What axis wing to learn gybes

Been foiling nearly 2 years. 1 year wind and 1 year wing probably around 25 sessions.and got caught up in the hype and went onto the 980 and 1050 hps axis wings to early. Go ok straight but still can't gybe. Winging only for now
So I'm looking for a slower easier foil to practice this. After suggestions stick to the hps. A axis png 1010 or bcs 970 or 1060 then go back to the hps once mastered. Board 105L duotone skywing.
I've got red and black fuses.
Wind kitesurfing back ground 80kg
Winds around 15 knts.
Thanks for any input.

As above those HPS foils and your equipment are fine for learning to gybe - you just need more practice.
I ride the HPS1050 mostly and also have the BSC970 + BSC1120 - the bigger BSC's while more stable require a wider gybe and are quite slow.
The BSC970 is a nice wing but not that much more stable than the HPS 1050.

Took me more than 1000 attempts to gybe, was using too much back foot pressure and leaning the board too much. - you need to glide the foil round.
If you've not already seen them , Alan Cadiz has some great videos. The episode on gliding the foil and doing S turns is what finally made gybing click for me.
On youtube here :

At what point is your gybe going wrong ?

^ +1. I'm 15mths winging and make my gybes most of the time now, but I've had a lot more sessions than you. You just need to get out more regularly. The rewards are worth the effort, winging gets so much more fun when you don't have to pull yourself out of the water at the end of each run. I learned to gybe on HPS980, 1050 and ART999. They're all good to gybe with. Tips that helped me the most were: 1/ Focus 90% on the board, 10% on the wing; 2/ stay over the board, don't lean into the turn; and 3/ to avoid back winding, make sure you get your front hand right up over your head during the transition.

It took me also a few hundred tries to nail the jibe. What helped me was doing a lot of S-turns in the beginning and really getting a feeling for how long you can glide while going straight downwind (remember that the wind pushes your body also). That alone took a lot of stress out of the move.

What finally did it for me then was to not try to make the turn looking like a smooth "C" shape right away but rather making it look like "[". So start with a turn, then go straight, do the wing flip and then turn again.

The BSC are actually easier to learn a jibe than the HPS simply because they "hover" at very low speeds. This gives you more time to fiddle with the wing handling, foot switching, balance, etc, without falling off foil.

The question is really just about money. Keep struggling for free, or spend cash on the BSC-970 and help yourself. I say BSC-970 and not the larger size, because the 970 is a fun surfy one, so worth keeping around after you master the jibe.

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WindWaterSailAU said..
Alan Cadiz has some great videos. The episode on gliding the foil and doing S turns is what finally made gybing click for me.
On youtube here :

Great video, thanks for posting it.

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Faff said..
This is surprising. You can plane out of windsurf fin gybes and that's much, much harder. I know people who windsurfed for 30 years and could not carve gybe, yet they can foil thru wing gybes.

I think it took me more than 30 years before I planed through fin jibes with any consistency. After tens of thousands of tries, one ABK camp on Bonaire finally did the trick (except that I had practiced mistakes for so long that I needed regular refresher camps to get the on the right track again!). So if I get the wing jibe this year after 3 years of winging , that will be a lot faster .. even more so when considering that being a few decades older slows down learning a bit.

Jybes come naturally for some but can be a struggle for others. There is nothing wrong with HPS 1050/980 that you have. They are great foils for learning jybes. All you can do is spend time on the water. Do not hesitate to ask for advice from the local guys. Foilers are generally very friendly and helpful. Have more sessions and do not despair...too much (shouting or cursing in desparation is quite ok :-)). Wingfoiling is a lot about enjoying your progression. Enjoy your every improvement, however small. Have fun!

I like the HPS1050 but I recently tried a PNG1300. Not a fast wing and slow to turn but has an unbelievable glide. I think it's the easiest foil to learn gybes on - it just glides on and on.

Honestly I don't think more than average glide is that important. My impression is that most crashes occur waaay before you run out of glide (given you start the jibe with sufficient speed). In my opinion the most important thing is to learn how to keep balance throughout the turn while simultaneously shifting the wing and switching the hands.

S-Turns are by far the best excersise for the jibe.

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CTFoiling said..
I'll just throw out that for my own very prolonged journey to gybe (on axis),the things that made the most difference for me were a longer mast and a bigger stab. The latter being the true deal sealer. The 90cm mast helped. But the 500 free ride stab suddenly made everything easy. I'd been on the 400 free prior to that. Progression from there was pretty easy. the front foil didn't make anywhere near as much of a difference (BSC 1060, PNG 1150, HPS 1050, PNG 910), and even now I have more issues when I change the stab vs when I change the front wing.

This is very interesting. I sometimes have a problem with overfoiling in the jibe with my 75 cm mast, and would have picked up a longer mast if the local store would have had one. But overfoiling was much less an issue on my previous foils, so I figured I may just need to get used to the new foil.

