Foiling duck jibes!

Well the highlight of the day was getting two planing / foiling duck jibes. Here's how it happened.

I headed out for a lunch hour session and the wind was super solid. 17 knots, gusting to 21. I was tempted to go shortboarding but instead I took the Stingray 140 board with 76cm Slingshot foil and the 4.8 Idol and sliced right upwind to Mann Island in just 4 tacks from the Launch Pad. I played in the waves by Wedge Island and then headed over to my buddy Scott's place where I practised jibes while he took this photo. (And some video to follow).

My two best jibes were duck jibes. I stayed on the foil the whole way round and continued going with barely a touchdown. Likely not too elegant but fun. My three carve 360 attempts were all failures. Still lots to perfect. Overall 22 km in an hour and 20 minutes with a 29.7 km/h top speed. Beyond the foiling duck jibes, the highlight was the wave riding up near Dokis Island.

Foiling into Scott's place with the wind farm in the background.
(Some of the blades are already being replaced after 10 months of operation)

The full foil session - fun up and downwind bits and lots of jibes

Jibe practise at Scott's

Decent wind and 21c

(Addendum) Then it was Vanessa's turn, she headed out on the Skate 108 and her 5.7 Firefly, but didn't have the epic session I was hoping she would have. Next time...

Vanessa heading out for her session

After catching up on a few afternoon emails and a nice dinner with visiting buddy Geoff, I headed out for another session. This time 15.7 km in an hour on the Stingray 140 with the bigger 5.6 in slightly lower winds. I stayed dry for around 45 minutes, feeling quite comfortable. The wind was intermittent, so my pumping got better, but I didn't have as many wave rides. Top speed was 31.7 km/h but looks like a bit of a data spike, most speeds were in the 25 km/h range. Highlight of the session was sailing into the nice sunset - zen like really.

I'm finding the trick to not overfoil is bending my knees when I'm close to breaching, which puts pressure on my toes and keeps the nose of the board down.

After dinner session

Tomorrow might have another nice SW lunchtime flow...