Winning Formula Coach Issue 1

July 2001

Hike Out!

If you are determined to maximize your speed and angle while racing then you must be prepared to use all of your body mass to counterbalance the forces of the wind in your rig and the drag on the board and fin. As this simple objective may seem, most of the sailors in the fleet do not make the most of their ability to hike out. No matter how strong you are, your ability to leverage your body weight against your equipment will ultimately determine your speed and angle while on the water. Your job is to hike out, and stay hiked out.

Here's an image from Winning Formula Volume 1 that adequately illustrates a good hiked out stance. In this case, pressing hard to windward.

The premise

If you are not using your body weight to counterbalance the forces on your rig, then you are not getting the most out of the conditions and your equipment. Quite simply, if you are standing ON TOP of your board too much, you are allocating your weight as useless ballast! If you are hiked out OFF your board with your body more parallel to the water, you are using your weight more effectively. Would you add weight to your board or rig that you don't need? Passive ballast? Yuck! I hope not. So get your weight off the board by hiking out consistently as far as possible.

Stretch out

Since you act as a lever against your sail, you want to make yourself as 'long' as possible to gain maximum advantage against the pulling force of the sail and the drag induced by the board and fin. Imagining that you want to stand straight out from the edge of your board, back straight, arms straight and legs straight helps you get the idea. Of course, this pose is nearly impossible to achieve. With proper stance and a few tips, we can find a compromise that is plenty fast.

The prerequisite to getting hiked out is to start with a solid basic stance and then clean things up. As outlined in the video, adjust boom, mast foot, harness lines, etc. to find a stable stance to start with. Now, it's time to 'press harder' as I like to say.

Don't sit in your harness. Suspend yourself from your harness lines with your upper body cantilevered out OVER THE WATER. That means chest and head back, not curled over your abdomen and harness. You may even want to make an effort to push your harness hook 'up' toward the booms. After all, if you can only get your head and shoulders back so far, then maybe you can get your 'middle' up. Also, I use a hybrid seat / waist harness to help support my cantilevered upper body. It has better support in the lumbar area than a traditional seat harness.

Get longer arms. Nominally, your arms should be bent only slightly. Make sure you are not sailing with your arms too bent. Most people have the tendency to have too tight of a grip on the boom and bend their arms at the elbow. This again leaves the sailor's upper body 'scrunched' into a curved position and sitting in the harness, not stretched out. Relax your grip and your bicep. Use your harness and your abdominal muscles to suspend your upper body, not your arms.

Relax and roll your shoulders. In the same fashion that bent arms curl your upper body; tense shoulders do the same but to a lesser extent. Relax your shoulders and let them 'roll' down and forward toward your chest. This adds virtual length to your arms! I know it sounds odd, but this does help. Sit at a desk or table stretched out a bit like you are hiked out, then roll your shoulders down and forward to see how much 'longer' your arms get. I get 4 inches or about 10 cm of extra reach. If you can get more leverage for an edge, take it. You can bet that your competitors will.

An example of moderately powered off the wind reaching, excerpted from the Winning Formula Volume 1 video. Upper body leaning back, arms extended.

Readjust Your Gear

Chances are that the changes you just made in your hiking have just changed the feel of your gear. Hopefully you have been re-tuning your gear as you improve your hiking. Typically, harness lines will move back and mast foot will move back. Adjust booms to your taste.

Oops! You Sheeted In.

A sweet side affect of improved hiking is that you are now sheeted in more consistently. As you throw your weight out over the side of the board more effectively, the force in your legs and harness more effectively sheet in the sail. That's one of the reasons you can move the rig and harness lines back a bit... When you are sheeted in properly and consistently it holds the nose down, so less need to run it up in the track so far. Right?

Dynamics

In flat water with consistent wind you can perfect this steady state hiking described so far. Now let's talk about the real world!

Skimming. I try to keep my chest, shoulders and head out over the water, not over my hips and harness. I just stay clear of the oncoming chop. Again, it's all about leverage! When the water is flat, this is easily achieved. Hike out and press hard! When the water gets rougher and the wind gustier, you will have to lie out less to be sure that you don't bang your hip, chest or shoulder into the oncoming chop. If you hang to close to the water and the wind shifts or you sail into a lull, you will have to act quickly to not hit the chop. I typically push the limits and occasionally smack the water with my hip or the water pack on my back. I try to avoid hitting the water, but it's a price I pay occasionally.

So as conditions change you will have to stand up a bit more on the board to avoid the chop. As I see a piece of chop coming that I need to avoid I 'un-hike' slightly and let the force of the rig stand me up a bit. Just bend your knees a bit or do a tiny sit-up. Then lay back out and keep grinding. Practice making only the smallest adjustments to avoid the chop and getting reset back into the max hiked position as quickly as possible.

This is work. It makes a difference. Are you active or passive ballast?

Point and shoot.

Now that you can find the groove that has you hiked out and sailing efficiently, you should try to stay in it.

1) LOOK further down your potential path and pick your line!

2) Stop looking at your board and rig. It's all feel, so what are you looking at?

3) Stop looking at the very next piece of chop. You already saw it when it was further away!

If you can pick a line that avoids the big chop without too large of a detour, you can hold your stance a higher percentage of the time. There are trade-offs, of course. Some large chop moves in sets and cannot be avoided. In many cases going upwind you will have to weigh the benefits of maintaining stance and ultimate speed by going slightly downwind of the chop, or holding your upwind angle and aggressively absorbing the bumps while doing your best to maintain your hiking and stance.

Checklist

Go out with your training partner and check to see if you are getting the most out of your body weight by hiking out.

1) Balanced initial stance

2) Stretch out your upper body and uncurl your abdomen.

3) Long arms and rolled shoulders... relax your biceps and shoulders to get hiked further out.

4) Adjust your gear to account for the stance changes.

5) Skim. Are you off the board and more over the water?

6) Look! Not at your gear, but at an efficient path!

I hope you will use this information to improve your sailing and racing. You should consider getting Winning Formula Volume 1 if don't already own it. It contains the core high performance techniques upon which all others in these Winning Formula Coach publications will be built.

Regards,

Rob Hartman

http://www.WindsurfRace.com