How do you deal with wind

[Kiwi Padla]

Gidday paddlers
Raced last night at the local beach series in NZ and we had 25 knot winds gusting to 35 knots. I need to improve my windward performance and after a bit of searching and reading I will try leaning forward to reduce my frontal area. Perform faster smaller strokes as far forward as possible and turn the paddle blade 90°. Is there anything else because I really need help, I sucked big time. I have a 14ft 28 inch wide planing board and was also thinking of moving the feet ford a bit to lengthen water line length ?

Cheers

[Area 10]

You can stagger your stance to allow yourself to turn your torso side on to the wind to reduce the area you are presenting to the wind. Bend your knees to crouch a bit, and choke down on your paddle.

Tall people tend to suffer upwind. You are a big sail. It can also be harder if you are heavy, brvause strength to weight ratios are harder to maintain once the human body gets heavier - which is why too gymnasts are small.

But another issue might be your board. Boards vary hugely in their upwind performance. Narrow is king, and heavily rockered planing-noses are great for downwind but awful for upwind unless the bumps are really big. Snub-nosed (or "boof-nosed") boards like the Starboard Ace or Bark Vapor tend to work pretty well upwind in smaller chop, and some cutting bow designs can work really well in certain conditions too. Quite small changes in conditions can have a big effect on which board is best.

So, sometimes it is your board, and not you, and you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept it: Next time your board might be the right one.

Racing upwind in 25-35 knots is always going to be deeply unpleasant. Most paddlers will make little or no progress in those conditions, and there is usually a matter of safety. Most race organisers probably wouldn't run a race with an upwind section in wind that strong. Downwind only, or call it a day.

[DavidJohn]

" Downwind only, or call it a day "

In 25-35 knots I agree.. 

[Off-Shore]

It's tough going upwind, but I actually enjoy it when it gets blowing. We had a race at the end of last year, and here are some shots of various paddlers heading upwind in 20+ knots of wind. The technique is to have your feet ahead of the centre of the board, slight staggered stance, and your body as low profile to the wind as possible. Choke down on the paddle, and use short fast strokes, and a LOT of core, leaning and pushing on the top hand. Every time you go out in wind practice using your core and you will be surprised how much you can gain over those who do not...

[yugi]

Exactly Kiwi: lean forward and make your frontal area small. Think ski “chuss” or bike time trial positions. Faster smaller strokes as far forward as possible and rotate paddle blade 90° for the recovery.

Only thing to add is plant the blade on tops of waves. To do this it means be ready to do an irregular (in terms of timing) stroke to catch the wave tops as waves don’t come at you in perfect timing. So some of your short/forward/fast stokes will be shorter and faster than others.

You could, as offshore mentions, play with where you stand to optimise board trim. It’s a trade off between nose not too much under waves and yet low enough to not slap too much against waves.

A10:
 I disagree that the board makes such a huge difference upwind, overall. While there certainly are differences between boards especially in feel, and yes narrow is faster, the difference that the paddler makes, especially windage, is so much greater that board differences pale in comparison. Also I’m not such a huge fan of boof noses. Yes, they do reduce water on deck effect which greatly would weigh a board down, but the rounder boof noses provide a lot of front surface area to slow the board down to slaming into a wave. I prefer piercing (not knife like displacement boards have but pointy al la Rogue Rage, Jimmy Lewis Dw board style). In boof world I prefer the newer, more pointy, boof noses a la new Allstar which are probably a good compromise between pointy nose and reducing water on deck. Anyway all that is very subjective and as much as one board feels much better upwind I still find the paddler makes much more difference. The only real way to judge boards is with 2 paddlers who know each other well and have matched upwind performance switching boards. I know that if I am on a much sower board than others I ride with when we go upwind I’m suddenly on much more equal footing with the others.

Certainly if you feel better on a board (upwind or other) it can have a motivating effect and you may just paddle harder, there is that! How a board handles sidewind and basic stability in mixed up chop is a greater performance improver I believe. Coz falling in, bracing a lot and general other imbalance will slow you down like crazy.

Offshore:
So how is the knock-knee approach working out for you in reducing windage? Novel! Go Tuan! He’s doing a good medium approach to upwind between super low and maintaining power. How did that work out for him? Love the position of the guy on the Jav Maliko. Smokin’.

[Off-Shore]

Offshore:
So how is the knock-knee approach working out for you in reducing windage? Novel! Go Tuan! He’s doing a good medium approach to upwind between super low and maintaining power. How did that work out for him? Love the position of the guy on the Jav Maliko. Smokin’.

Yugi. Totally agree with you on the blade on top of the waves and rhythm thing. It really helps to be paddling downhill (the back of the wave) when you are paddling upwind. The timing though with the waves is a major point though.

Haha.. the knock-knee approach works REALLY WELL at reducing drag.. I don't know how I forgot that crucial technique.. also having a belly that overhangs your belt gives you that added forward ballast and keeps the nose down.. .. As you can see in the picture below, you only need to go knock-kneed when there are big gusts though..

