Dawn Patrol Foil Drive - 3/29/2025

The south swell was hitting in full effect.  ZERO wind - sheet glass!!!

Tide could have been a tad higher - 

Same lower setup on No.29 - wanted to get some more time on the prone boards. 

This morning was "everything that can go wrong - goes wrong" day.

First I did not hook up my remote to my leash - I had it in my pocket and it floated out.

I knew I needed to get my board up on the beach so I could dive after the remote - but I didn't get it high enough above the water line and it was rolling (luckily in sand only).

Next - while grabbing for what I though might have been the remote, I get urchin spines in the three lower fingers of my right hand.

I eventually find the remote (I lost it close to the beach so I figured just go with the flow and I'll end up where the current was taking the remote) - complete luck.

And after being out for a bit, I was noticed that I wasn't getting the lift I should have been getting from the foil - I was needing to put too much back foot pressure (not much - but more than I thought I should be). I also noticed it was hard to ride the foil.  I check it and it was pretty loose.  I figured I should go back in and get reset.

After fixing everything except my fingers - I went back out and then had a great time.

Twenty rides - many were all the way from outside to the outer lineup.

Super awesome session!!!

W:22/FD:49/PW:1/S:4

Evening Foil Drive Session - 3/27/2025

Two unfortunate things happened today - 

First, an onshore flow was present - which made the surface choppy.  Not the worst I've Foil Drive-n in, but a far cry from yesterday's glassy conditions.

And it wasn't strong enough to wing either - so we were all stuck in the middle (too windy to FD, not windy enough to wing).

The whole FD crew minus Derek was present.  And Stu was out on prone, and a new guy Bob was using a gen 1 FDAP with a Dragonfly.

The other unfortunate thing that happened was my remote did not charge last night.  That made for a short session.

I've been having to fix some scratches in my foils lately - so I've been paying closer attention to the route Norm takes to get out.  I think I've got the channel defined now.

Considering the surface conditions, I don't think I missed much.

Maybe seven rides...???

Norm's wife Michelle made this sticker!!!!

If the swell really picks up tomorrow, I may bring out a shortboard tomorrow (unless of course it gets crowded - then it'll be the FD).

W:22/FD:48/PW:1/S:4

Evening Foil Drive Session - 3/26/2025

Perfect conditions for Foil Drive-ing this afternoon!

Same gear as last time - in fact I hadn't taken the gear apart since the last session on Sunday morning.

Norm and Marvin came out also.

The waves had a distinct westerly flow to them.  And towards Campgrounds, long runners were stacking up vertically - in fact they would have been super fun on a shortboard.

I used the standard Max battery and easily got over an hour.  And I was practicing efoiling.

I was having trouble at the front end of the session on the break in front of the pavilions - there wasn't a lot of energy there so the rides were shorter.

Eventually Norm and I migrated over towards CG where the waves were breaking - and that's when the fun really began in the stacked up runners.

I got 16 rides in over the course of an hour.

Tomorrow should have similar conditions!

W:22/FD:47/PW:1/S:4

Dawn Patrol Foil Drive - 3/23/2025

Foil Drive on the dawn patrol today.  Same gear as yesterday.

I did bring out the GoPro Hero 4K.  With the extension I had it on, and it's wide angle, it was hard to get a good view of what was going on in the video.  I'll either need to use a longer extension, or the GoPro 12.

The waves were smaller than yesterday - and throughout the session it just kept getting smaller.  But I still managed to ride bumps and stretch the battery out to past 2 hours.

The waves from earlier in the session had lots of carving opportunity, with a drift to the left.

I'll call this 22 rides - slim pickings (but this definitely shows the capability of the Foil Drive on a small wave day).

Dennis, Dean, Noel, and Prayot were all out trying to make mountains out of mole hills.

Small waves and light winds forecasted for then next several days....

W:22/FD:46/PW:1/S:4

Dawn Patrol Foil Drive - 3/22/2025

Dawn patrolled with the Foil Drive this morning.  Really nice conditions!

No.40 with the same lower assembly.  I've been wanting to use the Spitfire 900 - but the waves weren't consistently big enough to use it and still get long run time out of the battery.

And I didn't want to do a battery swap since the tide was on the low side (me being lazy).

Full crew out today - Mark, Andrew, Thursday Matt, Dean, Dennis, Noel and others were out.

I had some really long rides today.  All but a handful of waves were pretty low energy - but there was enough shape to bounce turns between sections.

