I’ve become aware that some of my wipe-outs have been when the stab breaches.
Does anyone have any input on when and why these happen? I can’t pinpoint specifically when it happens in my case, but I don’t think this topic has been discussed on here and am interested to learn more about this, if anyone has any opinions i’d love to hear them!
I’ve been fascinated by this ever since I noticed it happening to me. I’d like to hear what the rest of the bunch says. I’ve seemed to correct it with experience, tuning, and weight distribution, but my initial thoughts when it first happened were: It became noticeable when I switched to a shorter fuse (Lift 26 Carve.) It always seemed to happen during a committed direction change, like exiting a wave frontside or a slippery drawn out bottom turn. Sometimes a top turn would cause it and I could recover. In these cases the front wing felt engaged and the back breaching came completely by surprise. It could be as simple as adjusting weight placement, path arc, and nose angle through turns, or related to mast placement and its impact on tail placement.
Stab breaches are fairly rare, I have experienced them at high speed riding flat on a top mounted tail or when enough of the front wing tip is out of the water that the stab tip starts to breach.
People ask me a lot about “stab breaches” and 95% of the time they are actually describing a mast ventilation or their front wing tip is out and they don’t realize it.
Feeling wise, a stab breach just feels like a loss of front foot pressure, like the board “disappearing” from under your feet. Hard to distinguish from a front wing breach. Sometimes it will partially breach and you’ll hear a momentary suction sound and drop lower on the mast.
Mast ventilation feels more like something grabbing the tail of your board and pulling it into the water. It usually happens when banked over at higher speeds.
Check your mast for imperfections and leading edge for flat spots. A 600-1000 grit sand should help.
thank you guys
Kane that makes sense… the one tail breach i actually saw (which got them into my head) was towing on medium ocean rollers, at the crest of the wave while riding high on the mast i saw the tail breach i guess when i dipped the nose of the board to initiate a pump.
I guess the other times i thought were tail breaches were probably mast ventilations, usually when i’m wrestling speed on a bottom turn or coming off the back of a wave at an angle.
Cheers guys - will have a close look at my mast for good order, but i think it’s fine and it’s just my technique…
Can I coin the term “scloop” for a tale breach and recovery? That’s what it sounds like to me. Hehe