Skiing In Wind

[Ethan]

I'm about to do my tournament today, and the water conditions are a bit choppy, I would say 10mph winds, I'm wondering if it would be easier to ski into or with the wind...

[rogerw]

That's like normal conditions where I used to ski. Advantages and disadvantages with both directions but skiing into the wind would be more forgiving. With the wind behind you tend to get blown down course, so dont 'pull' so long downwind, Perhaps a shade more 'pull' into the wind to stop you from going too narrow.

If this is wrong dont blame me and good luck

 

[Horton]

most people prefer skiing into a light headwind. I do not advocating changing your approach or technique headwind or tailwind.

[503Kento]

One of our very experienced (76 years old still runs 35 off) club members told me a couple of weeks ago “Kent, the wind is your friend, you just need to learn to love him.”   I’ve not turned down a set regardless of the wind conditions since.  Main difference is gate set up and what you can get away with. Into the wind start later and you can get away with long pulls.  Downwind, pretty much the opposite. 

[Mrs_MS]

Be small and arrow dynamic😜

[6balls]

I usually set up the pass I want into the light headwind (my shortest pass).  Does mean I need to run my second from hardest pass tailwind. 

Caveat multi-round tournament: put my second hardest pass on the headwind to for sure put it in the books and then my hardest is tail which, while not impossible, is a tall order.  Next two round set up my hardest pass headwind.  

If it's really light, I don't care.  Sometimes I've run a really nice hardest pass in a light tail

[skialex]

I prefer it when there’s some dust involved… 😊

[lkb]

On 8/4/2024 at 10:55 AM, Ethan said:

I'm about to do my tournament today, and the water conditions are a bit choppy, I would say 10mph winds, I'm wondering if it would be easier to ski into or with the wind...

How did it go?

[Jayadams]

Headwind:

Need to pull out for the gate later with same intensity or same time with more intensity and a little longer duration.  In the course stay strong behind the boat and make sure you get the width to go around the buoy.  Tone down your turns and let the ski do most of the work. Once the ski comes back under the line be prepared and in good stacked position to take a hard pull...repeat.

Tailwind:

Either pull out earlier or pull out with less energy. I tend to go half a boat to full boat length earlier. In the course can be tricky as pulling too aggressively and long will render too much speed at the turn.  Myself I tone it down 10% and focus on getting centered and balanced in the pre-turn to get the ski to engage and turn more aggressively.  More than anything I focus on making the turn tighter and more aggressive/snappy.

 

Hope this helps and this is what I think about. I'm a mid 38 off skier.

[Ethan]

@lkbI placed 4th out of 12 skiers in my age group, pretty happy with that, but the picture I posted was when it was actually pretty calm, the wind picked up significantly when the tournament started.