It is definitely good to go out when the wind actually shows up! The wind wasn't supposed to be there until late in the afternoon. But when I got to the launchpad at 12 o'clock it was already blowing 12 knots.
I decided to go out on the 5.6 Idol with the 99 cm foil. It was perfect. I got around 8 km of foiling before the wind dropped off a bit. The engineer in me figures that dropping from 12 knots to 8 knots drops the wind strength by 75%? (The chart is from my new Tempest online weather station, my readings of 12 and 8 knots from the AcuRite weather station I’ve been using since 2018.
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| Catch the wind when you can! |
On my last 2 km I enjoyed doing some upwind 360s and especially appreciated the super clear water as it has not rained any significant amounts this spring. The water looked and felt cold but was actually 17c. I wore booties anyway for some extra comfort.
My GPS initially didn’t show the session, but then I found it on the Garmin website showing as Saturday. Weird. 10 km distance with a max speed of 24 km/h. It was neat heading upwind cruising right next to the old Key Harbour crib which I could see clearly through the water.
Carl, maybe I've asked this, but what's your wind minimum on the i99? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi Brian. I’m finding that I need gusts to around 10-12 knots. Same winging with the 6.0 as windsurf foiling with the 7.0. I added some wind info on the next blog post which I just published. I’m going to rig the 9.0 again in a few weeks which should get me going on a single digit day.
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