No-one seems to talk about theses. Are they a useful tactic freeriding in rough water?
I'd love to get some tips on doing them.
Love doing lay down jibes. Best tips.....over sheet the sail
Straight front arm...... Lye the rig down, count to 1,Look backwards , then flip the rig. Great fun
its one move l world love to do.tryed it so many times but never nailed it. It looks easy & such a classy jibe.dont see them a lot these days.
Sean had some good points on the lay down jibe.
I remembered a older video from Severne Sail we made at Woodmans Point - WA, where we throw a few lay down jibes, - video by Matt Holder:
I prefer a nice quick afternoon laydown.
some key points if you do want to try them.
bend the knees
find the balance point of your sail, often just either side of the harness lines or if going one handed smack bang on them
look where you want to go....forwards or towards the tip of the sail. or if there is a camera look at the camera,, smile.
practice doing laydown 360's this will give you the timing for the rig flip as you will be able to feel when you are about to get back winded and slammed on your arse before it happens.
back hand, sheet in and slightly raked back. if you rake it back too far you will put too much pressure on the tail and generally stall when your coming out of the gybe, you want to keep forward momentum.
slice the sail through the wind and guide it around ready for the catch. crucial in keeping forward momentum
if you try lift it up before you are ready to flip its generally going to flatten you.
did is say bend the knees??
not many are seen in racing as its quite hard to adjust the radius of your turn once its been set. at a crowded gybe mark this is pretty important.
also they are not as fast for Gps alphas, the turn is too drawn out for really good numbers.
they just look way more speccy and stylish and you get to throw some buckets off the tail.
From what I remember the old longer narrower and boxy rail boards from the ninetys like the torquays wind tech and cavemans Sputniks etc it was the only way to gybe them or they spat you off big time !
Laydowns are an important part of sailing for a few reasons, other than impressing your mates. Sometimes when your mega powered its hard to huck into a gybe, so you can use the laydown to exhaust most of the power in the sail, while using the center of balance (sail) as a pivot point for your gybe. It`s good to wash off excess speed also. Just watch the crew at Luderitz after their run.
The best way to learn is on the flattest water possible, POWERED UP. You might also find that its easier on a certain tack, so try both.
It`s gonna be windy tomorrow!
if riccardo can do a freestyle one handed aerial jibe like he did at pozo a couple of years ago .then l think it can't be that hard to do a lay down in flatwater.l must admit it is a showey jibe which you dont see performed much these days.
The first one was truly a 'Laydown Gybe!
I recon 'Laydown Gybes fall into the same category as those jumps kiters do right in front of the bikini girls on the beach! LOL!
Way back in the late 90's when we used to slalom race loads we had some amazing spots to sail in with turquoise water and beautiful reefs. At the time I was fairly good at doing them and I remember how the cool bit was sometimes the sail (VX3) would drag in the water and you could clearly see the fish scattering!