How do you deal with wind

[Eagle]

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

When going into breeze the technique that kid displays on the Jav Maliko seems best -> low profile low COG low windage.  Quick strokes with a feathered blade - timing and riding the wave crests without pearling.

Best is to just go out and train hard in that and do HIIE intervals - and soon enough you will be more competitive.  The quick paddlers simply have excellent strength to weight ratios - and excellent technique balance and cardio.  Most all sponsored riders will simply take off like a shot from the pack of Joe average racers.

Try to go out with sponsored riders and you will improve for sure.   

[hefwiezen16]

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

Had that happen to me in a race.   I had no idea that the guy was on my ass the whole race (i did spot him once and asked him to take a pull, and he did for a few minutes) until after the fact when spectators told me so.   He saved his energy the whole race, then out sprinted me for a podium spot.    Not illegal, just not sportsmanlike.   It won't happen again.
      to answer the question...   find what works for you.   I've found that pulling well behind the feet with a fast recovery stroke works best.   I get this information from my garmin that is mounted on my board so that I can make small changes to my stroke and get immediate feedback.      FWIW, I learned this approach from  a J.
Puakea  (Danny Ching's coach) trained instructor during a lesson.

[Kiwi Padla]

A big thanks to all who gave good advice. Much appreciated.

I have done a few into the wind races since and reducing my wind-age helps a lot. So I bend down and try and stay down as much as possible. Choking the paddle feels so very wrong so that is going to require some practice but JT mentioned that it may give a mechanical advantage !.
Eagle, I looked up that interval training and that is definitely the go, even Jimmy Terrell has a great article about it and my Tomtom watch has interval training built in so as bad as it makes me feel it is helping. Tonight it will be gusting 35knots because going by the wind meter on http://www.windsurf.co.nz/windsurf_cam_takapuna.asp it is already gusting 30knots and that is nearly a direct onshore breeze.

Dave I will look out for you tonight. That's if the spray doesn't blind me   

[Eagle]

Eagle, I looked up that interval training and that is definitely the go, even Jimmy Terrell has a great article about it and my Tomtom watch has interval training built in so as bad as it makes me feel it is helping.

Yeah - when you first start doing this - it is not pleasant in any way - and can be torturous.  After a while you kinda get used to it.  We do it for mainly for metabolic benefits - where VO2 gains are secondary.  Seems to help.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training