Harrow,
DavMen has it right -- sail out clew first in light winds. This is tricky when you first try it, it feels like the sail is totally unstable (which it is!). Remember your mast hand becomes the power hand, so the clew hand stays still.
Points:
1. Move your hands back down the boom before you start.
2. Shift your weight back as you initiate the turn.
3. Keep the sail sheeted in (in fact have it almost completely oversheeted). For some reason this really helps to spin the windsurfer around, I've never seen this on any advice page but I can really vouch for its effectiveness.
4. Get set up on the new tack, get comfortable, wait for a lull, and flip the sail. The less power you have in the sail (the closer the clew is to the wind) the harder the flip will be. If you're completely powered up in very light wind then it's easy, if you're in stronger wind then try to ease the clew well away from you before doing the flip.
5. When flipping remember that the sail doesn't have any pull, so your weight should be completely over the middle of the board.
Here's the only video I've been able to find of the non-carve gybe:
http://www.jemhall.com/video/Jem_Hall_Gybe512K.mov Now we come to the carve gybe and that's where my wheels fall off... I've managed three so far, at least three that I was happy with. It seems that the similarities between the slogging gybe and planing gybe are that they both have 'gybe' in the name! You have your weight forwards, not back, you flip early, not late, and you look incredibly cool. I still need so much practice on this one, there's lots of wind today, but it's all westerly so no good!
