Black Team Tips

Discover the hidden potential of your slalom equipment with 10 easy and practical golden rules!

Below are listed some of the most classical issues when sailing with slalom gear. Often this more technical gear does not allow us to feel comfortable and relaxed when surfing. Therefore we are now going to give you the answers to the most common problems. Give priority to modifying the trim of the gear, starting with the first solution given. If this does not work, continue to the second listed advice and so on…

Footstrap setting is crucial, and varies considerably between a freeride, slalom or wave board set up … and yet it is still overlooked by a great many people. Firstly, for wave sailing, it is very important to have the straps set in-board. Secondly one of the biggest improvements in my wave sailing came from making my straps bigger; it still amazes me now when I go on other people’s equipment how small they tend to have their straps. I really struggle to gybe the board, let alone being able to bottom turn properly. Lets see what I mean:

The other day, there was a group of guys who could not believe Greta being on a 5.6 slalom sail in almost 40 knots and over 3m swell. They were feeling heros to go out on their 3.6 sails. Greta was out there sailing with the boys who were super overpowered on 6.3s. As she got to beach after some training, she took out her 3.6wave sail, same size as the guys, and went smacking the waves. The same group of guys were thinking to change sport! She was forward looping, back looping going on radical top turns… What we think? We think Greta should go for the PWA Wave Tour aswell. Let’s cheer her up to do it!

Crashing? This year some of the national windsurfing association have started using the NO RULE system as in PWA for slalom racing. No right of way, no protests, no rules! Everthing is allowed and you can’t really complain about someone crashing into you. At the starts you can change your direction even 1m to the startline, in the jibes there is no right of way. But how is it possible that we see very little crashes during the racing? Even less then in national racing with Ifca rules?

In the 90’s, there was a youg wave sailor from Belgium who drove down to the Canaries, and never drove back. He took part at some of the PWA events, and he was one of the most radical on tour, who was scoring big air radical jumps! By pushing the limits of the gear, he ended up destroying his knees, feet and ankles to go bigger then the others due to some hard landings.