If you’re matching body weight and sail size to others but finding it really hard to control the board there’s a high chance something’s wrong with your kit.

Is it my rig?

Your first thought should be, “Is my sail set too powerfully with insufficient downhaul or outhaul?” Make sure the leech is twisting away to exhaust excess power. Equally, if the sail is touching the boom when sailing along, tweak on an extra amount of outhaul (one to three centimetre) to help trim the sail.

Is it my harness lines?

A very common issue for control is poor harness line position. If your rear hand is more than one hands-width past the rear harness line fixing, the chances are you’re rear arm is working excessively. The lines should be far enough back so the rear hand can be placed next to the harness fixing, ensuring the harness sheets you in, not your arm (harness line length should be approximately elbow to ‘blister pads’ on palm).

Is it my board?

Your next question should be, “Is my fin too big?”

Experiment by changing down 10-15% to a more raked back fin to reduce lift. Another factor might be your footstraps, especially on wider faster freeride boards; if they’re set inboard, the windward rail might lift, in which case move the straps more outboard to lock the rail down. Finally, the board might be too big or the wrong shape! Excess volume is especially a problem for kids, women and lighter weight men who often sail boards slightly too big for them and ping around like on a giant cork. If you’re always out of control when the wind comes up, try a 10-15% smaller board. As for shape, flat-rocketed, wide-tailed, hard-railed boards are a lot harder when learning to get comfortable in the straps and gybe in challenging conditions.

Blasting control kit solution – To regain control in rougher conditions, crank on that downhaul and outhaul, lower the boom,  move the front footstraps (and rear footstraps if on a wide board) slightly more outboard, slide the mast base forward one to two centimetres and reduce fin size. If that doesn’t work, drop a few litres in volume, ideally something with a smoother curvy plan shape, softer rails and a touch of tail rocker (freestyle/freestylewave/wave).