Wing Foil tips for beginners- Wing Surf voice-over video

[blueplanetsurf]

Recently we had several accidents with punctured wings and I lost my wing due to a torn leash- learn from our screw ups and more voiceover tips, I hope it's helpful:

[obxDave]

Robert, you definitely convinced me that a pole mounted on a waist harness is not a cam mount option for me! Seeing that stuck between the boom and the wing was all I needed to see. I made a simple (quick and dirty)  short boom extension to mount a GoPro Max off the back of the boom. Just enough distance to give a reasonable view of the entire wing and rider without a huge amount of distortion.  Didn’t seem to affect wing performance from my experience

I have no doubt you will love the new Echo’s right away. Wonderful improvement. If a 61 yr old weak klutz like me can adapt to a 6m, you will be screaming on it in 10 minutes. Much better luffing and amazing how high you can point upwind with these Gen 2 wings.

Side note; your 5’8” Carver is still going strong with a local friend who joined us wing foiling this spring.

[blueplanetsurf]

Thanks Dave,
I got to try the 6M Echo wing for two days in a row.  You are right, it's a great wing and it luffs well on the wave, it's a game-changer for lighter wind days for me.

Nice setup with the boom extension, I might try that as well.  I just ordered the GoPro Max, what is your workflow for editing the video?
Stoked to hear the 5'8 Carver is still being used!

[obxDave]

Thanks Dave,
I got to try the 6M Echo wing for two days in a row.  You are right, it's a great wing and it luffs well on the wave, it's a game-changer for lighter wind days for me.

Nice setup with the boom extension, I might try that as well.  I just ordered the GoPro Max, what is your workflow for editing the video?
Stoked to hear the 5'8 Carver is still being used!

Sorry for the topic diversion but here is my Go Pro Max work flow (I’m not a tech geek so excuse any mistakes)

1.) I use the GoPro App on my IPad Pro to link with my Max camera. The app will link with any of the  GoPro‘s back to a Hero 2.

2.) I can view all captured video in low resolution format directly on the camera from the app on my IPad without having to download any footage. An hours worth of video is typically broken down into ~8 min clips. The App will allow me to play/scroll the video clips and do a quick-and-dirty-on-the-fly reframe to figure out what I want to keep.

3.) The App allows me trim out and save any time segment I chose. For that hour of 360 video, I might save 10 clips totaling 4 min, just as an example. Those ten clips get saved to the App on my Tablet. I have not done any official reframing yet. It’s still in 360 format.  No sense downloading all 60 min of video. Takes a long time, your hard drive fills up fast, and doing a full reframe for an hour of video is laborious.

4.) with the small 360 clips in the app, I now do the reframing. It sounds labor intensive but it’s not that bad for the four min worth of video I collected. Easy point and slide. It’s really pretty cool to quickly spin to view at any angle you want.  After  I’ve reframed each clip and go to save it, it gets rendered as a traditional 1440\60 video clip and saved back into the GoPro app.

5.) I’ll take the rendered saved clips and finally save copies of them to my files on my IPad

6.) I do my final video edit using a standard video editor Luma Fusion on my IPad, where I can do all the typical stuff like slo-mo, titles, transitions, music/audio, etc

It sounds labor intensive but it’s not that bad after a little practice. Even sitting through an hour of video goes fast because you can scroll through the timeline at 2-3x speed when looking at the raw low res footage on the camera card

Back on topic. Speaking of useful wing foiling training videos, I would love to see something dealing with two surf issues;  1) techniques for getting out past shore break conditions and 2) dealing with getting caught in the impact zone.  We mostly get to see all the cool stuff when things are going well. I want to know what happens to that pro rider AFTER he wipes out in the middle of the impact zone!   Maybe some overlap with SUP and prone surf foiling do’s and don’ts (?)

[blueplanetsurf]

Thank you for the 3D edit tips.  I had a Garmin 360 camera but stopped using it because the editing process was too complicated and time-consuming, it sounds easier with the gopro app.

Getting caught in the impact zone with a wing is not good.  If you can, fly/ throw your wing over the wave that helps but that's not always possible, like if you wipe out right in front of the wave.  As mentioned in the video, my boom came off and my wrist leash broke when I got worked by a big whitewater wave.  I lost the wing and someone collected it two miles downwind and I finally got it back two weeks later.  So my tip: avoid getting worked with a wing and get a stronger leash than what comes with the wings.   Same for shorebreak, if you can't paddle out through it quickly during a lull, avoid big shore break. 

