In the penultimate feature of the series Simon Bornhoft looks at a very counterintuitive action that influences waterstarting, non-planing and planing gybes, duck gybes and waveriding. Photos: WindWise / Karen Bornhoft
Until we discovered the opposite to be true, we humans assumed that the sun moved around the Earth through the course of the day. We now know – somewhat counterintuitively – that it’s the ground beneath our feet which does all the moving and spinning. This proposition means we sleep in the knowledge that night will indeed become day. This month’s WindWise counterintuitive nuggets might not change the orientation of your world, but they will assist in directing the board where you want it to go rather than being transported into a galactic spin.
Assumptions vs Counterintuitive Moments
I’ve always eulogised about the key skill of maintaining power by bringing that boom in, back and down to lock the rig in place to sheet the sail in. This is obviously an integral part of windsurfing that assists our blasting speed, control, gybing and many other aspects of the sport. But as this series has highlighted, and one reason why windsurfing can be so challenging, sometimes there are moments when we need to virtually reverse what we normally do. This feature thus has a very simple objective: to highlight some key moments at which it is beneficial to ‘sheet out’ rather than sheet in.
