Paddling in cross winds

[Adolfo]

Hi.
I’m looking for some help from more experienced paddlers.
I’ve being sup paddling for more than 4 years now, but only recently bought my first displacement board. It is a Naish Javelin, and I like it very much. It works extremely well in flat water, up wind, and down wind conditions. The problem I have is that I just can’t make it go where I want to with cross winds. It looks like every side chop pushes the nose of the board downwind, so after 3 or 4 little waves, I’m pointing almost dead downwind. Up to 10 / 12 knots cross wind it’s doable. But any more than that, once the chop gets up to 1ft or more, even if I paddle only on one side, swing the paddle out from the nose, and weight the same side of the board, it keeps turning downwind. The only way I found to make it point upwind again is stopping, and paddling backwards in the upwind side.
I can’t feel any significant difference, stepping forward or back. Only standing in a surf stance in the tail of the board and lifting the nose in the air over the chop helped a little, but of course then stability became an issue. It’s not easy to paddle standing in the back of a Javelin with heavy chop.
Is there any particular technique to paddle with cross winds with a displacement board? Moving the fin forward can help? Should I change the stock fin? What kind of fin works better for these conditions?
I mostly paddle in a delta, but to get there I have a 2 km crossing, that usually has cross winds.
Many thanks in advance!

[balance_fit]

Hi !
Please review "Handling chop from rear quarter" thread in the technique forum, there's some tips that may help.
Also, several fellow Zoners paddle the Javelin and may help you out with more specific tips.
In the meantime, try sliding the fin forward in the box, it may help with countersteering.
Be well

[ODJ]

have you experimented with different fins? I deal with crosswinds and swell coming at me from all different directions, and fins seems to make or break you in these conditions.

[Adolfo]

have you experimented with different fins? I deal with crosswinds and swell coming at me from all different directions, and fins seems to make or break you in these conditions.

No. I hadn’t. And to be honest, I really don’t know where to start. I can’t buy any sup specific fins here, so I would have to start by trying some surf or windsurf fins.
What would you suggest? Bigger or smaller?
Thanks.

[ODJ]

you should look up Larry Allison. Depending on where you are give him a call or send him an email and he can't sort you out.

[mrl]

I just spoke with Larry yesterday he was really helpful looking forward to getting my the new fin for my wifes board. The replacement fin on my board made a world of difference

[ODJ]

i have to agree here with the previous post. Larry has been incredibly helpful. Recommended a particular fin, and found that it was a bit under-finned for my board, friend another and yesterday dealt with a nasty crosswind and swell that hit me at an angle and i was still able to keep the board tracking relatively straight.

[UDflyer]

Can someone pm me his contact info? Tapatalk is not allowing me to search from my iphone.

[robcasey]

- how about pushing your upwind/wave rail a touch into the water as you paddle? called edging in kayaking you are turning the board into the wind.  try paddling on both side, see if there's any difference.

- try a sweep stroke on the down wind side every (or every?) few strokes to correct the movement in that direction. 

- there are some cool tracking fins on the market now. bigger is better for tracking.  fin placement is definitely important - push it to the rear of the slot for more tracking. 

[Adolfo]

Hi Rob.
Thanks for your input, and please forgive me any mistakes I may have in my English. I have a lot of kayaking experience myself (more than 30 years of paddling in sea and surf kayaks), so comparisons to kayaks are helpful.
But now I’m more confused than before.

- how about pushing your upwind/wave rail a touch into the water as you paddle? called edging in kayaking you are turning the board into the wind. 

-   What I thought is that a displacement sup behaves like a sea kayak, in the sense that it will turn to the opposite side that you are edging to (if I weight the right side of the board, it will turn left). In that case, and if I want the board to point upwind, what I have to do is weight the downwind side and not the upwind side. Am I wrong?

- there are some cool tracking fins on the market now. bigger is better for tracking.  fin placement is definitely important - push it to the rear of the slot for more tracking. 

-   Regarding the size of the fin. From my experience, sups behavior in cross winds is opposite to kayaks. When paddling in a cross wind in a sea kayak with no rudder, it will naturally try to point upwind, while a sup will point downwind. My reasoning was that the fin was what making the difference. In that case, I think that what I need is a smaller fin and not bigger, to make the profile closer to a kayaks. But I may be completely wrong.