[obxDave]

Getting caught in the impact zone with a wing is not good.  If you can, fly/ throw your wing over the wave that helps but that's not always possible, like if you wipe out right in front of the wave.  As mentioned in the video, my boom came off and my wrist leash broke when I got worked by a big whitewater wave.  I lost the wing and someone collected it two miles downwind and I finally got it back two weeks later.  So my tip: avoid getting worked with a wing and get a stronger leash than what comes with the wings.   Same for shorebreak, if you can't paddle out through it quickly during a lull, avoid big shore break.

Yep, my biggest fear is doing a whitewash tumble with a foil rig on a fairly short 8 ft coil waist leash. I think you mentioned using a “real leash” to deal with that situation. I have one and definitely plan on using it for ocean side riding.

I’ve heard some other riders mention the “wing throw” method. Sounds a bit sketchy at best. Heck, those little leash attachment loops sewn into the leading edge don’t look like they’d survive very well even with super strong leash on your wrist.

Our oceanside surf conditions in the Outer Banks for wind sports (kiting, windsurfing, and Winging) kinda  suck compared to the west coast or Hawaii. No decent outside reefs here. Mostly shore break at high tide and close out sets on small close-in sand bars at low tide. Wing foiling winds usually result in pretty messy looking blown out short period waves in onshore winds. Side shore and slight side off winds might work ok. I figure I will stick to lighter side-on to side-off winds and low tide waist high max conditions for a better chance of not getting worked!

One good thing about Kites, they’re pretty easy to keep in the air and they can haul you out of the impact zone quickly. A wing is definitely a bit more of a liability than an asset

[blueplanetsurf]

Thanks Dave,
I got to try the 6M Echo wing for two days in a row.  You are right, it's a great wing and it luffs well on the wave, it's a game-changer for lighter wind days for me.

Nice setup with the boom extension, I might try that as well.  I just ordered the GoPro Max, what is your workflow for editing the video?
Stoked to hear the 5'8 Carver is still being used!

Sorry for the topic diversion but here is my Go Pro Max work flow (I’m not a tech geek so excuse any mistakes)

1.) I use the GoPro App on my IPad Pro to link with my Max camera. The app will link with any of the  GoPro‘s back to a Hero 2.

2.) I can view all captured video in low resolution format directly on the camera from the app on my IPad without having to download any footage. An hours worth of video is typically broken down into ~8 min clips. The App will allow me to play/scroll the video clips and do a quick-and-dirty-on-the-fly reframe to figure out what I want to keep.

3.) The App allows me trim out and save any time segment I chose. For that hour of 360 video, I might save 10 clips totaling 4 min, just as an example. Those ten clips get saved to the App on my Tablet. I have not done any official reframing yet. It’s still in 360 format.  No sense downloading all 60 min of video. Takes a long time, your hard drive fills up fast, and doing a full reframe for an hour of video is laborious.

4.) with the small 360 clips in the app, I now do the reframing. It sounds labor intensive but it’s not that bad for the four min worth of video I collected. Easy point and slide. It’s really pretty cool to quickly spin to view at any angle you want.  After  I’ve reframed each clip and go to save it, it gets rendered as a traditional 1440\60 video clip and saved back into the GoPro app.

5.) I’ll take the rendered saved clips and finally save copies of them to my files on my IPad

6.) I do my final video edit using a standard video editor Luma Fusion on my IPad, where I can do all the typical stuff like slo-mo, titles, transitions, music/audio, etc

It sounds labor intensive but it’s not that bad after a little practice. Even sitting through an hour of video goes fast because you can scroll through the timeline at 2-3x speed when looking at the raw low res footage on the camera card

Back on topic. Speaking of useful wing foiling training videos, I would love to see something dealing with two surf issues;  1) techniques for getting out past shore break conditions and 2) dealing with getting caught in the impact zone.  We mostly get to see all the cool stuff when things are going well. I want to know what happens to that pro rider AFTER he wipes out in the middle of the impact zone!   Maybe some overlap with SUP and prone surf foiling do’s and don’ts (?)

Thanks for the gopro max editing tips obxDave, I used your workflow to create my first video using the gopro max- how to jump.
I added "what to do if you wipe out in the impact zone" to the video, just for you:

[obxDave]

Robert, that was a perfect clip for dealing with the impact zone!  I liked your approach of hang on and fly it above you for small enough waves, and send it up (release) on larger ones. Like I said, we get to see lots of wave riding videos and virtually nothing when down in the water in the impact zone.

