I know this is small stuff for you hard units doing push loops, but my girlfriend is unfortunately pretty much unimpressed and i gotta celebrate a little with people who might just understand what it meant to me.

I made it my mission to get a duck gybe out this summer and today, I nailed it. I had been giving them a go here and there through the summer, and just faltering on the exit. I knew that I hadn't been getting the sail back to upright aggressively enough, so I'd been thinking hard about it, and determined to pull hard on my next one.

A pretty ordinary nor-wester today and not a lot of planing gybes, but at one moment i found myself quite off the the wind and powered up. Banking hard into the turn I fed the sail forward, got my leading hand on the last part of the boom and hauled it hard. The sail came right back to me and I grabbed it in the sailing position, still leaning hard into the turn. I can't even recall the foot change, but somewhere it happened and there I was, planing out with the biggest grin imaginable on my dial.

That grin will be on my face for days.

Woo hoo. Trousers are not pants.

Congrats :).. that will be in a few years time for me I think :)

Thanks for the kind words peoples! I will now work on consistency, but next stop, heli-tack...

by the way, the duck seemed to be a very powerful way to exit the gybe - I came out at great speed. I'm guessing this comes down to two factors;

1. You throw the sail forward which weights the nose, maintaining board speed
2. Early rig flip gets you a powered up sail on a broad reach exit

I guess slalom sailors don't use it on account of this move becoming increasingly difficult with large and heavy sails, but it seems a very efficient way to turn and come out screaming.