25 alpha 16 min 30 max, 24 alpha min can go down to 12

and min isn't mid corner it's at the exit just before power on

My alpha record, i was very lucky to get back in the 50m radius, i just followed the edge of the circle...So a near perfect jibe, among a few of the others i did that day. My out speed were identical to my in speeds.

great reply Izaak, those numbers are very interesting.

WindsurfingWA said...

So the next part of this discussion is how to go 30+ across the wind within 250m of your gybe?

More wind perhaps...

As you can see, i was trying to run dead square to the wind each way, allowing me to do identical in and out speeds.. All my alphas were done on my JP Speed 45, i know the board so well, that i can use it like my slalom board.

Ok, here is my dream Alpha. This one was during my record 1 hour. I got everything right except for one thing. 85m proximity circle! My only excuse is that for 1 hour this is faster.
That's how it should look though, but tighter!

It appears one ingredient of an outstanding alpha is to clip the 50 m circle with no more than a couple of mm to spare. How do you do it? What navigation tricks do you use? When I try for alphas on trackless Lake Illawarra most are way too wide. And then my best for the day often looks like that other alpha, the Greek alpha.

I've tried siting my wake against a mountain on the way in, doesn't seem to work. Sometimes your ingoing wake is still visible, but if it's a good gust, it's not. What's the trick?

izaak said...

Luck!! and doing as many alphas as possible. Eventually you should be able to judge the distance quite well.

Yes, thanks Izaak.

A mate once said to me " Ian, I hope you never leave Canberra, because if you do I'll be the worst navigator in Canberra "

Well I did and he is.

Ian K said...

It appears one ingredient of an outstanding alpha is to clip the 50 m circle with no more than a couple of mm to spare. How do you do it? What navigation tricks do you use? When I try for alphas on trackless Lake Illawarra most are way too wide. And then my best for the day often looks like that other alpha, the Greek alpha.

I've tried siting my wake against a mountain on the way in, doesn't seem to work. Sometimes your ingoing wake is still visible, but if it's a good gust, it's not. What's the trick?

One trick I've used:
1) Find a buoy or similar that is 200m or so away from where you gybe. On your inbound leg, pass around 40m upwind of it. Do your gybe, then aim to get within 5m downwind of the buoy.

It helps if you measure out 40 metres on the ground beforehand so you know how far that is.

The crab munchers have been known to set up two buoys 50m apart for exactly this purpose

Jman said...

I was pretty happy with this one at Elwood max speed only 23.3 and still a 20 knot Alpha, in the bay its more about timing between the swell so sometimes the arc is not so smooth.

That's pretty impressive!

Jman said...

I was pretty happy with this one at Elwood max speed only 23.3 and still a 20 knot Alpha, in the bay its more about timing between the swell so sometimes the arc is not so smooth.

Excellent Alpha on open water!

Ian K said...

It appears one ingredient of an outstanding alpha is to clip the 50 m circle with no more than a couple of mm to spare. How do you do it? What navigation tricks do you use? When I try for alphas on trackless Lake Illawarra most are way too wide. And then my best for the day often looks like that other alpha, the Greek alpha.

I've tried siting my wake against a mountain on the way in, doesn't seem to work. Sometimes your ingoing wake is still visible, but if it's a good gust, it's not. What's the trick?

Hi Ian, You are on the right track. At Sandy on an Easterly I start my run next to one of those big green buoys. On the return I use it to try to judge the Proximity. After a while it is not too hard to judge 45-50 m pretty well.

On the SW bank it is not quite so easy without a convenient buoy so I try to run in to the bank on a tight pinch and then go square for 200m flat stick. On the return I try to judge 45m from the bank but if I am slightly wide, at least I will come close to the in track after 200-250m.

At lake George, in the middle of a big lake without any obvious markers, the best bet is to sight on the other side of the lake. After a few runs back and forth you should be able to work out sighting marks on each side to aim for so you know your are square. The ripples on the water can help here as well as the feel of you rig and speed. I wear my GPS where I can see it. After a few runs you will soon get a pretty good feel for what is dead square. Then it is just a matter of pulling the smoothest tight gybe you can and hammering back as square is possible. One other thing that helps at LG is the wake track you tend to leave in the really saline water. On most runs it stays visible long enough to get another useful cue from.

Hope this helps.

"The older I get, the better I was"

Yes a few clues there for featureless lakes Andrew. The landmarks then will have to be fairly distant or you'll have to not roam too far off your beaten track. I suppose you also need to standardise your gybe radius at 50 metres. That's a fairly tight gybe at around 30 knots. Variable gybes to 80 metres wide will need too much upwind, and tricky landmark geometry.

Thanks, I'll put it to use when the westerlies return. It's a long time since I pb'd an alpha.