Wave Performance

Bearing some similarities to freestyle, wave sailing has been part of the sport for much longer (indeed, modern freestyle started off, in essence, as wave sailing without waves). Wave sailing took off during the rapid development of windsurfing on the Hawaiian islands of Oahu and Maui. It can be seen as comprising two distinct (but related) parts, wave riding and wave jumping.

Wave jumping, as with freestyle, involves stunts of varying levels of difficulty which are performed after the rider has jumped from the peak of an unbroken wave (having sailed towards the wave, thus using it as a ramp). These are commonly referred to as aerial moves and include both clockwise (forward loop, cheese roll) and anti-clockwise. The rider and his equipment rotate, doing single & double rotations and jumps where the sailor contorts his or her body and equipment (table top and Crazy Pete, etc.).

Recent innovations have included combining moves whilst airborne (i.e. the pushy-forward ? a push loop followed by a forward loop) and one professional sailor, Ricardo Campello, has made attempts at a triple (three complete rotations) forward loop during a 2008 PWA competition.