Wing Foiling Session - 3/21/2021

The forecast was for nuking winds, and after today it is supposed to drop to almost nothing (good for surfing and prone foiling - bad for winging).  I figured I need to get on it while it was here so I went to Hickam.  Marlon came along (to pick up groceries and hang out with his friend) and we were at the beach around 11:30.  The winds were really strong -

I originally pumped up the 5.2 and bolted on the chopped down 1850.

Since I was on the stock 1850 yesterday, I wanted to see the difference in the chopped foil. 

I had to come in because the wind was too strong for the 5.2.  On the wind chart you can see the gusts were 30+mph.  I rinsed the 5.2 and pumped up the 4.5, and was back out on the water.

At some points even the 4.5 was too much wing.  I headed out to Firsts and it was breaking properly today.  I caught a few - didn't feel overpowered on the drops.  Also the chopped foil felt a little more nimble.  And it was noticeably faster.  

The strong winds made it a little harder to get my inbound tacks completed - a lot of down pressure on the wing trying to get it across (for some reason that wasn't the case on the outbound tacks - I think I need to consciously raise the wing higher going into the turns).  Here is a picture of me mid-jibe.

    

Marlon took all the pictures today.  Eventually though he hopped a ride into town with one of his friends and that was the end of the pictures.  Before he left, I came in one more time to change out the front foil from the chopped 1850 to the stock 1250.

  

The wind continued to pick up - from the graph it looks like it hit 40mph on some gusts.  It looked like it - smoke on the water!!!  The 1250 was easier to handle in these winds.  With less wingspan and a shorter chord, there was less lift so to get the same ride, more energy went to getting the foil to lift.  That meant I had one fewer thing to manage (keeping a foil behaving).  So here is a picture of the three foils I'll be using for winging - the stock 1850, the chopped 1850 (I have to come up with a name for this so I don't have to type that out all the time), and the stock 1250.  I really like how the chopped 1850 fits in between the two stock foils.