How To........Flaka

Flaka from Stephen Gibson on Vimeo.

Sail on a broad reach at full velocity.

Spot a piece of chop and, moving onto the balls of your feet, bear away even more and flatten the board off as you hit the chop and pop the board out of the water.

This is the moment when flaka success or failure is decided. As the board leaves the water, you must lean forward towards the nose of the board as far as possible, bending slightly at the waist to get your head above the mastfoot. At this point you must also look upwind over your shoulder to encourage the board to rotate into wind. Also, you should throw the sail as far forward as possible with your front arm straight and your back arm bent in real close to the body, keeping the sail neutral(no pressure in the back hand). Tricky,eh? There is alot going on in this first nanosecond but if you can get all these factors to converge in this first moment, the rest is easy.

The nose of the board should stick in the water and spin you backwards. Keep leaning forward with your front arm straight and your back arm bent into the body, and the board will automatically spin itself back onto the original tack.

Flakas can take a bit of time to lear, esoecially for older sailors like myself, as the forward, into-wind movement during the pop is so unnatural.Patience is required..............