Wing Foiling Session - 10/23/2021

Tim wanted to pick up his board (bought from Phil) today, and I also sold him my Ensis 6.0 and 5.2 (gotta have wings to wing foil right?).  As an incentive to buy my wings, I offered to give lessons - so today I gave a lesson.  Knowing that I would not be going out to firsts, and also knowing that I would be moving ownership of these two beloved wings, I opted to setup the Go Foil PNL185 for the first time for winging in hopes that its glide would let me use the Ensis 4.5 wing.

There was actually a lot of wind and I was able to use the 4.5 without any trouble at all.  There was a lot of north in the wind today - draw a perpendicular to the tracks below, and you'll see the wind was largely coming from 045.

The PNL 185 was a ton of fun!  I did not get overpowered when pushed hard, and it carried a ton of momentum pushing through the lulls and alleys.

And in between running back and forth, checking on Tim and trying to keep upwind, I did try out Ken's new Chinese designed 6.0 wing.  It was bleeding out power through a really loose leech.  Also the handles were really hard to use (especially when compared to the Ensis handles.  After I gave Ken's wing back to him, I tried out Tim's board to see if it was the board causing him to not be able to get to his knees and try to get up on foil.  I grabbed the 5.2 (for the final time) and took off on Tim's board (equipped with the HS1850/full 300/72cm mast/60cm fuselage).  I was up and going without any issue (sorry Tim - it is you and not the board).

So a lot of testing out different configs today - that is what caused all the black space in the speed graph below.

Today's runs confirmed that given the right conditions, you can ride a smaller wing and a smaller foil as long as you are efficient at using the front foil and the wing.  I feel that where I'm at now, I would not need to use the 6.0 anymore, and I could get a more efficient wing to also replace the 5.2

I'm going to miss the Ensis 5.2 and 6.0 - Tim got a great deal and a couple of wings that will serve him well through the learning curve and into his first wave rides.  But what I'm getting to replace them is next level... stay tuned!!!