I got a second session in yesterday - winging over at Hickam! I rigged the same gear I've been winging with lately - 5.2 SWX, Kujira 1210, 85cm PC mast, WWFB. I had redone the male ferrule shimming to try and stop the front foil wiggle and I wanted to test it out.
I did forget my watch again so I only have wind speed data.
Harris had just walked down to the beach as I drove up. The wind looked a little light so I rigged bigger and as I wrote earlier, I wanted to see if I could get the front foil screws to keep tight. As I was getting to the water, I saw Harris and another guy were down because the wind had fallen off. I was questioning even going out, but Jim said it'll come back up (and had been up and down - like is normal at Hickam).
I went out and got lucky with an early gust. I made a beeline for Firsts and there were some fun sized waves. The wind stayed above 5.2 winging levels after that. There was one surfer out there that didn't see it as a problem "sharing" with a submerged flying ginzu knife. I noticed the foil had gotten loose after riding a few waves, and Harris had wanted to go in a size up his wing from the 4.0 to the 5.0.
I went back to the truck to grab some teflon tape, and headed back out after everything was tightened up. Back out to Firsts - rode a bunch more - and the same result, loose foil screws. I had a wrench in my pocket so I tightened up the screws and headed back in.
Glad I got in when I did - the wind dropped soon after I got in. The last thing I did before paddling the last few feet was to try and get the foil to skim the surface. I felt the sliding - and I think this will be way easier with footstraps on - but I did sense something different. This really helps to kill speed instantly.
Fun session!
I'm going to pull the fuselage out of service for now. I'm going to try and install helicoils and see if that will solve the issue.
W:31/F:41/S:12
No comments:
Post a Comment