chance. Wave boards used to be shaped like bananas.
They were very slow, both to get planing – and when they finally got going. They’re not anymore. It’s a massive subject, but the main difference is that their manoeuvrability today comes not from heaps of rocker, which pushes water, but from a much shorter, wider, curvier outline.
They’ve developed to suit a more front foot surfing style where you use the whole rail to turn rather than just hoof off the back foot and pivot on the tail.
The vast majority are ‘multi fins’ “No change there.” I hear you say as the most popular set-up in the 80s was the tri-fin ‘thruster.’ But they are very different.
For a start the fins are a lot smaller. The choices today are 2 (‘twin’), 3 (the classic ‘thruster’ combo) or 4 (‘quad’) fins.
The differences between those fin set-ups is under constant review and depends hugely on the size and exact placement of the fins and how they relate to the rocker and the outline – but basically the small outboard-mounted fins provide more drive when the board is on an edge and help you carry your speed through tight turns on the wave.
But the main advantage for the majority is that, thanks to the shorter fins (max 16cm), you can launch and then jump and ride in shallower water.
Multi fin boards also ride lower in the water so you can get away with a bigger one and stay in control. Given that winds are often gusty around the launch site and around the break itself, a little extra volume with little loss of manoeuvrability is a huge advantage. For an unhealthy moment (early noughties) manufacturers offered a range of designs for different conditions, side-shore, onshore etc as if everyone could afford a quiver of the things.
Now they recognise that a good wave board works well whatever the conditions, perhaps with a change of fin. And now, rather than them all being designed to rip the fast, monstrous waves of Ho’okipa, many are developed and tested for ‘real world’ conditions – i.e., the onshore mush that rolls up at most coastal venues.
FREESTYLE WAVE
70-115 litres
It’s the new Millennium equivalent of the old ‘wave/slalom.’ Amongst proficient coastal sailors, the freestyle wave (FSW) is the ultimate all-rounder.
It’s good for old skool freestyle – carving moves such as duck gybes and 360s – and has enough ‘pop’ for new skool moves, especially if you fit a freestyle fin. It’s got a flatter rocker than a pure wave board, so gets up and goes a bit earlier and is very speedy.
A single fin or thruster combo lends more drive for choppy blasting (better known as ‘bump and jump’). It works fine in the waves.
It’s not as manoeuvrable actually on the wave face as a pure wave board but in sloppy, choppy onshore, mainly jumping conditions, can perform better due to its extra speed and upwind ability. It’s also more forgiving under unrefined feet.
Just as most average saloon cars are way faster than so called ‘sports cars’ of a few decades back, all boards are fast these days and all go around corners. The main decisions to be made concern volume, what kind of water you’ll be sailing on and whether you want to stay in contact with it or get high.
WindSUPS
Stand UP Paddleboards (SUPs) are big surfboards you stand on and … yes … paddle.
I’m sure you knew that. They hit our shores in a big way around 2007 and immediately some models arrived with inserts for a mastfoot.
Suddenly light-wind sailing was fun again. Long, thin boards, like a rowing skull, glide in a beautiful way that short, fat boards don’t.
They’re also great for learning on. Those under 10’ tend to have more of a surfboard rocker-line and are excellent in waves with or without a rig.
With a sail in light winds and a swell, they’ve introduced many painlessly to the intricacies of wavesailing.
WindSUPs have gone a step further by including a daggerboard and footstrap mounts. It’s the ultimate ‘one-size-fits-all’ water tool. And for absolute convenience some are inflatable.
NEW DIMENSIONS
Back in the day there wasn’t a board shorter than 260. Today, except for Raceboards and SUPs, you wont find many longer than 240.
Whereas once we monitored our progress by length, now we relate more to widths. Boards are very different to look at. I’m sure you’ve noticed.
Take a classic board like the Mistral Screamer wave/slalom – so popular that it was produced for a decade between 1986 and 1996. It was 103 litres, 277cm long and 56cm wide.
