Last wingfoil in Hatteras

I thought the wind was coming up around noon, but it was just a tease. So instead I managed to have a great lesson trying out the new iRIG with Arielle and Tyler. More about that at https://www.launchpadwindsurfacademy.ca/post/duotone-irig-review-great-introduction

Late in the afternoon the wind finally came up. I went out with the 7m Slick wing and the 99 cm slingshot foil under the 140 L Stingray board. 

I was the first one out and quickly noticed activity along the beach as more people started heading out onto gear. Stu and Kristy were heading out to try some foiling with Mike as well. I lent them my setup and coached their first few runs.  

I got the 5m Slick and the 2000cm foil under the Sky 125l board and was able to get going on that consistently in the gusts. I stopped from time to time to give lessons and instruction to Kristy and Mike who got their best rides of the whole trip. Kristy was actually going too fast as she didn’t really believe she was up on the foil!

Big board and foil for the first part as the wind built
Some nice S turns in the middle there

Smaller board and wing for the 2nd session

30 km day!

White SUV parking only?

Overall 30 km on our last day. I’m really glad I got out, as it was kind of funny that the Launch Pad was the windiest place in Ontario that day….

The Launch Pad on the north east shore of
Georgian Bay - windiest spot in Ontario!
But a lot colder than Hatteras in April

I spent the next several hours into the dark packing up the trailer getting ready for the drive back. We will take Phillip to the airport in the morning. Goodbye to housemates and one last great dinner. Hope to be here again the year after next… What a great week.

Father / son foiling session

A milestone day for me! Imagine a father and son out on matching branded Duotone wingfoil gear enjoying last bit of wind as the sun was coming out and illuminating their translucent wings. An indelible memory even if there isn’t a photo of it! Here’s the day…

Phillip and I had gone shopping with Jen to get food for the big Friday night dinner that we were cooking.

I went to Ocean Air to rent a 60 cm mast. I also got a 1500 Duotone foil to see how that works. After hitting bottom a few times in the last few days with my 82 cm mast the shorter mast seemed like a good idea.

Then I headed down to Buxton to get some spiced rum for our signature cocktail for dinner: the Dark and Stormy. Driving back past the Canadian hole it was interesting to see that there were 2 kiters and 7 wing foilers. Sadly not a windsurfer to be seen in the moderate winds.

Most of the people at our and the neighbouring houses were coming off the water after their higher wind morning and lunchtime sessions. The guys had been using my Fanatic Stingray 140 with the 99cm Slingshot foil for most of the morning.

The morning wind (and my board)
being enjoyed by our housemates

Once all our meal preparations were done, Phillip and I headed out at 2pm.

We had most of had the sound to ourselves. I headed out on the 7m Slick on my 125 sky foil board with the rented 60 cm mast and 1500 cm front foil. Phillip was on the 5m Slick with the bigger 140 L Stingray board and big 99 foil.

We both got going and were having fun watching each other. It was Phillip’s 5th ever time wing foiling and he was doing great. His upwind ability was incredible. There were few times where I couldn’t catch him or match his upwind angle!

As the wind started dropping, we switched boards. Phil was able to get some good runs even on the smaller foil board with the 5m wing. We did a fair bit of foiling within talking distance of each other. Eventually, I was the only one that could get going consistently with the big 7m wing. 

I offered to switch with Phillip, but he said he was just going to head back in. Of course once in a while he would catch a gust and start flying on the foil again. Just one more run. And then another.

The wind kept dropping. I was doing tricks even sitting down while foiling like I’d learned on Wednesday at the ABK clinic. Phillip was slogging hack and forth I finally convinced him to take the 7m wing. So he got two last runs to make it a great day for him.

Sadly, there is no photo of this session that it is solidly burned into my mind. Two matching wings heading out into the sound with father and son sailing in unison making for a wonderful afternoon session.

My GPS trail - 21km in 2 hours

That night it was all rave reviews for our cocktail and nacho delivery to the hot tub, Jen‘s chicken Marbella and my banana boats. 

A super fun talent show followed with a dozen or so acts. My favourite was the nice imitation of our learnings from the ABK clinic. Below is the video of the boys making fun of our new method for getting going and turning. Pedal the board with your front foot. Then a fast, circular grinding motion on the wing handles. Lastly point all the way through the jibe in each direction. What a talent show!

A few of the housemates are leaving in the morning. It will be a packing day but hopefully we’ll get out on the water again?

The late bird misses the wind….

After yesterday’s ABK lessons and evening session we slept in and had a slow breakfast. The wind report said the SW wind it would be dropping off but it had been windy all night and seemed windy enough for me to try going out on the 5.6 Idol and the Skate 108. Naturally it wasn’t as windy as it looked. 

Yes, it dropped off steadily in the morning.
Glassy at 4pm.

Not enough for windsurfing

GPS foil track

Enough wind for one foiling jibe!

I came back in and we planned the rest of the day. There was a nice deer in front of the house! Off to Ocean Air to get the iRig checked out. Then Pop‘s Seafood for lunch.

Nice deer in front of the house

Lazy day lunch at Pop’s seafood!

I spent the no-wind afternoon setting up my new BBtalking headsets. And getting myself and the www.launchpadwindsurfacademy.ca registered on the Sail Canada Ontario Sailing website.

BBtalking headset being prepared for use

Registered to teach for 2024!

Nice sunset!

There was a great sunset and then we watched CeCe’s dance completion back in Toronto and Galen organized a multi round Spot It competition. 

Watching the missing family members in Toronto

A lively group competition playing the
awesome game Spot It was next.

