I's been windy lately - we've been on the water 7 days in a row at the end of June. Perhaps my definition of "windy" has changed a bit since we started foiling, considering that I was on the foil most of the time, and on the slapper only 2 days, plus part of a couple more days. On the days with better forecasts, there were quite a few people at Kalmus. On some of the very hot afternoons, though, the windsurfers often spend their time re-rigging or waiting for more wind, which often showed up late in the afternoon. On the foil, it did not matter much if the wind was 15 or 25 miles per hour - once we made it out, we usually had plenty of fun.
As long as the wind comes from SW or WSW, flat water is never far away. On one of the windier days, I even managed to get an Egg Island session on the slapper in, together with Jon. I just love going into a jibe on flat water at full speed:
But whereas most of my turns on the slapper are jibes, I usually tack on the foil. Here's an example in the flat water on the other side of Kalmus, at the Kennedy Slicks:
On the way to and from the slicks, there is usually some fun chop to play with. That's just an incredible amount of fun, even on the big Slingshot Infinity 84 foil:
Here are the GPS tracks from this session:
After a couple of years on Slingshot foils, we wanted to check out new things. Nina had read a lot about higher aspect foils for winging, and Phil from Inland Sea was happy to let her try his Armstrong foil. He knew why! Nina at first had a bit of a hard time to get going, since the foil is quite a bit smaller than the i84 and i99 foils she had used so far. But once up on the foil, she absolutely loved it, so of course she bought one. It certainly did not hurt that the foil weighs less than half of the (significantly cheaper) Slingshot foils, and that the engineering seem much more solid - but the feeling when foiling was the main motivator. Whereas I make tiny little turns down the waves with some power in the sail, she can often be seen riding swell with the wing flagged out, and a big smile on her face, doing full bottom turns and then going back up the same wave - or perhaps the next, since we're talking about Kalmus, after all. Even though more speed was not a goal in this change, she has gotten quite a bit faster. In the past, I could usually pass her easily with my foil (partly because I need a lot more speed so the foil generates enough lift to push all my extra pounds above the water). But now, her speed matches mine, even when she's just winging along, and I try to catch her.
This, of course, created an untenable situation. I needed a faster foil! Never mind that other windfoilers have posted much faster speeds on the foils I have. I tried plenty of times, but for me, going significantly faster than 15 knots on my i84 was a really hard thing to do. My typical cruising speeds were closer to 12 knots. Surely, faster foils would fix the problem!
I got on the North Beach Windsurfing web site and started a chat with Karen and Britt, who not only know a lot more about fast foils, but also sell them. We exchanged some pictures of fuselages to figure out what would work, and I ended up buying a Starboard GT-R Plus foil with a 95+ fuselage, 85 cm mast, and 800 front wing. If arrived quickly, and after some more help from Britt over the phone, I was even able to put it together.
Of course, I had to try the new foil right away, so we went foiling even though the wind looked marginal. I rigged my 7.8 m freerace, 3-cam sail to have a chance to get going. I also put a cheap phone into a waterproof armband and had it announce my speed - after all, I was going to be on a fast foil!
I got the foil out of the water on my very first run. But after about 30 yards on the foil, there was a loud "bang", and I crashed. In less than 15 minutes, and after fewer than 100 attempts to pump up onto the foil without any success, I realized that something must be wrong, and turned the board over. Instead of pointing straight up, the mast of the foil now was tilted at a 30 degree angle. The back screw in the tuttle box had come out! Fortunately, the other screw had held (although I later noticed a pronounced S-turn in it when I disassembled the gear). Back to the beach (slowly!); to the car to get a new screw (a longer one that actually reached the barrel nut this time); and back onto the water. Ah, much better!
Being a rather cautious person with a strong aversion to high-speed catapults, I proceeded to investigate the low-speed potential of my new foil. I pumped a but harder than necessary on my i84, and when I heard "10" (knots) from my phone, I'd step on the tail to pop the foil out of the water. Up I went! And then, I plopped straight back down. I repeated this multiple times, before I finally realized that I needed a speed of about 13 knots before the foil would fly consistently. That actually makes sense - for my i84, I need about 8-9 knots, but the i84 is about 2.5 times larger, and has a much thicker profile. The bigger difference, though, is how to get the foils going. With the i84, I need just a bit of board speed before I step on the tail to pop up, and then accelerate once flying. With the GT-R+, I need to reach about 12 knots before going up. Which, actually, has one big advantage: I get a much better workout!
When powered, the foil made it quite clear that it wants to go fast. Whereas I have to work hard to push the i84 over 15 knots, the GT-R with the 800 front wing definitely wants to go faster. The phone often announced 16 or 17 knots, even though I was doing what I could to slow things down! For a slow learner like me, it will take a bit to get comfortable with higher speeds when foiling with an 85 cm mast in 90+ cm chop. Sure, the GT-R is not nearly as affected by the up-and-down motion that waves and chop create in the water, but it is still affected somewhat.
For my 4th session on the GT-R, I finally got some flat water: offshore NE wind at Kalmus! It may have been a bit gusty, with meter readings between 8 and 28 mph, but between the lulls and big gusts, there was a range where it was just real fun to sail along. At least until the next big, fat gust hit, which would want to make the foil come out of the water - either because I tried to sheet out, which takes pressure of the nose, or simply because the foil started going faster, which generates more lift. Interestingly, the rhythm of this setup is very different from the i84 - partly because of the much longer fuselage. That makes the foil less nervous, but it also makes it a bit slower and harder to push the nose down when it wants to come up. I'll definitely need a few more practice sessions before I get used to this!
Despite my general efforts to keep things slow and controlled, I ended up finally going faster than 20 knots on a foil. My 2-second top speed was just below 20 knots, but that's still 2 knots faster than the top speed on the i84, which I got in very flat water (the Kennedy Slicks) on a day with stronger and more consistent wind. That felt just about as fast as doing 35 knots on a slalom board - and definitely faster than the 29 knots I had done a couple of days earlier at Egg Island on my freestyle board. Being a foot or two above the water, with the prospect of a full speed catapult if you let the foil rise just one more foot, must distort the perception! But should I ever get used to this feeling, the setup should be able to go at least 5 or 6 knots faster. And after that, there are smaller front and back wings for even more speed!
For the time being, though, I'll probably grab my Slingshot foil for many of my foil sessions. Slowly playing with chop and swell is plenty of fun, and the shorter 71 cm Slingshot mast works better for sessions near low tide. But it's great to have the option for a very different level of foiling fun!
