Anyone else use the mast grab when gybing overpowered ? or am i just a freak .i was using a 7,0 in 20 -25 knots today and wanted to keep up wind and just found myself mast grabbing ...don't know why but it worked ..

Mr Hooper said..
No, you're just a freak

I recon I'm a super freak

At the tack, usual. At the jibe, useful to control the "flappiness" of the sail and not get launched when losing too much speed or not able to control the new tack direction.

Well, if it works it works but guess it's bumpy if you don't apply mast foot pressure. When I'm way overpowered on smaller sails, I sometimes only use the front arm and sort of leave the sail open so it can lose the wind to make it manageable and not so scary to go downwind in overpowered conditions.

When using the front arm on the boom you can still apply some mast foot pressure to control the board.

Looks like Robby above is doing boom-mast-boom to get around his camera mount. Looks like a **y gybe for someone like him tbh so can't imagine this is his normal gybing technique ;)

Ben1973 said..

Awalkspoiled said..
Well, there's that guy Robby-something. Flaish? Blaisht? He usually goes boom-mast-boom and always has. 4:00:

To avoid the GoPro mount where he would normally grab

No, really, he's always tended to grab the mast briefly mid-jibe, probably dating back to when he was really too short to get to the boom with the mast upright. You can look at any video of him and it'll be 2/3 or more boom-mast-boom. The one time I was on the water with him (Kalmus on Cape Cod, maybe 1991) his conventional jibes were all like that although he duck-jibed quite a bit.

Here's more:

Really old, with the awful Mistral boom which had a handle, but he doesn't use it. 1:58 & 2:08:

I olso do it sometimes when i flip the sail late, usually jibing on a wave or out of control jibes, then i keep my hand on the mast until i hook in, losing a lot of performance like that but feels safe.

what I've found it helps keep the mast vertical in tight turns ,as I have very little room for turns at ends of the reef at time s when really powered up .
but good to know I'm not the only freak ,

I only end up grabbing the mast when the gybe goes wrong, usually because I've waited too long to flip. I find giving a little push with the back hand improves the speed of rotation.

+ me ,but only one way out in the deep.Much better control particularly when very overpowered.