Wing foil sessions - beginner

[Califoilia]

Oh, and one terrifying moment getting out yesterday. High tide, steep beach, and a berm built up to hold back the swell. I’d gone way down south near the jetty where it’s open to the swell (chest high shore break) and just couldn’t deal with getting back upwind so I tried to time it and did “ok”. Walked in from chest deep and got swept up onto the beach by a nice wave... and then it sucked out. I barely hung on and kept my board up out of the impact zone. My wing just flailed and was fine and I could keep the foil & board from nailing me or destroying itself. I honestly think the only time I need a helmet is getting in and out of the water.

Dude!! That's what did me in back in June. Heading to enter the water in big high tide shore break, timed it wrong, got stuck in butt high backwash that I couldn't move in either way, made a last ditch effort to throw the board over the breaking whitewash to keep from getting tangled up with it, and the foil/hatchet below it in the impact zone where I was stuck standing - and BAM!! - friggen wave threw it right back at and onto me. SOB!!

Be careful out there bro!

[jondrums]

whelp, I guess I'm winging now.  Or I will be once I fix my wing.  Two whole sessions under my belt, which includes a few moments of foiling, but mostly flailing.

Today, while walking the rig back upwind along the beach, the very gusty wind got under the board and flipped it right onto the wing.  The tail pierced into the leading edge for an insta-deflate, and a much longer walk of shame.  I guess instead of wing instructional videos, I'll be watching wing repair instructional videos.  Repair tips appreciated.

[Dwight (DW)]

Repair tips appreciated.

Leading edge blow outs are one repair you should send to a top repair guy. Other repairs anyone can do, even you.

The reason...in years past, kites were sewn with simple “thicker” polyester thread, available for any sailboat supply house. Today, most brands have switched to some high tensile fancy stuff, that I suspect, only the big players have made an effort to procure. Airtime and fixmykite, I would hope.

[surfcowboy]

Jon, welcome and that sucks.

It’s a good time. I promise lol. But that walk, damnit. So hard.

SanO I think I’ve worked out that in the shore break I do my best to pull the board down and under which is counter intuitive coming from SUP where you never could. I’m starting my small board next week. Optimistic I know but I figure I’ll be able to ride it by the time it’s done at least in flat water.

[PonoBill]

Bottom handles, especially big, meaty ones, are the key to shore pound. With just a little practice you can grab the bottom handle quickly with the foil pointed away from you. even if you need to slog a bit you can manage to hang on while being pounded. I added one to my wing board and set it back too far so the nose is always down. That bug turns out to be a feature. walking into or out of the surf with the nose down and tail high is a little easier. Especially getting out. the waves go under the tail unless they're huge, and then you're fucked no matter what.

[jondrums]

I'm going to send off my wing to Airtime in Hood River.  They seem like a good outfit for repairs. 

[PonoBill]

They do great work.

[surfcowboy]

Pono, I love a happy accident. At least when building, not in the surf.

[surfcowboy]

Ok so session report. First, I gotta say, take a trip if you don't live near the water lol. I'm taking forever to get 20 sessions in. (Might go to SD next week actually and double up my water time.)

Anyway, hit Castaic Lake north of LA (Lower Lagoon.) It's cool, you pay for parking an launch, wear a PFD, and ideally a helmet. Don't be a jerk, they just let wings back on the lake and they are "monitoring" it. We go about 3X faster than anything else there lol so be cool.

Waaaay easier without the big chop. Didn't get good wind but stayed upwind the whole time even schlogging back and forth. Got on foil a couple of times which is good as I'm not sure the wind got much over 10mph the whole session (gusts maybe.) So that's progress for sure. I'll go back and I'm going to do some harbor and lake sessions til I get my feet under me.

I'm going to pick up in the thread about wind window as I have a weird thing to ask. To stay upwind you keep your wing back towards the tail, right? Like you hold more back that forward. If you move the wing to the nose of the board, you head downwind. I gotta watch that YouTube video again because I swear he holds the wing out in front of him and I don't get that.

Someone needs to do videos for people who never wind surfed or kited. There's a lot of assumptions out there being made. If I see one more "how to Wingsurf" video that says, "you probably kited or windsurfed" I'm screaming. lol Be pedantic, we surfers and paddlers don't know. And we are the growth for you guys.

