On It's Way -

I sold No.18 to Nick as part of the Foil Drive Assist Plus package.

Tricia was in town and she brought one of his travel board bags for me to pack the board in.

Here is No.18 all armored up.

And tucked into Nick's board bag.

The tail is nicely secured.

But the board is only 4'10" in a 6'1" board bag - so there is a gap in the nose.

I think Tricia will end up putting in a duffle bag to take up this space.

This board has pulled triple duty - it started life as a prone foil board, carrying me into some gnarly sized surf with the GoFoil GL140, and through COVID closed beaches.  Then it served as a high wind wing board - my first sinker attempts (looked what that lead to - now every board I wing with pretty much is a sinker).  And in it's last incarnation it was the board that opened up the possibilities of the Foil Drive to me.

I really don't like seeing boards leave the hangar - but if they go to good homes, that is a good thing.  And I beet it can pull triple duty for Nick!!!

And that makes room for more boards to be made and ridden!!!

Evening Session - 1/26/2024

Prayot has a demo AFS Silk 850 from Jeff - and I got to test drive it yesterday.

The conditions were not nearly as good as the previous day - half and big and no where near as clean.  But when you gotta go, you go.

After 2 adjustments, this is where the foil ended up - pegged to the front of the boxes.  I think if I brought the other board that has the boxes 2" forward, I would have likely gotten even better results.

This is a really nice foil.  Feels like the best of the Kujira 980 and the Eagle 790 in one.  I mention those foils because it is smaller than I normally use in these conditions, and on multiple waves I dropped off foil (hit the stall speed).  I think the demo rear stabilizer is also a little small (for my preference).

I did a bunch of fun waves and this foil turns with the best of them.  Also - like the Kujira, this foil is smooth through the water - I never felt any turbulence.

I think this size would be great in overhead waves, and exceptional in wingfoiling during regular trades.

For normal condition prone foiling, I think I'd do better with the Silk 1050.  That said, this does not do anything particularly better than the foils I currently have - and I am focused on other pieces of equipment (Foil Drive Max) so I'll not be purchasing one for now.  Plus there are no Project Cedrus adapters for AFS yet (good thing - as I hear the mount is changing... this is the new mount - I hate it when companies do that... leaves early adopters in the dumpster)

Tomorrow the Kona winds are kicking back up - I'll try this on the wing.  But the optimum wind speed time is the bottom of low tide (0.2').  To save myself the pain of having to paddle out to deeper water in a headwind, it's time to go to Hickam!!!

W:6/F:13/S:4

Evening Session - 1/25/2024

I got in a late session today.  Prayot was foiling the AFS stuff, so I figured I would go out and see how he was doing on that gear.

I have not prone foil in quite some time.  And whenever I jump back to a different discipline, I usually eat it a bit until I get my footing/muscle memory back.

Today was no exception. 

There was actually some size today - and the waves were really clean.  Roland made the right call and had brought out a surfboard.

I brought out the short Cedrus mast (it was a low tide at 0.5') and the Progression 170.

I did eat several up front.  And even a few of the good ones - but I did catch a few nice rides - after eventually finding my "footing".  I did have some issue keeping the nose up when taking the drop.  I'm going to have to go back through my notes to see if I need to shim the base.

Good session!

W:6/F:12/S:4

Evening Session - 10/13/2023

After work I got in a second session - this time prone foiling on the high tide.

The waves were a little smaller than this morning, but that was really attributed to the higher tide.

There was barely wind - but enough to put texture on the water.

Marlon came with and he foiled!!!  He was definitely showing he is more comfortable now.  I saw him get up on the board a lot, but the foil wasn't lifting as much as it should have been.  He did actually get up on foil several times - and after the session he said next time he'll move the mast more forward.

I brought out the setup I have been taking out on the days I do prone foil - Unifoil Progreesion 170/flex rear stabilizer/shorter Project Cedrus mast and No.21.

As much as I have been shortboard surfing lately, it showed on my prone foiling - I struggled for about half the session (but that always happens if I've changed gear).  Eventually it clicked again and I was getting my foil feet back under me.

Roland, Prayot, Duke and Marlon were the other foilers out.  The longboarders were being a little greedy/pissy today - and the newb crowd was thick on the inside - both making the conditions challenging.  But with patience - good waves were had.

Especially by Roland -

I got a few double dips and did pump back out to the lineup - so I guess you can say I shook off the rust pretty quick.

I'm still debating what to do on tomorrow's dawn patrol....

W:103/F:94/S:45

Dawn Patrol - 2/27/2021

Hit the dawn patrol this morning.  The surf was belly to chest, the tide was high at 1.5', and the wind was present (but not strong enough to wing).  The parking lot was only 1/3 full...

I saw Marlon riding several waves.  I brought the wide 4'10" and had the HS1550 with the chopped 300 on.  Coming off my first wave, the cuff section of my leash broke (the plastic portion cracked - no fixing this one).  I did catch a few more, but I had to pick and choose so I wouldn't lose the board.  The rides were mostly lefts - hard to ride into the building winds.

There was also a lot of energy hanging out in the top couple of feet of water - all the turbulence from the wind chop was making for hard takeoffs and stable rides.  Regardless of the challenges, it was nice getting to paddle.

Evening Session - 2/16/2021

Marlon and I hit the beach around 5pm yesterday afternoon.  To our surprise, the waves were breaking chest to head high!!!  There was zero wind and the tide was full (perfect for foiling).

I thought the conditions were going to be far different than they were so I brought out the GL180 setup.  I was way more attuned to the drag for some reason.  And the weird thing was it wasn't an issue on every ride - almost like I had to shake off a layer of sticky water.  I caught a bunch of really good rides.

I saw Marlon takeoff on several juicy waves.  Hard to believe it is mid-February and waves like these were here at WPB!  I'll take it!

No More Procrastinating

I opted out of foiling today to run some errands.  La needed some Gorilla Tape so off to Home Depot Noe and I went.  I found some low nap 4.5" rollers - I'll try these when laminating the next board, and a new sanding "net" from Diablo.

I got the 60 grit to test it out.  We got home and I went straight to sanding.  This sanding net really works well - none of the circular scratches that I normally get from sand paper, and the net was really efficient.

I got through most of the 60 grit sanding in less time than I would normally take.  And I actually felt satisfied with what I had accomplished where normally I'd be quite frustrated with burn throughs and those pesky circular scratches.  I'm going back to HD tomorrow to grab the other grits.  If this works out - I might actually stop bitching about sanding.