Crazy first winging downwinder

[PonoBill]

I've been wanting to do a south side downwinder with a wing foil, and we finally had wind. Stormy and nutz on the north shore, but a bit more controlled on the south side--sort of. Boyum (Headmount) said he was going on a SUP. I was supposed to meet him at the Andaz to drop rigs, but I wanted to get an idea about wing size--the wind was fairly crazy, probably gusting to 35 or more, but some big lulls too. So I went early to try my setup.

**update--iWindsurf says it was a bit windier than I thought--35 gusting to 50mph. So yeah, a little nutty**

I rigged up at the canoe hale in Kihei and headed out with my Axis 1020 with a 75CM mast and 440 stabilizer using my new F-One 3.5. It was plenty zippy going out and back a few times. I figured it would work but might be a little under-powered downwind and I considered using the 4.2. It took longer to figure this out than I expected. When I called Bill he'd been trying to get hold of me for some time. We decided I'd stay at the canoe hale and just catch their ride back. In fact, I decided to launch immediately so I wouldn't hold them up if I was slow.

Turns out the Hale was in a significant shadow and the outside wind was more like 40mph and the gusts were out of control. I flopped around a bit, then got my shit together and did a few nice broad reaches, up on foil and barely in control. Okay, not, but I was generally saving the nutty parts. I tried to head more downwind and caught some nice bumps, which takes a bit of adjustment. As hard as the wind was blowing, when I caught a bump going downwind the wing kind of flopped around in front of me--trying to rip out of my hands in the gusts, and threatening to drop a tip in the lulls.

Still, really fun, and I was getting some fairly long runs before losing it. The bad part was that when I'd crash I was in a maelstrom, with the wing going nuts and the board flipping over, threatening to shred the wing with the foil.

I kept going, feeling a little more confident with every longish run. Then about half a mile from Kalama park, the wind went gave one last wicked blow. spindrift everywhere, and then turned off. Bill and the guys caught up to me right about then while I was bobbing around in zero wind, so Bill and I agreed I'll pull in to the park and get picked up there. On the way in I fell off, dropped a foot down and found a Wana--spiked me in two toes. I hate that.

The guys showed up about an hour later with Jeremy's truck. We loaded up and they shuttled me back to my rig. Short run, but action-packed. I can do this, I know it. It's going to take a while to be good at it, but I felt the downwind rip. It's gonna happen.

No. the little video is not from today, it's in the harbor, shot by my daughter Elizabeth Babcock. Just representative.

https://www.facebook.com/PonoBill/videos/10157036455263668/

[JEG]

Looking good bill and looking forward to my wing foil dw oneday.
I wanted to dw foil but because I'm shthouse at pumping and I'm hopping the hand wing will get me that feeling 

[Admin]

Nice Bill!  You got the first one out of the way.  After that one, I bet if you go on a super filled in 5 meter day it will feel easy .