How To Prevent Spin Out Windsurfing?

In my opinion, the most common cause of spinout is fear of the power: To avoid this (mostly) kids will move the harness lines way too far to the front of the boom. This is nice in sub-planing conditions, but a soon as they pick up speed, they start pulling in with the backhand to close the sail causing them to put all their weight on their backfoot causing them to spinout. It’s a really easy fix but often overlooked! Keep it up Nico! We all love your content!

Hi Nico, I agree with you that spin-outs: they happen as soon as the nose gets out of the water, exposing the entire bottom of the board almost all the way to the fin (i.e. you hit to a large chop). So, the area of the fin still in contact with water pretty much determines whether you’re gonna spin out or not. If you have a small fin your are pretty much out of luck because there is not much fin area in contact with water when the board lifts up. In this case, your only remedy is to move the mast base forward to keep the nose down, or try to keep the board’s windward rail in contact with water which is a difficult thing to do. Larger length fins, on the other hand, have better chance against spin-outs when the nose of the board lifts up because more fin area is still in contact with water. However, you cannot keep using large fins in heavy winds (to prevent spin-out) because more speed causes more lift, and ultimately control problems. Spin-outs also take place if the fin loses its laminar water flow on its chord. That means that a large length fin with large chord spins out faster than the same length fin with shorter chord because the laminar flow on larger chord starts detaching from the fin surface towards the trailing edge and becomes turbulent as the speed increases. Modern fighter jets control this by using small wing thickness to reduce turbulence and drag if the aircraft needs to be employed with large chord (to provide lift). I hope this makes sense.

Hi Nico. We have been using your articles as part of our lockdown, for online meetings and teachings. Love your work and so do members, from the new to the tech heads. Clear, concise and helpful. If you ever are allowed to travel here again we would love to see you at Inverloch Windsurf Club. We could get a group together for you to teach for a weekend clinic for sure. Cheers, Pete

Hi Nico, another excellent article! I think you’re 95% right about the theory on the spinout. The size/shape of the fin, technique, etc. but I have a theory of my own that I’d like to add: I find that a spinout is never gradual. You don’t spin out “a little”. When it happens, it happens all the way, until you make a proper effort to readjust your balance and regain control – or end up in the water. It’s more like an on/off event while windsurfing. My theory is that especially in choppy conditions, if you allow the back of the board (around the fin) to lift out of the water, as it comes back down with a splash, this may result in an air bubble to be captured on the windward side of the fin, rendering the fin completely useless because it doesn’t have water flowing around it to sustain the pressure, resulting in the board behaving as if there is no fin. On my first ever spinout, I actually thought the fin screws must have somehow come loose and my fin fell off entirely. The same can happen in not so choppy conditions and at high speeds, but only when trying to change direction or a slight lift of the board due to change in wind speed, or just carelessness of the rider. An air bubble can form around the fin, killing its effectiveness. However, I can’t prove my “air bubble” theory because I don’t have a camera that can capture this. Maybe you can install a small camera under your board and trigger a spinout and we can see exactly what’s going on down there?

Yo! I really appreciate this article. Your articles are always helpful, but this one is especially good, because my friends and I all recently had a day when we were all spinning out. I think it was because the waves were extra choppy that day, because of high wind. When the wind is super strong, most of us reflexively get down super low, which puts more lateral pressure on the fin. I remember thinking that I needed to muster up some courage and stand a little taller on my board, to put more downward pressure on my fin. You’ve helped me understand why that worked.

Hey Nico, Nice article. I would also like to add a few tips and hopefully things to look out for in regards to spinouts. From a true experience I can confirm that if your fin does not fit in the fin box tightly, then you can also have a lot of problems. You can check this when you have your fin mounted on the board and then grab to edge and wigle it around. If the fin is loose from the box you will feel it wigleing inside the finbox. This I know then creates small vibrations in higher speeds which therefor sucks in a bit of air and damages the flow – spinout. The fix for this is to add layers of any sort of thin material such as soda/beer cans or old x-ray images. The plastic from the x-ray is perfect. If one layer is not enough then you add another one. That REALLY makes a difference I promise. Also for look for any stickers that the manufacturer may have put on the fin. Any little bit of stickers have the same sea wead/grass effect and can do you damage 🙂 I remember that I also saw this as a tip in one of the Neilpryde Pro secrets articles, the old school formula ones.

The comparison with a wing of an airplane is good. By the way if an aircraft inclination is too strong, the airplane will fall because the wing will loose its lift. This is the same principle for windsurf at low speed. At very high speed, 40_50 knots, cavitation may occur as well, it is the creation of an air bubble around the fin.