More Foiling

Since my last foiling post, I've been out three times.  The first was last Thursday - and I done messed up bad.  I was in such a rush to get out to the water, that I bolted on the fuselage upside down.

Yup - I felt pretty stupid, and needless to say I was getting thrown off the board.  Not having a set of tools in the truck meant this session was just exercise.

The next session was Saturday evening.  The waves were big enough to ride a shortboard - and anytime there is a good pocket in the wave, foiling should take a back seat to regular surfing.  I did get a few decent longer rides - but most of the session was getting into situations where I had too much speed and lift.

And we come to yesterday evening.  The waves were fuller and the wind was light.  The first wave I caught I was up and riding for quite some distance and even making conscious turns.  Foiling is pretty much flying.  From that point on I alternated good ride - bad ride.  The bad rides were instances where the foil breached, I lost lift and instantly came crashing down.  Only in one case did I get bucked off (and that was really because of a bad takeoff).

I really like the wing shape and tail configuration of the Slingshot FSurf - I am starting to wonder if the weight of the whole setup is driving the trend to come off foil.  If I had a full carbon ultralight setup with the same surface area, would that foil stay up longer all other things equal???