in an 80L a 20cm fin is for very top end of it's range. You will do much better with a 23cm ish on 5.7

Anyway, yes downwind is about it.
A scissoring kinda action to push front foot downwind and back foot up under your bum works well as it is essentially the reverse of what probably caused the spinout.

Spin outs are caused by the loss of laminar flow of water around the windward side of the fin. This occurs when you put too much lateral pressure on the fin.

You can avoid the spinout by either using a larger more efficient fin or sailing with a better technique.

To correct spin out you have to reconnect this laminar flow. You can do this by a number of ways;
- slow down sufficiently (usually by heading into the wind) for the laminar flow to re-establish
- head down wind with the sissor action as Mark suggests, this unloads the lateral pressure on the fin
- chop jump and land with no lateral pressure on your fin

Unfortunately there is no easy solution. The best strategy is to avoid the spinout in the first place.

KevinD002 said..

I've always just yanked the tail of the board towards me to great success.

-Kevin

I find that works but as I get older it's harder to do..

Mast foot pressure.

You need to get more by either committing to your harness or some other way of loading the boom.

Coincidentally this is what you do when you pull the tail back under you. It's a hang on harness lift tail and pull thing.

it sounds like you are spinning out while trying to maintain an upwind position.

this can be caused by a few things.

1. not weighting the front leg enough. jumping from slalom gear which is all back foot orientated to wave gear requires a change of technique.
2. not standing up straight enough. wave gear has a more inboard/upright stance
3. crap fin
4. not enough wind for the fin
5. not enough outhaul

can't think of anything else.

Move harness lines back - that should help. Also, a simple chop-hop & tuck your back foot at the same time will correct it, but sometimes you are too far over to get back upright, that's where pointing downwind for a sec works.

Sailhack said..

Move harness lines back - that should help. Also, a simple chop-hop & tuck your back foot at the same time will correct it, but sometimes you are too far over to get back upright, that's where pointing downwind for a sec works.

chop hop is the trick, get the fin out of the water, as it drops back in it re-engages

of course, if you're way out of control, you'll need to dig the windward rail in