Windsurf Spinouts: Why They Happen and How to Avoid Them

Your board is planing, and all of a sudden the tail slides away and you're almost sailing sideways over the water. That's a spinout. It's a common problem for freeriders and freeracers, and it's super annoying: you lose a lot of speed, you go way downwind, and it's just not a fun experience.

Does your heart drop every time you have a massive spinout, and you go "where did that come from"? Then this one is for you. I'll explain the physics behind it and how you can avoid it, so you can spare yourself the minor heart attacks. We'll look at three things: the physics, your technique and your gear setup. Prefer to watch? The full video is at the end of this guide. There's also a checklist to save on your phone.

Why you don't spin out: your fin works like a wing

Before we ask ourselves why you spin out, we should ask ourselves why you don't spin out. The answer: your fin. If you're curious what it looks like to go out on the water without a fin, you don't have to try it, because I did that for you in the video. Let's just say the fin is quite important.

But how does it actually keep you in place? Your fin works essentially just like a plane. Once you get some drive from your sail, water starts streaming around your fin. The fin basically slices the water in half, and that creates lift, just like the airstream around the wings of a plane.

Just imagine a plane flying sideways through the water. That's essentially your fin creating lift, and that's the reason you feel pressure on your back foot.

As we know, a plane needs a certain speed to take off. That's because the more speed the wing, or the fin, has, the more lift it creates. And you can actually feel that while sailing: put too much pressure on your back foot at a relatively low speed and you'll spin out, because your fin simply can't generate enough lift, or power, yet.

In simple terms: you're putting more pressure on your fin than it can make lift for, and that's when you spin out.

Technique: the first reason you could be spinning out

When you start planing: back foot in front of the back strap

Now that you know how the fin works, you'll easily understand that at low speeds you can't put as much lateral pressure on your gear.

So when you start planing, keep your back foot in front of your back strap until you reach a speed that allows the fin to create enough lift. Then put your foot into the back strap.

If you have spinout problems during that phase, you'll possibly need to be much more upright and forward on the board. (Just getting into the footstraps? That whole step is in my planing tutorial.)

At higher speed: the board gets too loose

You could also have problems with spinouts at higher speeds, which is okay if it doesn't happen too often. Even I spin out sometimes. Let me tell you why.

Spinouts at higher speed can happen, for example, if your board becomes too loose. Basically the trim of the nose is too high, so you get a lot of air under the board. Especially in choppier conditions, all of a sudden your fin can come out of the water a little bit. That way you lose surface area of the fin in the water, and the fin generates less lift.

That's part of the reason why you need to work a lot with your body, especially when it's choppy: as soon as you have less fin in the water, you need to release pressure.

A common mistake: pushing the upwind rail out too

Along with that comes another common mistake at higher speed. People often try to push not only the front of the board out of the water, but also the upwind rail.

Especially some carbon fins are able to carry you like that, but glass fibre fins are not so good at it. And in that position the fin becomes extremely sensitive to any mistake, which often results in a spinout.

Gear: your windsurf fin

Apart from your technique, the gear obviously plays a big role when it comes to frequent spinouts. And with the gear, first and foremost: the fin.

Keep your fin in good condition

Really anything that disturbs a perfect water stream around the fin can cause problems. Some of you might already know the struggles with seaweed: even just a bit of it can cause major spinouts. But even small damages or uneven surfaces can cause a hydrodynamic stall, which ends up in a spinout. So make sure your fin is always in good condition.

Profile and area

Fins obviously come in a lot of different shapes, profiles, materials and sizes. The thicker the profile of a fin and the more area it has, the more lift it creates, and the harder you have to push before it spins out.

A fin big enough for your board and its tail

As you know, I always preach that the fin size depends much more on the size of the board, and the size of its tail, than on the sail. A wider board, and especially a wider tail, lets you put more leverage on the fin.

Based on what you've learned so far, you can already guess where this is going: if the fin is too small for the width of your board and the width of its tail, you're more likely to spin out. (How to find the right size is in my windsurf fin size guide. More on spinouts and board trim is in my freeride guide.)

Gear: your sail

The right sail size

We know that bigger sails create more pressure. Sometimes it's so much pressure that the fin can't withstand it. One simple solution is to move to a smaller sail when it's too windy, or to use a bigger fin or a bigger board when it's very light.

Sail trim: more outhaul

But you can also adapt the trim of your sail. Often, spinouts happen when the pressure point is too far back in the sail and too low. Some sail brands have the pressure point further forward, some further back.

But usually, with all sails, what helps is to simply apply more outhaul. It releases pressure on your back hand and back foot. A lot of people who struggle with spinouts simply don't have enough outhaul and have a big belly in the sail. Just don't kill the sail with too much outhaul tension: a good rule of thumb for the right outhaul tension is that when you sheet in, the sail just touches the boom.

To get your sail perfectly trimmed and avoid spinouts, you might find some helpful tips in this video and in my guide Windsurf Sail Trim: 3 Rigging Mistakes Almost Everyone Makes.

And if none of this helps, you can still blame it on the current, the gusty wind, or me.

What I saw in your spinout footage

I asked you on Instagram to send me your spinout footage so I could review it. It seems like pretty much all of you have the same problem: the board gets too loose, you lose surface area of the fin in the water, and that causes you to spin out.

And this really is a balance. I always say that everything in life is a balance, and this is the same thing: you want to get the board out of the water as much as you can, but without losing surface area of the fin in the water.

Get the board flying, but keep the fin in the water.

That's really my last advice here. Below you'll find the steps once more, plus my spinout checklist. Save it on your phone and take it to the beach.