Evening Session - 9/18/2024

Got in an evening Foil Drive session today.

There was sufficient wind to wing, but I wanted to test the AFS Silk 1050 using it with the Foil Drive.

No.34 is back in the rotation.  And I had the bolts setup right where the ART Pro 1001 was marked.

Norm, Prayot, Roland and Paul all pumped up bigger wings (to wing obviously).

The Silk 1050 worked perfectly in the position I initially bolted it on.

The wind ended up being up and down - with the wingers having to sit and wait for gusts to come through.  But the wind was strong enough to chop up the surface and it definitely made Foil Drive-ing a little challenging. 

Going left, I could have gone for way longer than I did - pretty much a downwinder.

But going right, I could carve the face top to bottom, turn after turn for relatively long rides as well.

From the chart, I had 14 rides in just over an hour - that roughly a wave every four minutes.

So in this realm, the AFS Silk did not leave as good an impression on me as when I winged with it.  It turns, it takes off early, it has pump and glide.  It just wasn't exciting to use in this application.  I may wait to see how the enduro will perform.

W:121/PW:2/FD:67/F:4/S:18

Wing Foiling Session - 9/15/2024

I'll post on the Garage Works next, but after shaping No.38 (Norm's Prone Foil Drive board), I hit WPB to get in a wing foiling session.

The wind was on shore - so it was less windy than it looked.

Kalani was already there when I parked.

I set up No.36 with the 85cm Project Cedrus mast and Prayot's AFS Silk 1050.  And I pumped up the North Nova Pro 5.0

And just as I was finishing setting up - the guys hanging out at the pavilion behind me in this picture were pointing and headed out to their cars (they said the road in was about to be closed).

Prayot and Roland made it through the blocked road and we pretty much had the break to ourselves!!!

Since we couldn't leave, we settled in for a long session - almost 3 hours for me and over 30 miles.

We the inner break mostly empty, I spent a lot of time riding this area (where I normally would turn off to not interact with the surfers).

I still rode several waves from the outside breaks - and every now and then there was a good sized wave.

There were ups and downs in the wind.

And this is where the discussion on the AFS Silk 1050 begins -

This foil turns really well - on par with the Silk 850.  And it also gets up and stays up in lighter winds - so I was up through the lulls and with the tight canopy in the North Nova Pro, I was up and riding in winds I should not have been.

I'm going to have to sell some stuff... the AFS foils are that good -

And after 3 hours I was more than done.  My arms, back and right knee were screaming "enough already"

The fire seemed to be out (no more thick black smoke) so I made a run for it.  It was the homeless camp in the brush (where the old magazines were).  I think this land was recently transferred to the City and County from the Navy (or maybe this parcel is still the Navy's because the State turned it down because of the environmental liability) - but there are a lot of people living back in this area.  I hope nobody got hurt - 

Incredible session!

W:120/PW:2/FD:66/F:4/S:18

Garage Works - 9/14/2024

I sanded the ding (which really wasn't that bad - but I would dwell upon this until it got fixed properly) yesterday.

And in the evening I went ahead and placed a carbon patch.

Since I'm writing this on 9/15/24, I've already sanded the patch and am getting ready to place another layer of epoxy.

And the other thing I did yesterday was give the Silk 850 and HA Ultra 750 back to Prayot.  And at the same time I picked up the Silk 1050. 

He had the solid paint marker all over the bottom of the foil and stabilizer - so I sanded it off, got a Donaldson trailing edge on both, and then sanded everything down to 1000 grit.

Hopefully this thing runs super silent.  I mainly want to see if this will work with the Foil Drive and not consume a lot of voltage coming up to foiling speed.  But that'll have to wait until No.34 is fixed.