Tuesday Evening Windsurf Foiling Run

I left work late so traffic was going to be bad - no problem says the guy who packed his windsurfing wave foiling gear (me - I did that).  I was on the water by 4:30pm and had rigged up a 5.0 initially.  I did manage to get up on foil despite the lack of available power.

In the picture, it looks pretty calm and glassy even.  It did get windy and I came back in after a few runs and changed out the 5.0 for the Naish Lift 5.7.  More power for sure and up on foil a bunch.  I worked on getting back into the groove of foiling while sail powered.  I had a couple of breaches and a few spinout squirticles - I think next time I will mount up the Iwa on the tall mast to see if I can shed the spinouts.  I'm thinking I'm going too fast and that when the squirticles happen - que the Iwa.

FInishing Off This Repair Project

So yesterday I sanded the repair area down - primarily taking off the primer that was not needed.

Today I masked the board (and the garage)

And applied a couple of coats of almost matching blue spray paint.

Here is the board post spray paint application - the unpainted section is where the nose bumper will be applied (so this whole incident won't be repeated with an accidental mast strike).  I'll also put on a coat of urethane to protect the paint from scuffs.

I should have this done tomorrow afternoon.  Thank goodness (and now to get it wet again).

Third Time Out on the Hypernut

I had the afternoon to myself (La and the kids went to a end of the season party for their sailing club) - so I went on a foiling jaunt.  The truck was made to do this ;)

The wind was supposed to be up, tradewinds - 15 to 25 mph from the NE.  I brought the 5.0 and 4.5 sails, and the Maliko 200.  All the foils are setup for plate mounting now.

The wind was blowing 15 mph with gusts past 20.  Then it would have a few lulls below 10.  I decided to rig the 5.0 with a looser outhaul (for more power when needed).  Foiling with larger wings that are spaced closer together is different than foiling with high speed foils (smaller wings spaced a lot further apart).  So instead of using large sails, I'm using smaller ones - but I'm trying to gage the sail size from my regular windsurfing experience - and knowingly dropping a couple of sail sizes.  The launch at Hickam Harbor is perfect.  You walk out to chest deep water, flip the board so the foil is down, hop up and uphaul.  At 106 liters, this Hypernut isn't exactly a high and dry floater, but I am getting used to balancing it while getting underway.  I made several runs and initially was worried about making it back to the the launch/landing site (there is nothing but rocks everywhere else) - but after a few  runs, I was pretty confident I could make it back  without issue - the foil mast and wings act like a huge fin providing lateral resistance to drift.  I still have to sail upwind and keep conscious of the line I'm sailing, but I think I can limp back to the starting point in low wind.  

Now for the good stuff - I got the foil to lift several times.  The first time I thought "whoa - I'm way up - this is really high off the water" and I proceeded to breach the foil to windward.  There are a lot of things going on all at once - pressure from my feet, the sail rig, where my weight is relative to the foil, position of the foil mounted on the board, and others I probably haven't thought of.  On subsequent runs I kept more front foot pressure and more pressure to the windward side of centerline, sheeting out more to reduce power and I was getting longer runs.  Of note, I also had the boom a hair too high up on the mast.

The thought I have running through my mind is what would happen if I have better control of the foil (exerting pressure to control the lift of the foil and not have to have it lift at random when I'm moving fast), can I further drop the sail size?  Especially since I've seen videos of people sailing in less wind with smaller sails (I just don't know how much those people weigh).  I'll keep a log of the sessions - equipment and weather conditions - and see if I can figure this out.

 The rigging spot has really nice grass.  There is a hose with good water pressure and drainage so I can rinse the gear (while it is also on grass - at a spot midway between the rigging spot and the launch).  And the walk is pretty short from the launch to the rigging spot.  I think I'll be sailing here a lot more than Kailua (closer to work and the house, way less crowded, less chance of the truck getting broken into, less work to setup-walk-launch-rinse-walk back).

Second Time Out on the Hypernut

I took the Hypernut out to Kailua today.  Lots of kites piled up on the beach when we arrived (lull in the wind).

I wanted to test the stability of the board with the foil inserted.  It was pretty stable - I didn't have an issue paddling it around.  I felt that I could have paddled into a wave - which is good news (this board isn't too small for me at 189# - it isn't a no-brainer, but it is on the doable range of paddling.

So after paddling around a bit, I came in and put the sail on.  I used the Naish Boxer 5.8 and I had plenty of power - so much so that I was even water starting.  Uphauling this rig on this board was challenging, but it was doable.

I even got up on the foil a couple of times - this being the first time on the board with the foil, and the first time with the board and the foil and a sail, my foot placement wasn't quite right and the foil would get away from me.

The wind got weak on me and I figured it would be best if I headed in - I ended up downwind of where I started so I took a short walk of shame.  But that said, I am hopeful that I can get more practice under my belt and with the additional experience, this will all start to click.

Not bad for a first outing!!!  And it felt good to windsurf Kailua again after all these years.

All the photos were taken by La with her new DSLR camera ;)

Bouncing Around In My Cranial Space

Here is something I've been trying to research - a Windsurfing/Surfing (SUP) Foilboard.

Wide for stability while paddling and reduced swing weight and windage.  We'll see if this ever rises to the top of the to-do list, but at least it is out of my head and down on paper (virtually).