Weed Foiling

I had a frustrating foil session session yesterday. The wind was strong enough for the 5.0 - averages around 15 mph, gusts to the high teens. But every time I got up on the foil, things felt wrong. I had plenty of power; at times, there seemed to be more power than in the morning, when I used the same sail with the Skate 110. But I could not get the board flying properly - the nose would ride high, and it would come down again every time I tried to even things out.

Nina had a similarly frustrating session, but she figured out what was going on when she saw Derek sail backwards before taking off: weeds! When she turned her board over, she saw a big clump of weeds on the back wing. The thin sea grass in Hatteras was particularly bad this year, and strong winds, lots of chop, and high water levels made things worse. Yesterday, the water levels had finally returned to normal - but that made things worse, since the foils was close enough to the bottom to collect sea grass from the bottom!

Even the days before, when the water level had been a foot higher and foiling was easier, the same problems existed, albeit on a smaller scale. The nose would ride too high, and the sail pressure was higher than normal. My GPS showed that my speeds were a few knots lower than usual - instead of the typical 13-16 knots, I was foiling at 10-13 knots, even when I was nicely powered. All that sea grass on the foil must have slowed me down! Fortunately, the amount of sea grass in the water changes with the wind direction and strength, so we may get a few decent foil sessions in the next week.