6m is better in 15 knots than 4m!

DOH. Maybe that’s what the problem was yesterday and why I couldn’t get going. I realized I had pumped up the 4 square metre Duotone Unit wing and not the 6 metre one. They are both so lightweight and look similar.

Jump captured on the dock cam
on my way back on the 6m wing and 1080 foil

I headed out and even on Jen‘s big floaty 142L board with the 2000 cm foil underneath I was pretty frustrated that I could only get going twice in what looked like 13-14 knots of wind. 

I slogged back figuring I needed to pump up the 7m wing and was wondering what was wrong with my pumping and foiling skills when I realized I had pumped up the 4m instead of 6m yesterday. DOH as Homer Simpson would have said.

So I pumped up the 6m Duotone Unit which only goes to 7 psi. The 8.5 psi indicated on the 4m should have been my clue but I was thinking to myself “wow that 2024 Unit really has a much higher pressure than what I’m used to on my older Slicks”.

Luckily the wind continued to be strong so I decided to go out Jen’s big 142L board first. But I was clearly overpowered with the big wing AND the big foil underneath. I went back to shore one more time and switched onto the 1080 foil under my smaller 125L Sky wingfoil board.

Video of the smooth landing back at the dock

Back to change down to a smaller board and foil

And that was the ticket! I had a good hour and a half after that just ripping back-and-forth. Did 33 km in two hours total. The 1080 foil is so much more efficient through the water that I didn’t need my harness much at all. 

The wind was actually fairly cold and despite the sun being out my 4/3 wetsuit had me feeling a little chilled towards the end of the session. That might have been that I started practising carving 360s and falling a lot more!

GPS trail with two nice strings of linked S jibes

I did do (what I will need to check but feels like) my first ever switch stance (goofy) toe side jibe. I’ll have to check my blogs to see whether I did any of that last year. I remember trying it once in Bonaire, but this time I was actually foiling most of the way across on my heels in switch side. I never got to try a switch heelside jibe which I think would feel pretty cool?

Dock cam footage of my jump!

I did a decent jump on the way back to the dock but didn’t land it. I was surprised at how high I got even though I was in the wind shadow and basically just cruising on momentum. I also did a few other jumps off wakes out in the bay. Oh well, they looked great in my mind.

Luckily the wind dropped off after I had a quick lunch of some dehydrated Mac and Cheese. I did a bunch of tidying and the Launchpad and was frankly too exhausted to go out later in the day when it picked back up.

The windiest spot on the bay - again

A super surprise session as it wasn’t supposed to be that windy, but that’s what happens in the north east corner of Georgian Bay.