Anyway. I'm hooked, it's fun. I can knee start (crouch) and don't fall much when I'm not on foil. I can land the foil about half the time instead of crashing. Gybes  on foil are a faraway dream, and I'm fine with it. This is fun. Just need more sessions.

Oh, and LA is getting eaten up with Wing Dingers. We are going to have a fuuuun spring if we can get vaccinated so we can shuttle cars. hahahahaa #2020 But I can see 10 mile downwingers in my near future for sure. And I know I know, I can get back upwind. But I'm lazy. Upwind will be for late 2021.

In the YouTube video

[bigmtn]

Do a downwinder now. That's what helped me most. Once you got the basics, just go fly down wind. You don't worry about staying upwind and can just enjoy it. Makes learning jibes easier because you can just keep trying over and over as you drift down the coast.

[surfcowboy]

This is exactly my thought. No hassles, just foil and fall and foil some more.

[obxDave]

I'm going to pick up in the thread about wind window as I have a weird thing to ask. To stay upwind you keep your wing back towards the tail, right? Like you hold more back that forward. If you move the wing to the nose of the board, you head downwind. I gotta watch that YouTube video again because I swear he holds the wing out in front of him and I don't get that.

Someone needs to do videos for people who never wind surfed or kited. There's a lot of assumptions out there being made. If I see one more "how to Wingsurf" video that says, "you probably kited or windsurfed" I'm screaming. lol Be pedantic, we surfers and paddlers don't know. And we are the growth for you guys.

I thought about your upwind learning question. In the gazillion years I’ve been muckin around with water wind sports, I really learned everything about efficient sailing orientations on a good ole sailing dinghy long before any of these new fangled wind sports showed up. This might sound like a step backwards but learning to sail a Laser or 420 (or even a lowly Sunfish, or in my case racing Hobie 16’s in a one design fleet) teaches you more about efficient points of sail than any of these newer sports.  For the few years I worked as a windsurf and kiteboard instructor, teaching people how to effectively ride upwind by saying “do this and this” is next to impossible. You can say it and demonstrate it, but it won’t just click. On a two person dinghy you can actually teach it and the people your teaching can start to “feel” it, as hokey as that sounds

If you don’t want to bother learning to sail a dinghy (I’d certainly understand that) then as others have said, be content to settle for downwind riding, and you’ll slowly get an intuitive feel for how to work with the wind. Doesn’t matter whether it’s windsurfing, kiteboarding, kitefoiling, wing foiling, or a 40’ cruiser, my brain treats it the same as those little dinghy’s I grew up with, “spot the gust, build some speed, sheet er in and point er up, but don’t pinch too high and don’t over sheet😀”

[Admin]

Hi Cowboy,

Upwind: try this right now.  Stand up, hold your imaginary wing straight in front of you and look straight at it.  Now rotate your head to look way over your front hand shoulder.  See what happened to your hands?  They mechanically went back a bit (or stayed still as your head and torso rotated away from them).  That is the basic motion of pointing.  Your head and shoulders will lead your body and your direction.  Twist your hips into it and you have most of the rest.  There are a lot of little subtleties that will help but these are the broad strokes.

Your progress is great!

[PonoBill]

I assume a few zillion years of windsurfing helps, but I confess to being a little puzzled why people are having trouble going upwind. For a geezer with deteriorating balance, upwind is a piece of cake, downwind is a bitch. Upwind you get to hang on to something--in my case a fake boom--downwind the thing you were using to keep from falling is now trying to yank you off the board.

Even more important is apparent wind. Going Upwind at 10 mph at a 45-degree angle to the wind the 5.2 mph vector (cos(45)*speed) into the wind gets added to the wind speed, so 10mph wind becomes 15mph. Downwind it subtracts and if you're going straight downwind the vector is 100 percent of your speed, so the apparent wind is 0 mph and you're holding your wing up with both hands while you try to foil.

Losing the apparent wind is what makes gybing so hard. And all that apparent wind blowing in your face is what makes tacking hard.

[bigmtn]

For me when learning the problem wasn't going upwind, it was staying upwind. I'd go upwind, then I'd fall, and would thus drift farther and farther downwind until I got back up. Kind of a one step upwind, 3 steps downwind. Once I got to the point that I could jibe consistently, staying upwind became much easier.