Geezers on foil pics

[headmount]

Pono has been kind enough to share his board with me although at the end of the day when i get home feeling like I was in the ring with Frazier, I wonder if 'kind' is the right word.  We take a regular board out and switch off in the water so we can take a break when we get gassed.  He has a 200 foil and it lifts very quick, sometimes faster than I can rearrange my feet into center stance.  Then there's 55 yrs of engrained surfing reactions to rewire in order to control pitch.  At any rate I'm gonna wear an impact vest from now on.  Pono (blue shirt) did really good and eventually I think we have hope.

[headmount]

This first shot was a decent start but I let it lift too much in second shot.  Then came that previous straight leg pic to correct.  Getting weight forward this way with hands worked only for a moment before impact.  Much better to have knees bent and hips forward but I had freaked out from this previous shot where I had let it start to polaris on me.

[PonoBill]

Cool! Who took those? Tomoko? I can see I didn't have my shoulders squared across the board. Probably a very brief opportunity for a picture.  I have a couple of extra impact vests you can try. I think the helmet I tried today is a non-starter, it kept my ears full of water which was distracting. The last thing I need is distractions. With this stupid Kona wind it might be a while before we get a decent foil opportunity. Maybe we should give the west side downwinder idea a go.

Ah, yes, I went to Tomoko's facebook page and found this. That's more like it.

[supthecreek]

Knock it off you two.... don’t turn this into a geezer thing!
Sheesh, then we’d all have to try it 😱

Looking good for old foils.

[Beasho]

Great stuff you guys. 

3 sessions of pain.  2 Sessions of epiphany.

By 10 sessions "I got this!"

The necessity of weighted front foot and dead center footing is very unlike surfing.  The faster you can adapt the quicker you will have sessions where you actually Don't fall.

[WhatsSUP]

VERY cool HM!!!

Looks crazy fun and you guys appear well on your way to nailing it.

Nice to see some pics of some Zoner Legends!!!!!


Thanks for sharing.  Look forward to more!

[stoneaxe]

Very very cool.

[blueplanetsurf]

Well done!  The first few days are the worst.  Once you figure out how to place your feel and control the pitch with front foot pressure you will get your first long glide and you'll be hooked.

[surfcowboy]

Love it guys. I actually like the idea of swapping boards with a buddy. Seems like a beginning foil session would be exhausting or short lol.

[PonoBill]

I got a 30-40 yard glide in the harbor yesterday and landed without falling. Then picked up the wave right behind and got another 10-20 yards without falling. Felt fantastic. Then I got into a bigger wave with more steam and the board kind of leaped up. I freaked a bit and shoved the nose back down but did it a little too aggressively and faceplanted from two feet up. I gotta say, augering in from just a little higher than normal is substantially different. Maybe we're going faster too, but it stings a bit. Okay, more than a bit. I think I bounced once on that faceplant.

[clay]

Awesome!   Cool to see and I look forward hearing about 40 minute Maliko run flights.

[sharksupper]

Great action shots!  Keep up the good work! 

[headmount]

We're using a 200 foil and while it gets up at low speed quickly, my troubles often occur because I'm not able to follow that quickness with foot shift and forward knee bend.  Still relying on 'snowball' takeoffs where I have the most success since just the act of paddling can shift your weight back too much.  I just take a few strokes, get firmly in the front strap and lean forward.  It feels like suicide but it's worked every time for me.