When I first powered up it felt as if the rig was going to literally take off without me so I really dropped hard in the harness and had to really drive my feet down to keep from catapulting and white knuckled the boom. The speed was like none I had experienced earlier in the day. I felt as if I was in a position where I was locked in and if I had tried to let the sail out or unhooked it would have catapulted me to the moon. Fastest I'd been on the water except for the 2 seater ice boat my dad had back in the 70's. We used to sail it at Wolf. It was like a dragster when it was fully loaded up with wind. The blades on the back probably weighed in at 25lbs each and the front one was even heavier. You talk about speed! I remember hearing the blades cutting into the ice as we slowly headed out and once it powered up what a rush!

So we are talking about different things then. What you are describing sounds like the surge of power that you are experiencing the most when a gust fils up the sail after a lull. In this case it is the front arm that holds the throttle . You pull with your front arm only , the sail oppens and the power gets spilled out-you sheet out, you push with your front arm , you sheet in and power up. I cant believe I haven’t told you about this before! It’s fundamental , but after a while you start doing things automatically and forget how important they are. The little details that matter!

Posted this initially in the last Wolf session thread, but probably you haven’t seen it so I’m posting it again here where it belongs. It’s a cutout from a bigger article by Guy Cribb, who is a one of the best UK couches and if you google him you’ll find other useful information too. If you haven’t quite grasp the importance of the power controlling front arm from my broken English I hope this peace will make it clearer. As I said it sounds very complicated -feet, hands, torso and head doing different things at exactly the same time and it is complicated, but with time our brains memorise it and starts giving the commands independently -like auto pilot-some call it “muscle memory “. In a view years you’ll be able to carve jibe while checking your emails at the same time Well, not exactly, but very close. Unfortunately it takes a long time for us “weekend warriors “ because we forget most of what we’ve learned the last session by the time we get to sail again.

Yesterday me and Reid did some on land experimenting by swapping our masts. It was a very educating experience for me for I knew that Ezzy and Sailworks sails look very different on land and use masts with different bend curves, but I didn’t know that they have to be rigged very differently too! While my Sailworks /both the Retros and the Revos/ are rigged by applying significant downhaul and moderate outhaul, Reid showed me how the Ezzy’s are rigged the exactly opposite way. The amount of outhaul he applyed was eye popping for me . It takes considerable effort and the sail gets pulled out significantly from neutral position. I would call that a killer outhaul, because it will completely kill the power in most sails rendering them unusable. Quite the opposite in an Ezzy sail, Reid explained, it merely shifts the draft of the sail forward and around the sailor to create the desired equal pull in both arms.
All of this means that if I’ve showed you how to rig your Ezzy, I certainly did it wrong. So next time you rig an Ezzy sail let the printed settings guide you and trim additionaly by feel until you achieve equal pressure in both arms.

Ady wrote:

I rigged my 5.8 Ezzy with 3" of positive outhaul the medium setting(black cord, see vid). The "considerable effort" was just me trying to get out that last 1/8" so the sail touches the boom - more to do with the loop & go on the boom, so I don't have to click the boom out one more notch and keep the boom as short as possible.

We did learn that my GT 100 constant curve appears it won't work in Sailworks.

Well I hope I just dropped Gregorys Jibe video here as I want to access it for future reference.
Looking at my last post I don't think I added my last Wolf Lake adventure back in September. My intention was to get on and off plane and into the straps under some type of control without worrying about blasting across the lake. I was getting on plane but was still putting my foot to close to the mast base initially and not able to get it back in the strap. I got tossed out the front window a few times and was having trouble with wind gusts. This seems to be an ongoing problem that I need to try to get under control, it makes for a long day. I decided to break for lunch and go with a 6.0 but I was still underestimating the wind gusts and this was just as bad as the 6.5 so I eventually went with my 5.5. It ended up being a long day on and mostly in the water. I think Ady arrived sometime around 1 and as I was leaving around 3ish (?) I caught up with him as he was rigging another kit. He gave me some good instruction (on land) regarding that front foot/strap position that will help next time I hit the water. If I can swing it I'd like to hit Bonaire for a week or so this winter. Here's a few shots from last time out....

Good stuff to read while waisting away time at work
www.windsurf.co.uk/peter-hart-filling-in-the-gaps/

Ideally following up on the water.

Well it's that time of year again to start thinking about our goals for the upcoming 2018 season!
I spent a good part of the day/evening going back to review all the posts from last season to determine where I need to pickup from.
1. Get a 430 mast (should have by the end of April).
2. More control getting on and off plane.
3. Get into the foot straps while planning.
4. Learn to water start.
All 4 of these are a must if I plan to move down to a smaller board in the near future (next year?)

For those of you that are somewhat in the same zone of progression that I am, I suggest a few posting for you to go back and read up on that are really informative. I'm sure there's something you can pick up on from all of them.
1. The link in Posting #26 from Ady, Peter Hart "Up & Riding in a Flash".
2. The link in Posting #27 from Ady, Jem Hall "Planning & Getting Into The Foot Straps"
This article has 3 ways to do this.Traditional, Active and New School. It might be worth it to start/try one and progress to another to find what works for you.
3. The link in Posting #91 from Ady, Peter Hart "Filling In The Gaps" (one of my favorites for light wind sessions)
Thanks Ady!!!

I also found this video for "Clew First Water Starts". Does anyone out there do this?

Yup, you got them priorities right buddy! You need that Ezzy mast to set up your rig precisely. I didn’t realize how much shape is pre-built in the Ezzy sails until late last year when I observed Reid rigging up. You need to follow the instructions strictly, otherwise all this shape down low makes the sail very backhanded and energy zapping. Thats the reason probably for the control issues and it’s hard to focus on the planing when you are fighting your rig constantly in our gusty, shifting winds.
Otherwise Bonaire seems to be the perfect place to pull the trigger and step into the footstraps. Don’t worry yet about the water starting, it will come along when you start sailing in winds above 20 mph with sails below 6.0. Don’t even bother with bigger sails yet, its easier to uphaul them then to waterstart in most cases- especially in flat water.
Hope to see you on the water soon!
PS: some inspiration for starting the season