For the record, I don’t have any problems with tracking in calm water. I can paddle all day long in one side if I want to. And I don’t have this problem with my other board either (Starboard 12’2 x 26). It’s just in the Javelin with cross winds of 10 knots or more.

Thanks.

[balance_fit]

I have paddled the Javelin in flats several times, noticing that in light side ways winds the board tracks if the piercing nose is in the water, like a forward secondary fin. Once chop starts lifting it, the nose gets pushed downwind immediately. This means that standing forward may keep the piercing nose in the water and off the air.
To bring the board back in course, in general, you'll need to dip the leeward rail into the water while paddling on that side. But the Javelin, having a straight outline in it's rails, seems to be quite slow to react to this maneuver.
If you're stable on it, you can try to press down on that leeward rail as you pull on that same side, while unweighing the windward leg a bit, all in a coordinated fashion. Step back a bit on the leeward side leg. Since this is a course correction involving turning, you can step back from the center paddling stance you usually use. Once the course is corrected, step forward again and try to dip the piercing nose into the water.
Sliding the fin forward in the track will enhance the turning of the board, but beware, if you accidentally step on the windward rail, the board will inmediately turn downwind.
Sliding the fin back helps tracking, which is the steadiness of the board in an intended course. In your situation, being blown downwind, you need to turn the board back into the wind, and turning is enhanced by sliding the fin forward.
The recommendation of dipping the windward  (upwind/wave) rail to make the board point into the wind, works perfectly if you are in full planing conditions, as in surfing a wave or even a nice big wind swell with a breeze from the rear quarter... Your situation seems more like the need for a course correction in displacement mode, where countersteering is the technique, just as in a kayak.
Hope this helps
Be well

[headmount]

A rudder board really makes cross winds fun.  I recently did a run in 20-30mph.  LaPer and I were concerned about the wind direction and decided to use our rudder brds to angle across the bay to set a safer line and arrive at the finish without any rude surprises like battling an offshore wind.  So we angled at the start at about 80 degrees to the wind... right on the edge of side slipping but all forward movement.  It was effective and empowering  to realize I could get that kind of angle.  Plus you can paddle on both sides and not tweak one side. 

Rudders do require focus and care.   We have rocks just under the surface (at the Maliko launch) and hallow reefs we sometimes cross. If your rudder isn't aligned true then rudder heaven can become hell.  I walk my board out into the water until I'm waist deep before jumping on.  Still I did hit the reef a few weeks ago.  Slight bend which was fixed but then it had a left turn in it.  Getting tuned up now.

[headmount]

Did a flat water training run with PBill this morning.  Actually it was mirror glass for the first 45 min.  Anyway we did a 4mph warm up for 10 min. and my heart rate was 100.

We did much more including some short sprints and finally even a little surf session.  The wind came up directly onshore and that meant a cross wind run on the way back to our launch site inside the harbor.  Our speed was a just a little faster than our initial warm up, at 4-5mph but even though I was well warmed up, my HR was between 152 and 162 for 30 mins. in the cross winds.  Obviously mirror glass is easier than cross winds but I didn't realize how much easier.  My Bullet was in the shop so I was using my non rudder 14 and paddling 95% on one side. 

[Adolfo]

Many thanks for all the help and comments.
I’m still finding a lot of trouble when paddling the Javelin in cross winds. But I’m getting a little better at it, using a combination of different techniques that I would like to share.
This is how I’m getting the best results so far:
-   Fin forward helps. Not only for redirecting the board in cross winds, but also for maneuvering a SUB that tracks as a train on rails.
-   As Balance-Fit said, with little wind (less than 5 knots) is better to stand all the way forward (toes out of the pad) to keep the bow in the water.
-   But when the wind picks up, and the chop starts to push the bow downwind anyway, is better to step way back, because that increases the response of the board to rail pressure.
-   Keep the weight in the leeward side of the board all the time, but try to press it harder when applying power to the stroke. Kind of swinging the board with each stroke.
-   Is better to paddle on both sides. All strokes in the downwind side have to be sweep strokes (the shorter and closer to the bow the better). But what really did a difference was doing very short draw strokes in the upwind side (blade angled in, and pulling the paddle to the board, or actually the board to the paddle).

Hope these observations can help somebody.

[balance_fit]

Adolfo
Excellent manifesto in Javelin cross wind handling ! Glad to hear that the tips worked, be well .