The equivalent board, say a Starboard Kode 103, fits the same volume into a hull just 234cm long but 65cm wide.
THE CHANGING FREE-RIDE EXPERIENCE
The early racy sails set on solid aluminium poles and were so hard and grunty that you needed the edge of a long board to resist them. But with the advent of flexible carbon masts, sails began to breathe.
Gradually big sails felt softer and lighter and since they produced less drag, ever bigger rigs could be used on shorter and shorter boards in ever lighter winds.
A race-fit, moustachioed Harty in 1989, using all of his youthful strength to gybe and control a 380 and a 6.5 in 18 knots.
Fast forward 24 years and he’s having a lot less trouble with a 240cm board and an 8.0 rig thanks to the softer rig and a 48cm fin.
The change in volume distribution has several advantages.
- the board is more stable at rest
- it’s more controllable through chop and it doesn’t span as many waves.
- it’s easier to gybe as there’s less rail to catch.
- the extra width in the tail makes it earlier to plane.
- there’s no ‘dead wood.’ The volume is under your feet and the mastfoot where you need it, so you don’t need as much.
VOLUME – go smaller AND bigger.
The more modern shapes make much more efficient use of volume so compared to older times, so, as I mentioned, you can get away with less – but how much less?
It depends whether or not you’re planing. These figures are horribly approximate but say you were the proud owner of a 130-litre all-rounder in the mid 90s, a modern 120-litre (or even 115) design would plane in the same wind strength and feel just as, if not more, stable.
It’s partly down to the width and volume distribution, but also because the modern boards support bigger rigs. In the 90s the recommended sail range for a 130 all rounder would be about 5.5 up to 7.0.
A modern 120 will happily support an 8 sq m rig. Of course much depends on your skill level. One manufacturer draws the distinction between ‘active’ and ‘non-active’ sailors when it comes to selecting volume for their new Freemove boards.
If you’re active and can pump well, you can get way with 5 litres less volume than if you just want to hook in and be blown onto the plane (non-active).
When it comes to non-planing, not too much has changed. A litre still supports a kilogramme. For an efficient non-planing ride you still need about 100 litres of ‘reserve’ volume. So an 80kg adult needs a board of around 180 litres for a floaty, stable ride.
Go Bigger
But today we’re not always looking to go smaller. Yes at the speed/slalom end of the scale, the aim is load as small a board as possible with as big a sail as possible to increase your power to drag ratio.
However, at the manoeuvre end of the scale it’s just the opposite. Wave sailors and freestylers prefer a big board, small rig combo.
They use as small a sail as possible because smaller sails are so much easier to chuck around and depower at crucial moments.
A typical set-up for a 70 kg freestyler in 18 knots of breeze would be a 90-litre board and a 4.7 or even a 4.2. They use the board volume for early planing rather than the sail.
It’s the same with wavesailing. My most-used wave board these days is a 92 (I’m 88 kg). Ten years ago it was an 82.
Whereas once we tried to gain manoeuvrability by taking out as small a board as possible, we now get it by reducing the sail size. Having too much power really limits what you can do on a wave and in the air.
SHORT and WIDE vs. LONG and THIN
The obvious question posed, very reasonably, by old timers is that if short and wide is so much better than long and thin, for planing at least, why did it take so bloody long for the designers to twig?
Well it didn’t happen open overnight. Board design has only progressed at the same rate as rig and fin technology. In the earlier days you needed the waterline length of a longer board to resist the sideways drag of the early sails.
With the introduction of carbon, it became possible to increase the flex of a mast but without compromising its strength.
Cut around softer masts, sails began to twist and breathe and become lighter in the hands, more efficient, less ‘draggy.’
Less and less waterline was needed. Fins improved in the same way – more lift, less drag. And more robust fin boxes could accommodate bigger fins, which allowed designers not only to keep the boards short, but also load them with bigger rigs.
WAVE REVOLUTIONS
The main difference between the old and new style wave boards is that the former derived its manoeuvrability from rocker, which made the board pivot but also pushed water and made it very slow to plane.
