Steep and Hollow

[Beasho]

He's a video of James Casey riding his Sunova prone/tow foil in big Uluwatu
Lots of shoulders early, but some pretty critical stuff near the 3 minute mark (pic)

Jeff Clark was observing that "Even a grandmother can get towed into big waves on a foil."  He was going to put on a bathrobe and wig and get towed into an outer Mavericks wave to make his point.

James does some pretty cool stuff pumping back into macking waves and riding gigantic faces but never took off under his own power.

What JonDrums is talking about is going from ZERO to 20 mph taking off either PRONE or SUP under your own power.  It is a very difficult thing to modulate the rapid increase in lift.  And if you hit 25 mph LOOK OUT.

PonoBill suggests the Hawaiians are doing this but we have yet to see any video evidence.

Whether it is Steep Hollow (and small) or Big Slope'y and Fast the problem is the same with keeping it all together. 

Sam Pa'e recommended to me to takeoff and immediately drop off the back of the wave, effectively kicking out behind the wave.  If you manage to stay just over the edge, on the spine of the wave, you can keep riding and watch the wave as it goes from 'mental' and steep until it loses its energy.  Then you give little pump and drop back into the softer face of the wave and have your fun.  This sounds easier to do than to put into practice because when it is required you are probably taking off on a beast of an 8, 10 or 12 foot wave and trying to manage all the energy while threading the needle perfectly along the line of the wave.  This also violates JonDrums objective of riding in the pocket.

[bigmtn]

Get a longer mast, at least for bigger waves.  I took out the 90cm mast (with the axis 900 foil) on a rather large day for foiling (4-6ft hawaiian) and found the takeoffs to be much more manageable.  With the foil deeper it doesn't pick up as much energy, and things just felt more relaxed on takeoff.  Almost felt like a dampener on the foil, and slowed things down a bit, during the initial drop.