I also recommend Wyatt Miller and Tyson Poor. Sometimes they do freestyle clinics in Hood River. I had my first good session since spending a week with them in San Carlos and I really noticed a big difference in my sailing. I'm not that advanced so for me it was my Tacks, Helitacks,Jibes and Duck Jibes where I noticed a big difference. They have really put a lot of thought into all their moves and have great tricks on how to make the moves a little bit easier. If you can't get into a clinic I would recommend a private lesson. You can contact him @ If he's busy ask him if Tyson can do it. Tyson's awesome!

I love this thread. Thanks Janet! Having two small children my options for chasing waves are mostly limited to CB and SP on SE, and my place or Piper's on NW. The rest of my sailing is out at Nitnat, so gotta be thinking freestyle to have fun and progress out there.

Sign me up for Wind Doc's Shuv it session, and the freestyle throw down/crash fest at the lake. We'll be there July 15th to the 27th this year.

Love Guy Cribb. His tips rock. KC, get his jibing DVD, it's the best one out there. I'll PM you and see if I can get you a copy.

Totally agree with DWD. Love the SUP for training moves on a big comfy platform. We have a starboard whopper so it's ridiculously stable. Works perfectly with a 5.9. That combo was a game changer for me. Now I'm no longer jealous of kiters when the wind is in the 13-16K range where they're having fun and we're stuck on land. You'll see me training on it out at the lake for sure. I can do a pile of stuff on it that I can't do on a smaller volume board yet, but it's coming along

My BIGGEST tip, that's dirt cheap and has done wonders for my sailing, is to set up a dry land training board. I use an old skim board, drilled for a universal and coated with sand and clear coat for friction. Cost me 40$ or so. You could just use plywood, but the skim was faster and the size is perfect.

At the lake I use it to tune sails, to teach others basics like water starting and jibes, to warm up before sessions, and to wind down in the evening after dinner. I also keep a training sail rigged up on the board in my backyard, and flip the rig a bit whenever the SE is blowing through the yard. It works especially well for training to backwind and duck the sail, push the clew through the wind etc...

Here are some pics of it in the backyard yesterday morning. Wind was 10k or so out in the Strait. Not enough to sail, but perfect for training.

im going to have to see some video of that fine rig in action. do you take it onto the trampoline too!?

Priceless. For years I had a crappy ripped wetsuit that was great motivation to not miss jibes. Janet, racing with a good friend works great for tweaking little things for the better as you get immediate feedback. Alas, now that I have a new wetsuit, I need to humbly join the ranks - looking for rig & board manoeuvres that pay off in the few times I find myself in surf.

Check this out. These guys are great inspiration for light wind practice.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDsiQcx5GD0#t=39[/youtube]


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjp7wSB702w#t=81[/youtube]

OK - where he starts throwing the sail... I want to know how many out-takes there were where he took the mast to the face!?!?

i hope you guys are all doing great with your vulcans. here is a video that breaks it down very well with some amazing slo mo.
i spent a bunch of time last week trying to nail em on the port side and i am right back into beginner mode. though it was mainly on my little waveboard.
[Vimeo]http://vimeo.com/74470751[/Vimeo]