Canadian freestyle windsurfer Phil Soltysiak joins us again on Boards for the next installment in the core skills/freestyle basics series.
Over to Phil…
The Fast Tack is a very useful non jumping freestyle move. It can be used when freeriding, wave sailing or freestyling. It’s a quick and handy way to turn around while gaining ground upwind, rather than jibing downwind. This move can be done on almost any equipment, from a formula board down to your smallest equipment. Of course, the smaller the board, the more difficult the tack.
In this particular sequence I’m doing the Fast Tack on my 4.5m Sailworks Revolution and a Starboard Flare 91 in Jericoacoara, Brazil.
Step 1 – Sail across the wind at speed.
Step 2 – Take your feet out of the footstraps, unhook, and carve the board smoothly into the wind as you rake the sail back.
Step 3 – Continue carving smoothly into the eye of the wind as you prepare to step around the mast by placing your front foot in front of the mast base.
Step 4 – Here comes the hand work, there are many technique options here. You can a) slide the mast hand forwards on the boom, up to the mast, and use your sail hand to grab the boom on the new side as you step around, b) grab the mast with your mast hand, step around the mast, grabbing the new side or, c) which I do here in this picture, is cross the sail hand over the mast hand on the old side of the boom, step around the mast and quickly grab the sail on the new side of the boom with both hands.
Step 5 – The footwork; your front foot is already in front of the mast, slide your back foot up the board just next to your front foot, and step backwards with your old front foot on the new side of the board.
Step 6 – If you lose speed earlier in the carve or find yourself off balance, here you can lean on the sail and back wind it to re-gain your balance.
Step 7 – Aggressively open up the sail to the wind, steering the nose off the wind, while keeping your body low to control the power in the sail. As you point in the new direction step back on the board and prepare to step in the footstraps and hook-in once again.
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Phil is sponsored by: Starboard, Sailworks, Dakine, Streamlined, Camaro Wetsuits, Peppers Eyeware, Makani Fins, Nolimitz Masts.
Pictures are provided thanks to the Tricktionary – www.tricktionary.com
More moves to come.
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