Please help-I'm stuck in the Duck ! Its true that I dont try hard enough-usually give up after a couple of crashes-but now that I'm relatively satisfied with my Carve gybes I will start spending more time on the Duck. What have been a break-thru for you? I usually try it when I'm not fully powered up for fear of crashing it with speed. Is it that or am I not throwing aggressively enough the rig? I,ve red somewhere that with bigger sails you have to actually let go of the rig completely for a moment. Or is it timing-I usually start immediately after i put my foot on the rail and start carving?
A very funny crash from last year when I was leaning the rig forward too much , shot by my buddy Mike Otto whom I miss a lot after he moved to Oregon.
www.dropbox.com/s/kezx94wvinpp9b6/File%2...2%2015%2048.3gp?dl=0

Focus on lifting the clew above your head. Think Statue of Liberty.

Good tip! Besides my anemic swing I certainly dont lift high enough. I even managed to scratch my face on the clue batten of my 7.5, but I never tought about lifting higher. I'll try it as soon as this Saturday-it looks like a day when you want to be IN the water instead.

A 7.5 isn't graceful to duck, and there's probably not much reason to. Start out with a 5.0. Obviously the smaller the sail, the easier it is to duck.

Smaller sails are much easier to duck. Duck early. The arm that crosses over has to pull the sail aggressively pass your ear. I've fallen the exact same way many times. Very hard fall. It can knock the wind out of you.

BTW, Maui was great. I got to windsurf 8 out 14 days. (Could have windsurfed more, maybe 11 days total) Mostly 4.2 and 4.7. Fanatic boards, Ezzy, Maui Sails and S2Maui. I got to sail on the Kihei side too, which I hadn't done in the previous trips. Nice flat conditions unless you go about 1 mile offshore.

Nice! I guess you just cant go wrong with Maui!
I dont like practicing with 7.5, but there isnt much wind lately and I'm growing out of patience. I should have cracked the planing Duck last year and we are already halfway thru this one
Out of all the Duck videos on YouTube that I've watched today I liked the one of Peter Hart the most -" graceful"' is the best way to describe it. The way he casually turns back to grab the clue and lets go of the boom with both hands for a brief moment and then "hurls" it up and away and again lets go with both hands -smooth!

Btw he says "throw the rig at the nose" but he doesnt seem to throw it, more like he just lets go with his back hand?!

My lightwind freestyle practice on Lake Andrea yesterday was very productive. It revealed to me a critical mistake that I'm making both by Upwind 360 and Duck Gybe!
This time I used my 5.8 instead of the 5.2 for more chalenge and I realized that in both moves I'm not actively opening the sail /sheating out/ when I'm supposed to, which gets me puled over by the rig and the rotation gets messed up.

In this screen grab from Tricktionary it is clearly visible how the instructor is barely touching the boom with his finger tips right next to the harness line-immediately after the duck, trying to keep the sail as open as possible until he passes thru downwind. The higher the speed the less this will be necessary perhaps-because of the aparent wind-but in my 6.5/7.5 sessions sheating out is critical.
I also practiced throwing the rig forward in order to grab the clew and lifting it high. Another revelation or more like confirmation of something I started to suspect recently was that I'm ducking much better on port tack? /front left arm/ and only by the very end if the session was I able to duck on starboard tack.
And now drumbeat please!!! On my last 6.5 day few weeks ago I was finally able to do a decent almost planing Duck on port tack Everything just clicked in place on that one, but then I couldnt replicate it anymore. Hopefully the yesterdays revelations will clear the way now.

So when do you guys Duck? In more powered situations or in less powered ones? My couple of very powered Duck attempts yesterday ended badly /although one of the failures was probably due to ducking late/ . The underpowered Ducks were the successful ones.
I also confirmed to myself 2 facts : 1-ducking late is what makes the rig hit the water and catapult you badly and 2-due to the boards width /75cm/ and the low foot of the 7.5 my foot gets trapped in the strap. It costed me a cople of windward side falls untill I realised that I have to take it out earlier in the turn to prevent this from happening.

It was a different ball game today with a 5.8. I can finally say with confidence: I'm ducking consistently on both tacks

In the last issue of "Windsurf" Peter Hart mentions in his closing article that the RS:X gold medalist in Rio- Dorian van Rijsselberghe /checked the spelling several times / was doing a Duck Jibe in his final lap and there it is indeed! WOW on this board with a 9.5!!!



Well, he is a massive guy-6'2"-and his victory has been secured already, and btw he comes close of crashing it-his foot slipped it seems. Anyway he must be as strong as a bear !

Keeping it up to date