In this instalment of his comprehensive series examining every aspect of wavesailing, Jem Hall presents the upwind 360 as a valid move to pep up your riding and lay solid foundations for the future…
In a change from the stated intention this time I am asking you to aspire to, learn, and improve the upwind 360. This is with a view to keep you on your toes in flat water and look to the future in your wavesailing. It is, of course, building on the light wind love you should now be embracing and all those helitacks you now enjoy.
The upwind 360 – or simply ‘up 360’ – builds towards awesome moves such as the taka, which is achievable in some of the softer, smaller waves our great conditions give us. It is a lip-slide / spin-out that you keep sliding through the wind, and, staying in the white water throughout, squeeze in an up 360. Going for the move and ending out the back of the wave is all part of the learning process.
Up 360s also build towards backside 360s – a great and complex move involving control and timing. This is where you carve hard upwind into the lip of a soft section of the wave and then float around through an up 360 while staying in the white water, or, as above, you may end up out the back of the wave, which will do for us mere mortals for the time being.
So, onwards and upwards and the sky is the limit, as the only limits on us are the limits we place on ourselves. [I knew you’d say that. Ed.]
