what happened to proper speed Gybes ? It looks so dull these days on most race coverage that i see.
here is a piece i did quite a few years ago -so its old footage but the action really stands up (pity the youtube quality doesnt)
..Why is it different to now..? I've seen locals scream out the other side of the gybe..ok not all laydown ones but still spectacular..?
Is a laydown actually a faster way through a corner? Maybe the GPS dudes who chase the Alpha speeds can tell us. I guess the other reason might be that with the congestion at the corners, you don't want to take up too much real estate and increase your risk of getting taken out.
Lay down jibes are - well - flashier ?? but when you have a crack at full on power jibes in nuking winds the lay down jibes have no wind angle ( at least momentarily) so depowers the process a bit - but it is a learnt technique!!
Laydown jibes are possibly slower than the good old duck jibe but in strong winds - it depends on the size of your wallet and balls!
Oh and its all on flat water ?? piss easy compared to the stuff most of us sail / kite in !! throw in a decent chop for the 20 knot wind and its a different ball game and skill set again!!
Still can't gybe like that though 
If you tried that at Woodies these days you'd be wrapped up in more string than a tennis racquet.
Still can't gybe like that though
Great gybing - in the above video
Something for the kiters here - and a bit of kudos to a few of them - every so often (about twice in three years) I've seen a kiter complete what I would call a proper gybe - what a cool looking manoeuver - board hardly loses speed and planes the whole way around. Then I see the rest of the kiters simply stall their board to turn around.
The simple manoeuvers still look the best when executed properly.
I've only ever managed a couple of 'near' planing gybes and a couple of lay-downs on the face of a swell that ended up stalling on me during the flip.
The benifit of the laydown gybe technique is the downward force it applies on the board so instead of bouncing over the chop you cut straight through it with a lot more force and control. The turn is over before you know it, the tricky part is getting the sail flipped around before you are going in the other direction on the wrong side of the sail lol.
On a slalom board it is actually easier to gybe them this way than the traditional method. They are powerful boards and respond better to aggressive and forceful treatment. If I try to gybe my JP in the traditional way it doesn't really like it and bounces around quite a bit but if I sheet in hard and drop the rig it smashes through the turn like the weapon that it is.
The 2 best pieces of advice I can give to do a laydown gybe is simply be aggressive! pussying around will not get it done. And also, sheet in as hard as possible. when I go for a laydown the foot of the sail is pressing into my shins.
I don't pull off every laydown I go for but dear lord the rush never gets old when I do. If you own a pure slalom board then the laydown gybe is how you should be gybing it. The board will love you for it and your enjoyment level of your slalom board will increase dramatically.
Someone mentioned that you dont see this gybe as often in races. There's a few reasons, it's a bit riskier but mainly I think it's because you have to take a much wider arc or your rig will smash into the mark and by taking the wider arc you leave an opening for somone to get inside you. What you will quite often see is a more vertical version of the laydown, still with the excessive sheeting in but the rig is not layed over nearly as much.
Personally I don't care about the racing aspect of it I just love going for laydowns. Last weekend I was going for a few on my JP SLW 90 with the 9.6 metre on lol. I pulled off less than half of them but it was funny to see such a big board snap through a turn a few metres wide.
It's not an easy thing to do but it's not as hard as it looks either. The best advice I can give is just get your blood up, get a bit angry and smash it.
dont forget to slow down a little bit before gybing - and spot your bank (if you are in chop) to turn off
You'll get smashed every time if you dont!
Chop is an interesting one - smooth water is ideal - and so is a well developed sea
your biggest enemy is short chop like that found on parts of the river , lancelin inside the reef, Pinnaroo inside the reef - where the chop doesnt have enough distance to develop in to a sea -
effectively you get these short waves that no part of the board will fit in to.
those conditions are just plain horrible to sail in.
Leighton on the other hand - while you would THINK it would be worse being on the ocean - is actually better as you have a formed sea with great berms to bank off!
I seem to remember that full lay down gybes weren't really any functional benefit... Over sheeting in order to carve tightly yes, but laying down like that isn't practical in a race... Unless you're winning in which case you'd go full power and wide radius.
That said...They look cool and there's probably no greater g force outside of waves so I think we should all make an effort to bring them back.
i love a good gybe but agree with the last guy ,, noice location tooo learn tooo gybe well looked gooooood !!!
You shouldn't be slowing to enter a gybe and in fact I usually bear away a little to increase speed and pick my piece of chop to turn. I only use lay down when overpowered and want to crank the turn hard with speed but otherwise a normal type gybe is usually faster due to not having to reposition your sail and move weight around from the lay down. Although laying the sail down looks more spectacular it's not always the fastest when racing.
Cheers
Marty