Only the really small ones were properly manoeuvrable so it really was a high wind pursuit. The latest wave boards are shorter, wider, with a flatter rocker and a more rounded outline.
They turn around the whole rail, like a surfboard, not just on the tail. All that means that they not only turn faster and tighter but are just …. faster.
Wave boards have always been ‘loose’ but the early ones sucked to the water and carried little speed through the turns.
By contrast the new ones turn twice as tightly and are as fast as old slalom boards. That combination means the sky is just the beginning.
Uphaul-ability
When it comes to selecting volume for general free-riding, you weigh up the size(s) of rig you want to use and the wind strength you want to be perform in.
But actually at the top of that list is the ‘uphaul-ability’ question. You may well be able to waterstart, but you’d like the option of uphauling should the wind drop.
The modern boards sink to the same degree as the older ones, but are easier to uphaul thanks to the stability offered by the extra width. How small you can go is very much a skill question but these are approximate suggestions given a modern design. 70 reserve litres (=150 litre board for a 80 kg sailor).
Easy and dry – achievable by low intermediate. 40 reserve litres (120 litre board) – still dry but pretty wobbly. With a little practice and commitment, still achievable by intermediate sailor. 20 reserve litres and less (100 litre board and smaller).
Wet ankles – quite an advanced skill especially if it’s choppy.
BASIC CHOICES
The board categories are useful in pointing you in the right direction. But you don’t have to rely on the label. You can tell just as much how a board will perform and its limitations by checking, footstrap options and fin size.
The ‘free-ride’ limitations – the ‘blasting’/manoeuvre threshold.
Most of the free-ride boards are aping the slalom set-up. Width through the tail (plus a million subtle hull refinements) balanced by a big fin, have brought the planing experience into range earlier and earlier in people’s careers.
The volume under the footstraps provides a more gentle transition from non-planing to planing. You can more or less step into the straps off the plane drive the power into the fin and accelerate away – simple.
You’ll plane early, go fast and stay upwind, carve a sweet gybe. What is there not to like? Absolutely nothing if you want to blast and carve over deep water.
But the pony is short on tricks. The first limiting factor of this set-up is the fin size. A fin much above 38cm locks you into a certain mode of sailing.
Beach-starting becomes an issue. Jumps and chop-hopping are harder. The deep fin resists sudden changes of direction so locks you into longer turns.
Going out through surf there’s an extra risk of grounding out as the wave sucks up in front of you. The second factor is the outboard placement of the straps.
To balance the lift from that big fin both front and back straps are mounted on the rail. Fine for speed but that’s not the best position from which to drive the board through a turn, nor control it in the air.
If you’re moving gently towards wave-riding and jumping, perhaps trying some aerial tricks or cracking out some really right carves, like a surfer, you need to be standing right in the middle of the board so you can drive it with both feet balance and trim it with toes and heels.
For that you need the option of inboard mounted straps. That is to say, a single back strap over the centreline and front straps where, as you put the foot right in, the toes straddle the centre-line.
Then check the recommended fin size. If it says anything under 30 cm (preferably less), you’re in business for tricks and stunts. It’s certain boards under about 120 litres and 70cm wide that may offer these options.
It’s confusing. I stand before two boards of 110 litres – a slalom and a freestyle design. They’re from the same manufacturer and actually have the same rocker-line.
The slalom board has a 45cm fin and the freestyle a 20cm fin. That both fins can work is partly to do with the hull design, but more importantly what rig you use, your set-up, your stance and how you direct the power into the board. I’ll be looking at all that next month.
So Harty continues his overview of the Brave New Windsurfing World next month looking at the latest rig categories, how you match them to the board – and how you have to develop new, or amend old techniques to sail them. His clinics are as popular as ever so check for details on www.peter-hart.com. Look out for latest news and views on his Peter Hart Masterclass Facebook page. If you want to receive his monthly email newsletter, contact him on harty@peter-hart.com.