So a slow but productive day - but the moral of the story is don’t sleep in even if you had an epic day teaching the day before!

ABK wingfoil lesson day with Andy Brandt

I was excited when I saw that Andy Brandt would be teaching on one of the days we were in Hatteras. I quickly booked ABK Boardsports lessons for Jen, Phillip and me. Housemate Bryan was quick to sign up too. Eventually Stu and Claudio were on board too.

The full description of the day will be covered on my Launch Pad Windsurf and Foil Academy blog. I have learned so much about teaching wing foiling and was invited to be a co-instructor with Andy out on the water in the afternoon!

Phillip was the superstar of the class getting going super well on the foil and even getting 2 foiling jibes! That was his 4th day of wingfoiling and he is definitely hooked. He was out up on the foil for most of the 3 hours!

Happy family after the ABK wing foiling clinic with Andy Brandt

My GPS trail for the 3 hours out coaching with Andy
Most of that was standing in the water cheering
and giving instruction 

My 3 hour wingfoil coaching session
and then 2 sessions back at the house

Jen got going up on the wingfoil for the very first time on her last run! Our housemates Bryan, Stu and Claudio were all stoked by their lessons and progress.

When we got back I quickly pumped up the 5m Duotone Slick wing and went out on the new little Duotone 1080 foil under the 125l Sky board. It is trickier than the bigger foiled boards I demoed in the clinic.

Got to work on my new jibe technique
pointing through the jibe!

Good wingfoiling session

Comparing the 2000cm and new 1080 wings
1500 seems to be the happy medium

After 11km of wingfoiling I switched to windsurfing thinking it felt as windy as Monday night. Alas the 5.2 Idol and Skate 108 were too small. The day was done!

Not enough to windsurf…

Hot tub, shower and then Coronas and a Mexican feast prepared by our house mates ended the awesome day.

You can see here how excited I am by

Andy’s point through the jibe technique 

Some very happy (but out of focus) ABK campers!

88 km 3 sport day!

Wow, what a great Monday in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina! 

That’s me blasting out until sunset!

I started off at 10am on the Skate 108 and 5.6 Idol sail but it wasn’t quite enough to get going.

Only got planing for a moment….

So I changed to wing foiling with the Duotone Slick 5m and the Slingshot 99 cm foil with the short mast under the Sky 125 board. I had a great 105 minutes doing 26 km. My tacks seem to be going pretty well.

Fun GPS trail wingfoiling

A bunch of jibes and tacks!

Old foil max speed 13.9 knots

Good session!

One fun part of that foil session was seeing a big turtle swimming in the water. It was a lot bigger than the one I found in the parking lot by the post office when I went to pick up the BBtalkin headsets. I am looking forward to unboxing those BBtalkin headsets that arrived at the post office and made it to the Vacasa/Hatteras Realty shop. They picked the package up just before it was returned to sender by USPS!

After a lunch of leftover pizza I had fun watching Phillip have a great session with the 140l Stingray board with the 99cm Slingshot and short mast. I got some photos and video!

Phillip getting good at wingfoiling - his 3rd day ever!

That’s my boy!

Phillip is quite a natural wingfoiler

Now it was time to try new the Duotone Aero 1080 foil and carbon mast, again with the 5m Slick under the 125 Sky board. It only took a few minutes to get used to the much smaller foil - it did feel less substantial under me for sure. On the 10/81 time ever that small. I found it surprisingly easy to learn. It did feel like it was slipping down in the water, but it had the nice feature that when I breached a few times it would reattach even before I got the board back down. 

I also jumped it, which is much more comfortable than jumping the big 2000 cm front foil. My tacks got pretty good during my first session. I only did a couple in the second session. The wind had picked up a lot that tacking started becoming quite a challenge.

Surprisingly long first part of my session on the 
new small foil without blowing a jibe!
And then lots of crashes near the end.
New small foil max speed 14.6 knots = 5% faster

Jen had gone out in the morning stand up paddle boarding and then was out again in the afternoon when I was having my long session on the new gear. It was great seeing her out in the water and having fun. So exciting to have her knee working for her after missing most of the winter ski season. Sad I didn’t get any photos.

After that, it was time to try wind foiling with the 5.2 Idol windsurf sail on the 140l Stingray with the 99cm foil underneath. The up-wind down-wind angles on a wind foil is really quite remarkable as you can see in the graph of my GPS trail. My upwind runs were super easy to do. I usually was just riding upwind with one hand on the boom and still getting the fastest speeds (red parts). No footstraps! My downwind runs were fun - much more surfy!

Amazing upwind / downwind angles WINDFOILING
(That is using a windsurf sail on a foilboard)

The fastest runs were upwind! 13.6 knots

Finally, as the sun was getting lower on the horizon I thought maybe the 5.2 Idol would be enough to get the Skate 108 going. It worked amazingly well! It did take almost the whole session before I started getting better jibes on the outside. But on the inside I was having fun doing carving 360s, duck jibes and decent planing jibes. 20km in just under an hour.

Windsurf tracks just go back and forth…

My speed on the windsurfer has a pattern…
Slow working upwind… then faster and finally
super fast going into the jibe!
Max speed 24.5 knots = 45.3 km/h

Bryan got the nice sunset photo of me at the top of this blog post as I was the last windsurfer out there with just 2 kiters for company. It was nice to come in, have a hot tub and find burgers in the house saved for me. Everyone else had already had their dinner.  The house has 14 adults and 6 kids which is a great vibe.

Gonna have a good sleep tonight - but need to do taxes tomorrow.

Summary of the sessions!
Total 88.1 km