Today has really good wind. Not nuking, but solid and more (than less) consistent.
I want to test the upwind ability of the BRM Ka'a 4.8 - and I was originally going to go to WP to keep the location parameter the same as yesterday. But Norm said he was going to wing PV so I figured I'd take the breaking waves out of the equation and join him.
I brought the same board-foil combo out, but like I said earlier - packed the Ka'a 4.8
With the super high tide and stronger winds, launching was easy.
I had paddled over towards CG a bit more to launch - wanted to give myself a head start and not start with a deficit and have to paddle in against the wind.
The Ka'a did go upwind. But where I usually pick up the wind if I go down and drift at CG, I could break through that section. PWs have a smaller range and once you go below that you drop off foil (if you aren't willing to pump around).
That happened a few times - and I'd have to drift a bit (once way out to blue water) to pick up the wind line.
You can see from the track I progressively went upwind - and I really didn't give up any ground. So that tell me as long as you have sufficient wind, even lower aspect ratio, short lined PWs can go upwind. It would be nice to get my hands on a Kanaha and do a back to back with the Ka'a to see how different they perform.
This graph was the wind at Hickam - it was a notch less than this at PV, but this relation is shown better on this graph as opposed to the Kalaeloa graph.
So for me at my current skill level and body weight, with the board-foil combo - I need about 20 mph to takeoff with the Ka'a 4.8 (and I think it tops out at the comfortable level at 27+ mph which it was gusting to today).
I happy that I was able to get upwind with the Ka'a!
W:56/FD:104/PW:26/S:6
