- Ideal conditions:Smooth water, 18-30 knots
- Ideal material:Freestyle sails 4.0-5.2 square metres, freestyle boards
- Learning requirements:Ducking, baking
The Kono has already celebrated its 10th anniversary. The move was invented in 2007 by former world champion Kiri Thode and named after his cousin Kono. As the mother of all power moves, it still scores good points in contests today; the difficulty of the World Cup judges is around 6.2 points. And here's how to crack this move:
1-2) Ducking: A lot of speed upwind is the basic requirement, for ducking it helps to have a real freestyle sail with good neutrality in your hands. Keep your weight on the heels during the duck and dive under the sail into the back position. You can also find all the key points and error analyses for ducking in detail in surf issue 8/2016.
3-4) Build up pressure: As soon as you have both hands on the fork again, you need to build up the counter-pressure required to take off. You can do this by ancarving further to windward over the front heel. Initially keep the mast at a distance with your mast hand and the sail open so that the counter-pressure does not push you downwind from the board at this early stage.
5-6) Jump! The further you have carved into the wind and the more speed you still have at this point of the manoeuvre, the more radically it can catapult you out. To prevent the energy from dissipating, you should actively pull the sail upwards with both arms, as if you wanted to lift the boom over your head with outstretched arms.
7-9) Flight phase: From the stretched body position during the take-off, you now actively pull yourself under the sail and adopt as compact a body position as possible ("from tall to small"). Looking over your front shoulder supports the rotation and allows you to aim for your landing spot.
10-11) Landing: At the beginning, it is easier to land clew first and only then perform the slide. As soon as you manage to generate the necessary altitude, you can also slide all the way through in the air (12-14) - this gives you extra points with the judges
Power trick or peasant trick?
Whether you beam out of the water like on the Playstation or you run out of juice again, it all depends on the right technique. Once you have mastered the duck and the sail loads up noticeably when carving upwind, you need to convert the power into height. Davy's pro tip: try to pull the boom vertically upwards (5a)! The most common mistake is to simply push into the sail/clew with the sail hand (5b) - although the sail also loads up, you never get upwind and it usually just throws you backwards onto your back. The bottom line is that it helps to imagine: "Hang the fork on the ceiling (5-6) and then pull yourself up (7-8)!"
