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The Need for Speed: Losing weight on the board by: Marc A. Lefebvre So you want to go fast. Well who doesn't! Since the beginning of time man has had the yearning to go fast, from the first wheel to super sonic jets of today. Well windsurfing falls somewhere in between these extremes of the speed spectrum when its done right. The current world speed record for sailing on a windsurfer is 45.34 knots (84.01 kph/52.21 mph) set in San Marie de la Mar, France by Thierry Bielak on April, 14, 1993. This may not sound very fast when your typical cars top speed can be between 100-150 mph, but when its just you, your board and your rig ripping across the water at 52 mph it feels like you are going 200 mph. It is much more of an intimate experience with the elements than when you are strapped into a hulking giant of a rocket. There are two sides to the speed equation, displacing and planing. In the displacing situation your increased wetted surface area will increase your speed. Tha…

Your Sail Quiver: Playing the percentages by: Marc Lefebvre Having a balanced quiver is vital to maximizing your time on the water versus your local conditions. Very often boardheads, like you and I, have overlaps or gaps in our sail quiver which cause us to either spend too much money on unneeded sails or not having fun due to not have the correct sail size. Although being overpowered can be a rush, being under powered could bring you to the point of suicide. Choosing a balanced quiver comes down to simple mathematics. ARGH!, Math! You all say... Well it really is quite simple if you have a calculator handy. First you must decide how many sails, what sail sizes you wish to cover, and your main sail which to build your quiver around. If you think that having balanced quiver means having sails that are all one square meter apart, you are wrong. For example try the following: 1 - 4.0 / 3.0 = 33% 1 - 5.0 / 4.0 = 25% 1 - 6.0 / 5.0 = 20% 1 - 7.0 / 6.0 = 17% N…

V eno stran srfam v redu, v drugo pa mi nekaj ne štima. Ta izjava ja precej pogosta med srfači in je tipična za tiste kraje, kjer veter piha bočno ob obali. Trik je v tem, da kadar vozimo od obale podzavestno izberemo idealno smer vožnje. Ko se obrnemo in se poskušamo vrniti na točko iz katere smo štartali, je le ta malce preveč v veter od smeri v kateri bi nam bilo idealno srfati. Tako moramo malenkost orcati in dobimo občutek, da nekaj ne štima! Ponavadi je malce kriva tudi različna smer vetra in valov.

V močnejsem vetru pogosto opazimo dve skupini surfačev. Tiste ki glisirajo in tiste ki »kruzajo«. Za zglisiranje je pomembno tole: Veter mora biti dovolj močan. (3-4 bofore, kdaj tudi več. Odvisno od teže jadralca, velikosti deske, velikosti jadra…) Ko začutimo (potrebno je nekaj vaje), da že malce glisiramo, vstavimo noge v zanke (najprej sprednjo, kasneje še zadnjo nogo). Srfanje z nogami v zankah je predvsem hitrejše ter lažje!!! Kako noge vstaviti v te »preklete« zanke, se sprašujejo mnogi? Zakaj mi pri vstavljanju deska zavije proti vetru in zgubi vso hitrost? Vedeti je treba, da pri premajhnem vetru še največji mojstri ne uspejo zglisirati. Torej, če ostali ne glisirajo, ni pravi čas za učenje. Najbolj pogosta napaka je, da pri vstavljanju nog v zanke ne stojimo na prstih. Torej vso težo telesa imamo na petah, kar obremeni privetrni rob deske. To povzroči zavijanje deske proti vetru in izgubo hitrosti. Torej pri trikih, obratih, vstavljanju nog v zanke: težo imej…