On the handful of bigger breakers, it was fun to drive to the bottom of the broken wave, zoom back up the face behind the section, bank off and head back across where the wave broke.

23 or 25 rides depending on which data set you look at.

This distance view of the ride data makes the longer rides more obvious.

Should be similar conditions tomorrow morning.

W:22/FD:45/PW:1/S:4

Evening Foil Drive Session - 3/19/2025

Today was as far as you could have gotten away from yesterday's conditions.

It was windy - which on Foil Drive translates to choppy.  But this was mega choppy.

The waves were bigger - but that made it even harder to pick rides (without blowing up).

Robby, Norm and Marvin were out - Dennis would have made it, but he lost his setup out of his truck (eek!!!).

Same lower assembly - but bolted on to No.40 today.  I wanted to test out the location of the recovery/landing footstrap.

Today just down right sucked.

First off as I was motoring out in presumably deep water, I grounded on the same high spot three times.  I put some good scratches on the bottom side of the front foil.

Then the whole session I was fighting water splashing in my face the whole time.  All the while the wind was getting stronger.

What I should have done was head back in and setup the winging gear.

I had the HO battery - so despite motoring the whole time, I got nearly an hour out of the battery (could have gone a little longer - came in at 37%)

I did manage to get some rides in.  Hard to tell what is what on the first graph.

Using distance traveled, you can more easily tell what were rides and what weren't.

17 rides (but maybe only six of them were noteworthy).

Tomorrow I may try dawn patrolling with the Foil Drive again, then get an afternoon winging session in.

W:21/FD:44/PW:1/S:3

Evening Foil Drive Session - 3/18/2025

After work Foil Drive crew session at Pavilions.

Super light winds.  Nice full tide.  And there were some waves to be had. 

Since I'm working on No.40, I set up No.39.

The lower set was all the same as what I've been riding.

This setting is way better than what is marked.  I'm going to need to sand and relabel this.

For using the regular Max Power battery, and having peer pressure all around to efoil (every now and then), this really wasn't a short run battery time.

If you trace the outbound line, about halfway out, you see me pick up and wave, ride for a bit then turn and head out to the break proper on efoil.

From there I had several rides, but today they were on the shorter side.  The tide was probably too high for the wave energy coming in to break longer (lots of deep troughs out here anyways).

19 rides in less than an hour - ridiculous!!!!

Fun day!!!!

W:21/FD:43/PW:1/S:3

Dawn Patrol Foil Drive Session - 3/16/2025

WP was open this morning.

Waves were a notch smaller today down from yesterday.  Zero wind again so the surface was nice and glassy.  And a higher tide made for a nonchalant entry.

Same gear as yesterday - but I pulled the mast slightly back to see if I could lessen the front foot pressure/additional lift I was having to deal with.

After cycling this board in the rotation behind No.40, I can say No.39 is the board to use when higher speed is called for.  This board doesn't like to schlog - so not a light wind wing board.  With sufficient power (larger wing) I can use a smaller foil - or just using the boost on the Foil Drive. 

So No.40 is an all-rounder, and No.39 is a higher speed specialist.

The new pulled back mast position definitely is better - the lift is more progressive without losing pumpability on the recycling efforts.

There is a pattern in this pile of red an blue spaghetti.  I'd takeoff and head right, carve several turns and then head left (to give the SUP guys a chance to catch the wave), then ride it out.

I got a triple in there somewhere, along with a couple of double dips. 

Prayot was out on his Dragonfly and AFS Silk 1090.  If the waves were taller, he was catching them.  He got a double (at least one that I saw - probably more).

24 rides - slightly lower waves count, but the waves were lully today.

The wind is supposed to come back Tuesday - I may take a break tomorrow to prepare.

W:21/FD:42/PW:1/S:3

Dawn Patrol Foil Drive - 3/15/2025

WPB was still closed this morning.  Norm, Marvin and I headed to Pavilions.

No wind this morning - made for glassy conditions - so nice!!!

The tide was high and dropping so entry was easy.

There were some waves, but you had to wait for the sets to get good ones.

I took out No.39 - again to continue to get the characteristics down.  The rest of the setup was the same.

I used the new battery today (I used the standard Max battery yesterday).  I got over 2 hours without being too stingy on the throttle - in fact I made several efoiling runs.

When the sets came through, the higher tide was somewhat holding the waves back from breaking - but the walls that resulted ran for some good distance.  Marvin and Norm had some really fun rides also.

25 rides in 2.25 hours - 

Super mellow session!

W:21/FD:41/PW:1/S:3