The info about the stab is very interesting, and makes sense. Did you use the anhedral or the regular 500 free? Which fuse did you use while learning to jibe?

You could try making a different face whilst jibing. It won't cost you a penny. I have different faces for each maneuver. Your foils are just fine for what you are doing. I agree with Pacoz about doing s-turns. I will add that luffing your wing and doing some small s-turns will help too as you are then no longer hanging on the wing and you are just foiling. Stand up straight and proud with weight centered over your foil. You have to get the sensation of a toe side carve to unlock the jibe. Beginning snowboarders struggle with this too. Get out of the back seat. If the s-turn is too much, then try just bearing off of your heel edge and let it glide downwind, weight centered. After you get that feel, add a slight and brief toe side pressure. A mini-carve then back to heel. Just keep growing this move. This is not windsurfing or kiteboarding. When foiling, we always have body weight centered over the foil, never hiked out. Steer the foil with your hips and ankles, not your ass. Your spine is an extension of your mast. Pull the handwing down in front of you and into your hip. Avoid hanging on it. It is there for forward drive, not to dangle off of. Run through your jibes and hand switches on the beach in powered conditions right before.

Get a skateboard, and your smallest wing and go to a flat car park and practice without a foil. Learn wing manoeuvres and control without the hassle of being on foil. You can slow everything down and learn much much faster. I can't stress how often I recommend this to beginners, you will learn very quickly like this.

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CTFoiling said..
... But the 500 free ride stab suddenly made everything easy. I'd been on the 400 free prior to that. Progression from there was pretty easy. the front foil didn't make anywhere near as much of a difference (BSC 1060, PNG 1150, HPS 1050, PNG 910), and even now I have more issues when I change the stab vs when I change the front wing.

Thank you so much for this tip!

Based on your post, I went and got a 500 free tail wing. The difference is amazing! I had my two best jibes ever yesterday in a very short session thanks to the bigger tail wing (mine is the anhedral 500, the previous one was the speed 400). Everything seemed a lot easier with the bigger tail. Things that would have certainly resulted in a crash on the smaller stab, like wobbling back and forth a bit while switching hands, were no problem at all. Doing Alan Cadiz' gliding exercises was a lot easier. The only thing that frustrated me at the start was that it took a while to get up on the foil with the larger stab - instead of a quick back foot pump, that takes a bit more patience, since all reactions are slowed down.

I'm still surprised how big the difference was, and cannot wait to get back out. After pretty limited progress in the last 50 sessions, the jibe suddenly felt doable, and maybe even easy. It reminds me a bit of the different reactions people had to the original Armstrong HA foils and the V-tail: some people love them and still use them, others hated them and could not get rid of them fast enough. My interpretation is that every foil setup has specific characteristics about how much input it wants, and how fast it reacts - and every winger also has a certain way to react, both with respect to how fast and how much. The better foil and winger characteristics match, the better it works. If you're lucky enough to be on a well-matched setup, or can adjust easily to different characteristics, I can now see how learning to jibe can be quick and easy. I probably react both too much and too slowly for the looser tail wing. The longer, heavier board I had used before my current board also slowed everything down a bit, which made things easier for me.

I also upgraded from the 75 cm mast to the 82 cm mast, and that probably helped a bit, too. But I agree with you that the bigger tail wing made the bigger difference.

CT, this tail info is quite amazing. The 500 sounds great to help me work on my tacks. Thank you! But uh-oh, I see that the 500 works with the red fuse. I have short black. Is there an equivalent stabilizer for short black? Thanks.

If you are going slow, and yawing the board around (flat board turn), then ignore this message.

To carve gybe, go faster over the water, using a pitch stable foil set, with fairly equal feet weighting and a foil roll-response that feels natural to you. If you find that have to think too much, then good chance something is wrong with your equipment setup or choice.

To check your foil roll-response: Try reaching across the wind and use your feet to roll your board left-right to do some S-turns and note how your foils respond. Gradually increase the lean carve of your S-path. In order to gybe easily, the foils should carve-roll in and out of a turn in away that feels really easy for you! Rider preference. The hydroplane should naturally position itself under the balance point for your happy body lean angle. If the roll response of your foils is too stiff/slow or too rigid/fast, then carve gybing is way more difficult.

Most riders tend to use foils which respond too roll-stiff for their needs. That'll make you feel full-retard at times, and it's also easier to get a face-full of foils. To get quicker roll response, try foils with narrower spans or much thinner tips. To turn a tighter radius (at a constant roll angle), try a shorter fuselage.

Lastly, different shaped rear stab foils not only effect for-aft pitch stability. They can make a huge difference to the yaw-roll response of the hydroplane. Rider preference determines if you should have a stab foil with tips that curve up or down or flat. Maybe experiment with a few.

I started on the BSC 1060 but started hitting my jybes more consistently on the BSC 890. Switching to the HPS range helped me with maintaining speed thru the carves which is critical.

Given you've been foiling for 2 years, you should consider your technique. The most important thing I learned was, look where you're going, not at your wing.

DC