Stopping the DW board pivoting

[coldsup]

On the small close windswell I was on today I found it tricky at times keeping the board straight. Maybe it was the swell running slightly off from the main wind direction...not sure.

Seemed when the nose of the board lifted and I was about to turn on the power it would pivot in another direction instead of keeping on track.

I am using a Futures DW Cali fin and in a M14.

Any ideas....common prob?

[Area 10]

It's not obvious from your post when exactly this is occurring. Do you mean just as you are about to try to catch a bump?

[Off-Shore]

Not 100% sure I am visualising correctly what you are referring to. If you are traversing small chop (say cutting left) as your nose rises (wave going under the board) then the fin can get pushed by the wave behind the one that's pushing your nose up, causing the board to pearl or in this case turn more left) especially if you are paddling on the right hand side.

2 strategies I have found that works. 1 is getting the blade out as far as possible in front of you and short fast strokes and 2 if a pearl starts to happen, to crouch and brace..

[Off-Shore]

Adding a photo which might help for any explanation of the question...

As you can see here, if I was angling more to the right, the nose of the board would be digging into the wave in front, while the fin / tail of the board is stuck in the one in the back..

[coldsup]

Thanks guys.....it seemed to be when the nose was pointing up I felt the board being turned before I got the chance to put the paddle down hard. Might just be the way he current was going. Started wondering if it was the fin being caught in side currents.

[Area 10]

I'm still not sure what stage of the downwind process you are having your nose pointing up, but maybe you mean when you have stalled and the bump has passed under you, and before another bump starts lifting the tail? If so, it's quite common in poor DW conditions where there are multiple swell directions and few of them match wind direction to find the board getting squirrely on you between rides. It's pretty annoying. Some boards are more liable to it than others (this was perhaps the only major weakness of the V2 Glide for instance). But the M14 is actually pretty good in those conditions relative to others.

Sometimes the problem is that the instability the movement causes means we overcompensate and introduce rail steer, which makes matters worse. So if the board you have is at the limits of your balance skills then this can make matters even more difficult. Sometimes, relative to my more competent paddłe buddies, I've found myself almost unable to make purposeful forward progress in really messed up conditions, whereas they manage to stay light on their feet absorbing the board's rocking movements like shock absorbers in a car's suspension, and sail on past like it was nothing. So my advice is to stay light on your feet and just to kinda go with it. Try to use rail steer to correct direction, once the moment has passed. Downwinding isn't going in a straight line anyway. But this is advice I don't always manage to follow myself... More an aspiration than a reality.

[coldsup]

Thanks Area.....I think you probably nailed it...was in poor conditions and it felt like the swell was going in diff directions to the wind. Good practice though....but frustrating as you say.

[PonoBill]

Sounds like your board is rounding up a little. When a swell is pushing on the back of your board, the front of the board is going to have turning forces applied to it. Like pushing a pencil by the eraser--any tiny misalignment of the the pencil makes it turn, and as it turns, the force gets stronger because the nose is dragging while the tail is being shoved. When you get into big swells it gets a lot worse, especially if you're turning your board to get on the face of the waves and carry higher speed. The nose can turn right out of the wave, and the fin or the rudder broaches, meaning it's angled too much to the direction of travel to be effective at controlling direction.

The trick is to stay in front of that. You need to countersteer as soon as you turn. Easy with a rudder, a little harder with a fixed fin. You can touch your blade down at the front of the board or just rail steer. If you don't get in front of the issue the board drops out of the bump and wallows around a bit.

Also helps to clean up your stroke, reach way out and make short strokes that feel like little dabs. Long strokes leave your paddle in a rudder position on recovery and pull your body weight to the paddle side. When I'm struggling I try NOT to leave my blade in the water because of all the steering and balance changes it makes. It's tempting to lean on the paddle like a crutch, but for me that just doesn't really help. Your mileage may vary on stuff like that. I have a bad knee, bad ankle, bad shoulders, I'm 40 pounds overweight and have geezer balance, so the stuff that works for me might be a little specialized.

[coldsup]

Thanks PB....will watch for that next time.