Chicken gybe

Hey Harrow,

Gybes are 80% successful on flat water, about 20% successful in waves... but my dirty little secret is to start my gybe in a region of water that has absolutely no foam in it. If I fluff it, getting back up is only a quick waterstart away

Go for it, you'll be amazed at how much more challenging surf is to flat water, remember the basics:
Planing beats slogging when a wall of white is coming at you, only gybe in clear water, remember where you started from. Oh, and for your first time in waves, go somewhere where there are other windsurfers. Everything else is just icing on the cake

Nebbian, was that you at Currumbin yesterday. I was watching the web cam green with envy. The rider was staying close in to the rock wall in the channel gybing/ or juming off at the beach and going out into the waves just beyond the wall. Trouble with the cam is it rotates. Each time as you ( if it was you) hit the wave bit the cam would move.
Buy the Peter Hart DVD's serious about waves one and two. I have them both and found some great advise about hitting ramps and especially how to deal with walls of white water. The best one is number Serious about waves one as it has tons of advise about going in and out and what to do when faced with disaster.

a) I try to absorb the lump, so at the lip my knees are just about touching the boom. Down the other side, however, there's just too much vertical lift and the fin comes out of the water, despite my outstretched legs... the board slews sideways in the air without the sideways push of the fin, so by the time the board hits the water I'm at full stretch and hit the water with my back. After a quick waterstart I'm back on board, but quite puzzled in how to land those $%^&*() jumps!!

What's option b)
Nebbian - Do exactly the opposite of what you are doing right now.
Hit the lip and think oh well in for a dollar and relax-somewhere in the back of your mind you just have to let go and see what happens.Either push off as you hit or let the ramp do the work.when you get air pull your feet up to your bum-THE best way to keep your centre of gravity lower than the sail/hanglider.Let yourself turn the board sllightly downwind start extending just before impact and land tail first then bend the legs and absorb to end up bent before hooting and sailing off.
Of course if you do lose it in the air you may tear your knee ligament and be off the water for mmm... thats three weeks nearly ,,well close enough,,the physio said 4 weeks but if I just go easy..yeah it will be fine ..or maybe only if its really good,,and I won't jump,,well not too high,,or maybe I could strap it ,,has to help,,mmmmm who knows when the wind will be good again maybe never...better get it before it stops,,,maybe I should insist that the physio puts on a chastity type knee shackle made of lead and locked for another couple of weeks so I know I have no temptation.Not that windsurfing is an addiction or anything....I am in control .

I find it's actually harder to do a normal jump in a situation like that than say attempt a back or push-loop. Once you take off you want to angle the board/rig off the wind a little so the wind is under the sail and you can 'float' it. If you don't do that you'll drop a lot quicker and either spin out on landing or back slap it. If you're back slapping already you may as well bite the bullet and give the ol' backloop a try. It's a very safe move to attempt in my opinion, damn hard to land though.