Wing foiling yesterday was on a rising tide with blustery winds. The waves were really small, but every now and then a waist high set would pull through.
Considering the gusts, I downsized the normal gear - Eagle 890/Marlin 14" for the foils and the SW2 4.2 for the wing.
Launching and landing were not issues with the big tide. I found myself even riding further inside than normally possible (without even thinking of hitting bottom).
The wind direction was tough - at times there was a lot of north in the wind. Then it would drop in strength and shift back to trades. Then fall off completely only to start the cycle over again. There were a lot of dead zones also.
There were also lots of "fish" swimming around - smaller ones, but I've seen enough to know they were "fish".
When the gusts came through, it was victory at sea - I could have easily been comfortably powered on the Mantis 2.5. For most of the time, I was good on the 4.2
It was hard reading the wind - there were plenty of times I would get blown off the board. And others when even with the gusts I couldn't power up the wing (pretty much when the direction was changing).
I thought for sure I was going faster than this...
I kept my eye open for opportunities to tack on to waves - periods of stronger wind lining up with waves standing up. I got a bunch in, but with the reduced glide of the Eagle 890 (relative to the Eagle 1090), some of the tacks ended up in wipes - that's totally acceptable due to the challenging conditions.
What the 890 gives up in glide it more than makes up for in speed and maneuverability.
Roland came out about 40 minutes after I did. He was jumping like crazy!
Eli was going out as I was coming in - I had to go into town with La and Noe.
In the hours before Tropical Calvin starts to influence our weather, this was a challenging but fun session. As I've been getting used to the Foil Drive, I have been winging less - this was a good day to get back into it!
W:67/F:66/S:30
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