Marlon and I got up to dawn patrol this morning, The waves had come down a lot (still breaking but, gutless today).
I wanted to continue the trend of running through the foils I use in other disciplines to see how they work with the Foil Drive (prone). I bolted on the Unifoil Progression 170. This is one of the best low energy surfing foils that I've used prone foiling - I figured maybe it would give similar results while prone foiling with the Foil Drive.
I originally started with the mast mounted closer to where I have the Spitfire 960. After the first wave I knew I had to move it forward (really hard to get the foil to lift).
I ended up moving the mast up twice, with the final position pretty much as far forward as I could get it (and there was still a tiny bit of back foot pressure - but it was also a little bit jumpy on the takeoff - so this may be the best spot for the mast).
The Foil Drive was a session saver today. I anticipated the smaller waves (mahalo Surfline Premium Subscription), so I used the small hub propellor. I needed it to get more top end speed to catch the non-breaking (almost non-peaking) waves.
I was nabbing waves that I had to augment pump to stay up on foil - that would have me going across the line up.
My wave count was 25 for the day. Not as good as the past couple of sessions - but considering the conditions, I can't complain. Nearly everybody I stopped and talked to said it was ridiculous that I was up and riding (and they probably didn't catch but a handful during the same session duration). Dennis was out on his SUP foiling setup. He was also catching tons of waves - but he was letting the longboard grouches get him down (they were grumbling about how many waves he was getting and how much the Foil Drive cost, and how longboards are a better investment). I told him to ignore them because he's the one having fun.
Surfline called today at 15kJ - at this energy level, I think I would have been better off using the HPS980. The Progression 170 would work better with conditions like yesterday (but so would the Spitfires...).
I did notice the Unifoil adapter was a tad loose when I got back to the truck. I'm not sure how long it was loose - but there didn't seem to be any damage. I need to add that to my pre-flight checklist.
W:2/F:4/S:0
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