Wingfoiling

[winddoctor]

So how do you transition from being powered upwind to heading downwind?

You can actually use the wing to bear off as you would a windsurfing longboard:
extend your front arm fully a bit upwind and across your body as you sheet in the back hand. You can be pretty aggressive and this gives you a solid platform to lean against to turn the board downwind. You can then let the wing flag out, but be aware that as soon as you let the power off the wing, you need to adjust your weight forward to counter the lifting force of the foil. This is why the bucking bronco feeling is happening; get the front foot weighted more and let the wing find its natural position flagged out and it will sit like a good dog.

[grantmac]

So more front foot pressure when you flag out? That seems counterintuitive since the wing seems to provide lift when powered, compared to a sail which pushes down. I did found that adding or removing power caused much less pitch change compared to windfoiling.
So I guess just let the wing pull me forward a bit as I bear off?

[winddoctor]

You can test this by by bearing off sheeting in vs bearing off and letting your back hand go. The nose will come up in the latter unless you drive it down actively with front foot pressure.

[Tsawwassen]

Awesome!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_udF2V6 ... IcxtPyxw38[/youtube]

[Mrnorthsouth]

https://www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Win ... lle-Parade

Be careful out there.

[AJSpencer]

Very sad. I read a couple threads and couldn’t find the cause, or maybe not known. But one person said “always wear a helmet, lifejacket/impact vest” so maybe knocked out?
I always wear a helmet and have dragged my feet on getting an impact vest but will now.

[MartyD]

I was lucky enough to get out for a couple of norte days and had an absolute blast! I have been using the 1300cm2 wing almost exclusively recently and was amazed that I now find it too big. It is great for rolling open water swell where the 2200cm2 wing was too slow and most waves would outrun me. It also has too much lift once you get into anything with shape to it. The 1300cm2 had lots of long rides and was much more pumpable than the 2200cm2.
I got brave enough to try out the break at mushrooms and had an amazing time! It really worked well getting into the waves before they were breaking and great for the mushy ones that never peaked up. I started getting deeper and found that even the 1300cm2 had too much lift once I dropped in. I am guessing something on the 900-1000cm2 range will be the ticket for breaking waves.
Some advice for those who try. Go for a floater when you are starting. I got caught inside twice and managed to get out quick once, but got stuck for about 10 mins because I could not get back out deep enough water. A couple times the wind lulled even on the outside and without the volume I would not have been able to waterstart. Another poor fellow on a 55L board got stuck inside and it was hopeless for him to get out with the current, waves and gusty wind. I was on a 100L Rocket.
I have a 75cm mast and I already want a 90 - 100cm. Many times my wing would just breach the surface usually resulting in a glorious crash. I am used to the 95m for the kite so I think I will go that route.
TK killing it out there on the wing after only a few days! Nice work budday!

[winddoctor]

Marty, are you messing around with different tail shims? I find it makes my 1850 lifty and responsive for slower speeds with the 0 shim and faster and more forgiving in bigger swell/waves and stronger wind with the +1 shim. Way fewer breaches from speed or steeper take offs. In fact I had the liftier shim the other day surfing and it felt horrible trying to drop into larger waves (shoulder high on foil feels plenty large). Huge difference. Waiting on a 1250 for the really good stuff. 85 mast coming too.

[grantmac]

Something I'm struggling with is that my feet feel locked to the board once I'm foiling. Other folks seem to be able to dance all over the place and especially my front foot can't even be shuffled.
Am I using too wide of a stance? Too narrow? Foil too far forward?

All gybe attempts are still yard sales but I was able to cruise down swell briefly at least. Currently on session 5, maybe 3rd with enough wind to regularly foil. Still feels like I need a lot of power to get going then very OP'd once I'm up.

[winddoctor]

Foiling uses a much narrower stance than windsurfing. Try heel-toe shuffling for smaller adjustments. Too wide seems to mess with pumping and sensitivity of what's happening with the foil. It gets easier. Try land based foot drills?

