Successful athletes are renowned for being forward looking, positive people but hindsight is still used in their coaching for analysing replays to learn what they could and should have done better in the quest for improvement. John Carter corners a selection of the world’s best slalom competitors for a debrief on their training and technique; using his photos, they breakdown the shots and give their advice on speed,
setup, stance and the all important gybe!

Words  Pierre Mortefon, Marco Lang, Ross Williams, Jimmy Diaz, Matteo Iachino and John Skye //

Photos  John Carter

Originally published within the April ’17 edition.

PIERRE MORTEFON
“This image was from one of the super nice sessions we had last spring in Maui preparing for the PWA season with the ‘Boards and More Team’. I am clearly pushing the limits alongside fellow Fanatic and North teammate Marco Lang! The conditions in Maui can be super technical with the chop so the concentration has to be ‘full on!’ From my side, I am looking as far as I can in front to check how the swell and the chop will be and anticipate it and be ready to react. I know I have Marco on top of me, pushing, pushing, pushing, and I remember hearing the noise of his board eating into the sea. If I make any mistake he is going to pass but I also know he can make a mistake too, so I try to stay focussed on my sailing. Even when I am this flat out in racing mode, I try to stay relaxed to keep my energy.
During this session I was using the new Falcon and Warp 2017 114 and 7.7m. I had not ridden this combination before but I had a really positive feeling for a first run. It was pretty fast as we were sailing in the Hawaiian swell which can give you some serious runs, probably up to 30 knots.

I was riding around a 37cm fin to combine solid speed but also a good grip to keep the pressure on through the chop. I always use the vario harness lines, which are 26-32cm. They let me modify and change my position according to the conditions. Here it was choppy and wavy, so I think I was around 30cm to keep control.”

MARCO LANG
“When I see this photograph I remember lots of special moments and the awesome time I had on Maui. The photo was taken on a sunny but very windy day from the helicopter at the bay of Kihei on the south side of the island. I was riding my new North Sails Warp 7.7 2017 in combination with the new Fanatic Falcon 99 2017. Windsurfing is a rough sport so you have to concentrate on what you are doing, otherwise it will most likely end up with a huge catapult! To be as fast as possible it is necessary to keep all muscles working. As pro racers we need lots of training in the gym to be able to keep this muscle tension for long periods of time. On my 99 Falcon I prefer a wide stance, so it is easier to keep control when it is choppy. I try to bring my body more to the back to keep the board flying. You can see in the picture that just the fin and about a quarter of the board is touching the water. If you ever achieve this position, it’s an unbelievable feeling! I reckon you cannot compare this feeling flying at full speed with anything else. It is a cross between freedom and speed. I am so addicted to this feeling! For me it is just happiness!”

ROSS WILLIAMS
“This picture is of myself and Gaastra and Tabou team mate Cedric Bordes tuning up in Maui last spring. Some of the best product brochure photos are taken when you simulate real racing situations, this allows you to show the curves, colours and shapes of the equipment as appealingly and realistically as possible. Gybing together for a photo can be very much like gybing around a buoy on the race course. The setup for the shot actually starts much further out at sea. We lined up close to each other as if you were racing along towards the start line and down the first reach of a race course. I remember trying to get as close to Cedric as possible, almost close enough that I could have sat on the nose of his board. In that moment you are always looking ahead, trying to read the sea state to not get surprised by any chop or gust of wind. All the time you are aware of the other guy, even if he is just outside of your field of version. As we didn’t have any real marks to gybe around we were actually just pushing each other as close as we could towards the shore before one of us would be forced to start his gybe or risk crashing into the beach. It’s kind of like playing a game of chicken and it’s a lot of fun and good practice for a real race. I can tell that it’s probably me that started to gybe first with Cedric pretty much a microsecond after me and he is trying to find his way around or inside of me to come out in front as we exit the gybe.

As you can see we are but a few metres from the shore, just entering the start of the gybe. Our back feet are out of the straps and carving on the inside rail, at the same time we are looking forward. If we had the next photo in the series you might see that our heads might be more positioned at 90 degrees to our shoulders and looking through the sail monofilm, as the mark that we would be trying to gybe around would be passing by our boards. You can see that I was probably a fraction of a second further into my gybe as the nose of my board is raised more, meaning that I’m in a more advanced state of carving my board and applying more pressure to the inside rail. We don’t lay our sail down too low next to the water as this is a more risky/off balance position and makes you less likely to be able to react fast enough in case of space opening up to overtake your competitor. Having your sail more upright in the gybe allows you to keep the power on and in your hands throughout the whole transition. I can’t quite remember who got the better of who in this gybe but we spent a good hour or so chasing each other around that day. The key points to remember for a good racing gybe is to think and look ahead. Know what is going on around you. Be in control and ready to react to competitors’ mistakes. This was a classic Maui session – sunny, warm and windy and I am looking forward to our rematch this year!”

JIMMY DIAZ
“Gybing, I have learned, is a surprisingly technical manoeuvre especially on the race course in the middle of a pack of fast and hungry sailors. there is all sorts of advice about how to gybe better, where you move your hands, where you place your feet and how you shift your weight. For me jibing is about two things: confidence and rails. Confidence…well, you have to work on that one to get it. You can only get that with time on the water. Rails are a different story. There are two types of jibes: firstly, jibes using the tail of the board which is safe, slow, and a bit boring and second, my way of jibing, using the part of the board that is meant to turn the board, ‘the rails!’. Once you intuitively understand that you are meant to use as much of the rail line as possible, then you will really start to turn the board.”

