Foiled again!

After my emails and calls, I headed out to get a Friday afternoon session in the wind that was predicted ahead of the thunderstorms!

I used the 6.2 Duke on the Techno 148 with the 36" Slingshot 2 Hoverfoil. After slogging upwind I caught some gusts and got going nicely. I did spend more time slogging than foiling, but that was OK because I'm actually finding the time up on the foil to be quite demanding.

My port side runs were very nice and I was really feeling some control. When I would get up too high, instead of sheeting out and still overfoiling, I would twist/push downwind with the front foot, and this would help both going faster and making the foil bite back down into the water. I think it helped that I had replaced the single back footstrap with two inboard straps.

Two of my starboard side runs ended with soft catapults. Here's the GPS track of my 13th foil session.

Foiling GPS trail. Around 12-15 knots of wind.
28 km/h top speed toward the end.

The top speed of 28 km/h was reached when I was getting ready to head back before the rain and possible lightning came. The whole session was less than an hour but still felt like serious exercise. I was wearing a shorty in the 23c humid wind. The water is much clearer now than it was 2 weeks ago. I also noticed the first monarch butterfly here in many years.

First monarch in many years!

During the thunderstorm, I worked on building my dryland windsurfing simulator. I put an old fishing seat swivel in between two sheets of plywood. More on that another day. After the storm and dinner, I caught this nice photo of my Canada 150 flag and the Fanatic banner I've been flying on the island.

Canadian guy windsurfing fanatic?