[grantmac]

Consensus seems to be I'm too wide in the stance. My preference when windfoiling is with the back foot quite far forward unless charging hard upwind, my windfoil set-ups are always front foot biased.
The increased pitch sensitivity from the short fuselage and lack of downward pressure from the rig seems to point to a narrower stance.
I'm also going to experiment with what people are calling the offset stance where the front foot it biased towards the windward rail and the rear foot is just across centerline to leeward.

[winddoctor]

The offset stance seems to happen automatically with the wing, I find. Find what feels comfy then look down. It's likely an offset stance.

[juandesooka]

For me, my dominant surf stance is not offset, both feet right along centreline. But goofy foot, my front foot is offset. As long as sufficient power, I prefer to ride regular foot forward, going heelside / toeside, as that's what you need to practice to ride in waves. I only switch feet for long tacks back to the peak.

Heavy feet / concrete legs / power squat: when focused on trying to make all these moving parts work, I find you pretty much lock it in, and it's pretty hard to even nudge your foot 1cm, much less dance around the board. On any given day, it takes me 15-30 minutes to "feel the foil", get my legs under me, find the flow...and then loosened up and lighter on my feet. For learning to move around on your board, and turn, and ride toeside, I recommend pointing straight downwind and let foil glide...after a while you realize you don't need to be clenching so hard, as the foil and wing are doing the work, you can relax and move around a little, figure out the balance points.

Similarly, the foot pressure is quite different when locked into a hard upwind reach vs luffing the wing and just surf foiling the swells. I find it takes holding on to just the top handle to trigger the weight and balance change.

[MartyD]

Didn't even think of that winddoc thanks for the idea. I did have some shims but they seem to have rundoff. I am also running a pretty long fuselage and a big stabilizer as this is a learning setup. I may just need a whole other wave setup
All the guys shredding down here seem to be in quite small front wings, usually 1000ish. One guy here, Brian from Santa Cruz, is just insane. I'll try to get a video of him but he is on a 33L board, 1080 foil and a 3.5m wing. He makes it happen in less than 20kn. He is just rolling, tacking, gybing and rocking 360s in every which direction constantly. Super nice guy too and very helpful.
As for the stance I am finding totally centered works best for me. If I am ripping hard upwind I will be offset but as soon as I am feeling swelly I want to be centered. If I am even slightly off the I have problems transitions from heel to toe properly and the flow goes away.
Got to try a Stinger 52.5L board yesterday. Really liked it but I was screwed in the lulls and could not waterstart. I'm thinking 60-65 will be perfect for me. Small enough to be fun but not going to be bobbing around in the lulls. 40L is great if the wind is steady but the often holey wind here has gotten many curse words from me on the small board
Totally right on the pitch shift Juan. I find as I come to drop into even a small rolling swell I will shift 70-90% of my weight onto the front foot until I am on the swell the shift it back to about 60% one I am riding. Probably 60% on rear when upwinding and if I depower without the weight shift the nose shoots up aggressively.

[juandesooka]

Totally right on the pitch shift Juan. I find as I come to drop into even a small rolling swell I will shift 70-90% of my weight onto the front foot until I am on the swell the shift it back to about 60% one I am riding. Probably 60% on rear when upwinding and if I depower without the weight shift the nose shoots up aggressively.

Yup, interesting how the wind-assisted riding is a lot more rear foot biased. When dropping into bigger swells, the front foot weight shift feels to me like COMMITMENT: like dropping into skateboard bowl or a chute snowboarding, if you don't get your weight over that front foot, you fall backward. So that means you have to stomp it like you want it ... if you are tentative, you won't make it.

As for boards, I find even my 70L-ish board presents challenges in light wind. The extra work involved makes me continue avoiding it, as the big board is just so easy. Probably tackle that problem once dependable thermals come back, in meantime the good wind days are too rare to waste with learning new boards.