MATTEO IACHINO
“In the picture I’m really enjoying this session in Maui, blasting at top speed and riding one of my favourite combos – 107 iSonic and 7.8 AC-1. To go fast on our slalom gear we need to focus on every single detail. I have the mast track just back of centre for this rig combination. For tuning, most of the times I go by feeling – I put the boom more or less where I think it could be good and same for harness lines and after that I adjust everything perfectly on my first couple of reaches on the water. I use adjustable harness lines, 26-32’’ for my 9.2, 8.6, 7.8 and 28-34” for 7.1-6.2 and 5.6. You can feel if you are comfortable or not. What I can suggest to you is: ‘BE COMFORTABLE!’ – that’s the main key to going fast. Same for the fin. Here I’m riding a 37 cm carbon fin. The fin has not to be too big or too small. If it’s too big you will fight all the time with it, unable to reach top speed. If too small, you’ll always be on the edge of spin-out or you won’t have enough lift to fly over the water as we do when we are fast.

There are no exact rules about what I just talked about. You have to test by yourself what makes you comfortable and fast. The feeling you get when you are at top speed is at the edge of your control and limits. It is as if you are about to fly away and lose control of your board but you actually sit safe in your harness, comfortable and without any big effort from your upper body.

In the picture my front leg is fully extended while my back leg is a little bit flexed to keep the right pressure on the fin. The centre of my body where the harness is positioned is the part that is pushing out, holding the sail. Try to feel the sail in your harness and not in your arms and try to feel the pressure of the wind and the gusts through it. The upper part and the shoulders are a bit flexed forward towards the sail. My arms are not super flexed, I’m just keeping the sail in balance. I’m pulling a little bit with my back hand to keep the sail closed but that’s not a big effort as my harness lines do 90% of the work, leaving just a little movement to the sail. I can adjust the extra acceleration by pulling the sail just 10-15 cm. I am looking forward to anticipate the chop and waves in order to have a better speed flying over them or avoiding a full-frontal collision with whitecaps. The width between my hands on the boom is more or less the width of my shoulders. The front hand right in front of the harness lines and the back one in the exact point where I feel I can close the sail easily generating that extra speed when I need it. I’m pushing with my back foot while I’m kind of pulling with my front one. I try to feel the movements of the board and to keep it on the rail to cut the water and keep the comfort and speed. I like to have the front hand ‘palms up’ / underhand grip for straight line blasting and while I turn to jibe. Only in really hard conditions and strong winds do I put both hands facing down (overhand grip) to hold the board down. The harness lines are halfway, that means they are about 29” long.

Try to focus on trimming your gear to get the maximum comfort possible for generating max speed. It’s just a matter of balance between speed and comfort and you can get both if you work enough. The key is to have the right pressure on the fin to free the board from the water and the right fin, neither to fly away, nor to stay too sticky. At the same time you can work on the mastbase position. Putting the mastbase backward you will make the board more free, while putting it forward you will push the board down. Same as the boom height, as if you put it higher you will free the board and lower the opposite. And, again, same for the harness lines! Shorter harness lines it’s going to make your board feel more free, longer it’s going to increase your control but at the same time will push your board down. Play with all of these factors to trim your board in the right way to get to your top performance. It’s just a matter of time and sensibility. And the more you test, the more sensible you will be!”

JOHN SKYE
“For me, the gybes are the highlight of slalom racing. Having eight guys going full speed into a buoy is one of the most intense parts of the sport, where split second decisions have massive outcomes on the end result. It is also the strongest part of my racing, and the best opportunity for me to overtake around the course! The fundamentals of gybing stay the same whether you are banking into a high-speed gybe mark, or cruising on a Firemove freeride board. Without going into every tiny detail (which is a 5 episode technique article in itself), the 3 key points that I think are most critical are the following:

Hand down the boom.
This allows you to control the sail, keep it sheeted in and steady and most importantly keep it forward. If you hit some chop or a gust comes from behind and your hands are not down the boom, the sail will open, which will release the mast foot pressure and suddenly the board will have a mind of its own. With the hand down the boom however you can keep it locked in and driving the front of the board, keeping it held in position and flat.

The gybe in this shot is a bit of a ‘posey’ lay down gybe, but in reality I prefer to always keep the sail a little more upright and more forward.
With the rig forward, you keep the board flatter in the longitudinal plane, which helps to keep the speed through the turn and keep you driving all the way through. There is a tendency when people make a “slalom gybe” to pull the sail back and lay it down. This looks cool, but puts too much pressure on the tail of the board, causing it to slow down. Also in a gybe mark situation it is much harder to adjust the turn quickly should something happen in front of you.

Finally, I always step gybe, which means the feet change before the sail is flipped.
This firstly keeps the board flatter on the exit, which keeps the planing and speed better, plus it also allows you to choose your exit and to change direction quickly and easily even at the end of the gybe. Again this is very useful when at a busy gybe mark, when 9 times out of 10 someone will fall or stall their gybe, and being able to react quickly can gain you huge ground on your opponents!”

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