Questions. Let’s say the set you got caught in (in the video) had 3 more sizable breaking waves after the one you did wing toss on. Would you have enough time to knee start and get up between two breaking waves? Or would you likely have to ride it out in the water until the set finished? If you could knee start fast enough between breaking waves, I assume you would start on the tack running with the wave? Yes/no?  Have you ever seen anyone get smacked with the board/foil when down in the impact zone just using a typical 8’ waist coil leash?   

The Max is really cool but it does require some rethinking about how to make best use of reframing. I’m still watching a lot of how to videos on different techniques. You’re right, some angles work well, others not so much.   I’m anxious to get in the ocean here despite our lousy surf conditions compared to Hawaii. Have at least a few more weeks of a healing from a torn finger ligament. Price I paid for learning those behind-the-back-wing-pass tacks.......

[blueplanetsurf]

Robert, that was a perfect clip for dealing with the impact zone!  I liked your approach of hang on and fly it above you for small enough waves, and send it up (release) on larger ones. Like I said, we get to see lots of wave riding videos and virtually nothing when down in the water in the impact zone.

Questions. Let’s say the set you got caught in (in the video) had 3 more sizable breaking waves after the one you did wing toss on. Would you have enough time to knee start and get up between two breaking waves? Or would you likely have to ride it out in the water until the set finished? If you could knee start fast enough between breaking waves, I assume you would start on the tack running with the wave? Yes/no?  Have you ever seen anyone get smacked with the board/foil when down in the impact zone just using a typical 8’ waist coil leash?   

The Max is really cool but it does require some rethinking about how to make best use of reframing. I’m still watching a lot of how to videos on different techniques. You’re right, some angles work well, others not so much.   I’m anxious to get in the ocean here despite our lousy surf conditions compared to Hawaii. Have at least a few more weeks of a healing from a torn finger ligament. Price I paid for learning those behind-the-back-wing-pass tacks.......

Glad you liked it.  When you are in the impact zone in a set like this you usually don't have enough time to launch between waves, unless it's a very long period swell maybe.  You would definitely want to launch going in away from the waves and hope you can stand up and get on foil before you get hit by the whitewater, it's very hard to hang on (and dangerous) getting pushed by fast moving whitewater before you are up on foil.
So I would say it's best to ride out the swell and try to minimize damage to the wing by flying it over the whitewater if possible, like in the video.  Waist coil leash is no different.

Bummer about the torn ligament, I have been doing some the behind the back wing pass tacks too, I found I can't do it with leash attached to waist.  When leash is on the wrist you have to make sure to pass the leash overhead before bringing wing around the back or you end up with wing leash wrapped around the waist.

[obxDave]

Glad you liked it.  When you are in the impact zone in a set like this you usually don't have enough time to launch between waves, unless it's a very long period swell maybe.  You would definitely want to launch going in away from the waves and hope you can stand up and get on foil before you get hit by the whitewater, it's very hard to hang on (and dangerous) getting pushed by fast moving whitewater before you are up on foil.
So I would say it's best to ride out the swell and try to minimize damage to the wing by flying it over the whitewater if possible, like in the video.  Waist coil leash is no different.

Bummer about the torn ligament, I have been doing some the behind the back wing pass tacks too, I found I can't do it with leash attached to waist.  When leash is on the wrist you have to make sure to pass the leash overhead before bringing wing around the back or you end up with wing leash wrapped around the waist.

Yep, about what I expected. The idea of getting yanked around in the whitewash leashed into the wing and the foilboard at the same time does not sound overly appealing, but then again I won’t be venturing into anything over waist high  anytime soon either.

On the behind-the-back tack I put a ~4’ line extension on my coil wrist leash and simply wrap my Velcro wrist band onto my waist belt. Before I tack I have to make sure the leash wraps around my back so that it “unwinds” through the 180 deg turn. Otherwise it winds tighter and doesn’t work. All that extra line flapping around is a PITA, but I sorta got used to it. Aside from my missed grab injury, I would also do that rear regrab so quickly (in order to repower quickly to stay on foil) that my hand would overshoot the bar just enough that my fingers would constantly catch on the Echo canopy tension line. It’s like that move just tortured my hands no matter what!