4.4km Friday Wingfoil

I only had a few minutes after Geoffrey and I worked together to (mostly) fix the island plumbing to head out for a quick session in the gusty Southwest wind.

Heading up the channel

And out to the bay
Thanks Michelle for the photos!

Some really satisfying jibes!

Surprisingly good top speeds
naturally always on my heelside runs

Wing foiling really is the superior sport in gusty wind. I managed to plane through a bunch of lulls. I had the 7m Duotone Slick wing and was using my new 1500 cm Duotone front foil. That foil is likely going to become my favourite. Super easy to get going on and smooth coasting through the jibes. I also noticed that it easily gets me to the max speed I’ve been achieving foiling which is currently 14 knots.

The 7m was a bit of a handful in the gusts that were from 7 to 20+ knots. Maybe that’s why I got such good top speed?

Looking back to three years ago when I was starting and had a struggle to get up through my channel on a south east wind. Today was super easy. Jumped from the dock onto the board, pumped and was foiling on the first run. I didn’t fall in at all on the way upwind and out to the Bay. I needed to do a couple of low speed pivot jibes then eventually was jibing and even did one foiling tack on my way up the channel.

Once out in the Bay, I was enjoying a few really nice jibes, even pointing my fingers through them like I learned from Andy Brandt in Hatteras.

The biggest issue was the tight 5/4 wetsuit which had my forearms aching. Maybe I did too much hammering yesterday on the shed? 

I should have taken the extra minute to attach the harness lines. Oh well next time. It felt really good to get out on the water. My fall trying a heelside tack into the 11°C water wasn’t bad at all. The air was 13C.

Lots of data from the Tempest weather station

I got back to the dock, had a quick sandwich, packed up the gear and headed back to Collingwood for the weekend.