The guy on the Jav Maliko was only 12 years old and was killing it.. if you look closely though he had his leash wrapped around his fin, otherwise he would have taken pole position.. (he got 3rd in the short course). Tuan did real well too (see 2nd pic below).

[burchas]

Seems Larry Cain has different take on headwind paddling then what was posted here and what I thought to be the right approach:

Headwinds: Headwind paddling generally requires a heavier, more loaded stroke. As such the time the blade spends in the water during each stroke should increase. However headwinds will blow you backwards when your blade is out of the water, so when paddling in strong headwinds you’ll want to try to minimize the time the recovery phase of your stroke takes. This means that stroke rate probably won’t change a lot in a headwind, but the tempo within the stroke cycle itself will need to change somewhat.

full article here:http://larrycain.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-thought-i-would-take-break-from.html

A10: I agree totally with your assessment about board type. had the same case on race where the first 9 miles ended up
being an upwind battle (14mph). I had an SIC bullet 14 V1 and man that board was dragging...evnethough I was all the way
to the front as possible. peeps around me with displacement hull type were passing me as if I was parking. the only thing that
was going for me was the rough water, all those people on the piercing narrow boards were falling left and right and were
forced to paddle on their knees for long stretches.

If only I had the SIC FX at that time...

[JimK]

Slightly off topic but isn't paddling on your knees illegal in a race?

I'm pretty sure it is

JimK

[burchas]

Slightly off topic but isn't paddling on your knees illegal in a race?

I'm pretty sure it is

JimK

If it's not, it's definitely immoral for a stand-up race, but since none of us were in the vicinity of podium position
I guess they didn't care.

[Kaihoe]

Gidday paddlers
Raced last night at the local beach series in NZ and we had 25 knot winds gusting to 35 knots. I need to improve my windward performance and after a bit of searching and reading I will try leaning forward to reduce my frontal area. Perform faster smaller strokes as far forward as possible and turn the paddle blade 90°. Is there anything else because I really need help, I sucked big time. I have a 14ft 28 inch wide planing board and was also thinking of moving the feet ford a bit to lengthen water line length ?

Cheers

Hey Kiwi

 Good on ya for taking on that race.  I missed it but I'll be at City Surf tonight its going to be another good one:) and Beach series next week, come and have a chat I'm on the beat up old light gray ACE with a Dirty Dog sticker

Cheers
Dave

[Board Stiff]

Seems Larry Cain has different take on headwind paddling then what was posted here and what I thought to be the right approach:

Headwinds: Headwind paddling generally requires a heavier, more loaded stroke. As such the time the blade spends in the water during each stroke should increase. However headwinds will blow you backwards when your blade is out of the water, so when paddling in strong headwinds you’ll want to try to minimize the time the recovery phase of your stroke takes. This means that stroke rate probably won’t change a lot in a headwind, but the tempo within the stroke cycle itself will need to change somewhat.

full article here:http://larrycain.blogspot.com/2013/03/i-thought-i-would-take-break-from.html

A10: I agree totally with your assessment about board type. had the same case on race where the first 9 miles ended up
being an upwind battle (14mph). I had an SIC bullet 14 V1 and man that board was dragging...evnethough I was all the way
to the front as possible. peeps around me with displacement hull type were passing me as if I was parking. the only thing that
was going for me was the rough water, all those people on the piercing narrow boards were falling left and right and were
forced to paddle on their knees for long stretches.

If only I had the SIC FX at that time...

The heavier stroke may be more efficient,  but it's also a lot tougher on the muscles and joints,  especially with a heavy board of in really heavy winds.  Probably not as much of an issue for someone as chiseled as Cain,  but I find I have to mix in some stretches of short quick strokes to avoid burning out or hurting myself in tough upwind conditions.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[burchas]

The heavier stroke may be more efficient,  but it's also a lot tougher on the muscles and joints,  especially with a heavy board of in really heavy winds.  Probably not as much of an issue for someone as chiseled as Cain,  but I find I have to mix in some stretches of short quick strokes to avoid burning out or hurting myself in tough upwind conditions.

I tend to agree with that in general, however, I found that with my new board and after switching to a soft paddle (trifecta 86) and later on to an
even softer shaft (flyweight elite), his statement made much more sense.

I do a lot of upwind paddling (I really enjoy the bumpy rides), and his technique
starts to grow on me. The longer/slower stroke rate will also help with timing the catch with the top of the wave.

[yugi]

Sure that works great, especially the minimal recovery time (which you should do anyway), up about 25 kn. In  the 25-35 kn range that Kiwi talks about one things begin to get trickier. In those conditions one needs such a short recovery time to minimize risk of falling that aiming for a quicker stroke rate helps. Then again waves are getting big so it’s even more important to plant catch on a wave so that takes precedence anyway.

[downwinddave]

nobody mentioned this yet but it really helps to find a big guy and tuck in behind him.   

[SlatchJim]