Friday after work foil session

I got my mom up north and my email inbox under control and headed out for an late afternoon foil session. The wind report didn't suggest anything good would come up. The temperature for the first day of fall seeming more like the middle of summer and I wore a shorty I didn't even zip up. I set out on the Techno 148 with the 36 inch slingshot H2 hoverfoil. This was the first time that the 7.0 felt comfortable for foiling.

In fact, I was feeling very comfortable. This was my 15th session foiling. I could pump onto a plane in the 12 knot gusts and keep going in the 8-10 knot wind. The pumping motion that seemed to work best was 1 or 2 slow pumps and then many more frequent (and getting smaller) pumps.

Overall this session was quite different from my first sessions where I needed whitecapping 15 knot gusts to get going. I really only overfoiled once and even then I didn't have any catapults. Top speed was again 30km/h which I've been told from a few sources now is really the top speed for this foil. And that is fast enough for me!

As the session went on, I noticed that I had my legs straight and was standing most of the time. I recalled sessions from 2 months ago where my legs were bent the whole time and I was super tense. I was relaxed enough to spend a few seconds looking down under the board to see the foil slicing through the water. Cool!

I was feeling much more comfortable on the foil, and even tried turning downwind twice to initiate jibes. Well learning to jibe may have to wait until next year!

Smiling cdn guy with the foilboard

The foil runs - two jibe attempts!

Organizing the shed - 10mm bolts & 2 runs on the 5.4

The wind was out of the Northeast, which is not a great direction. Gusty and offshore, I normally don't even bother.

So I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning out the old shed and making room for my boards and sails. I started installing a board rack which makes storing the foil board much easier.

I set up the Techno with the 36" Slingshot mast. I was happy that the 10mm hex bolts I purchased fit perfectly into the bolt holes on the BIC Techno 148. See photo.

NEW - Using 45mm M10 Hex bolts means the screws aren't sitting proud anymore!

OLD - The heads of the big bolts supplied with the
Hoverfoil would sit at the top of the custom collars I built.

The bolts in the fuselage of the Slingshot Hoverfoil had seized somewhat, so I lubricated them again and didn't tighten them as much this time. I will try to remember that I need to loosen them when storing for extended periods. I got a good reminder in the Slingshot blog post on the subject of corrosion.

Around 7pm I decided to head out after all. I tried the 5.4 Duke on the Freestyle Skate 108 in the cold gusty winds. I did get two runs in, but called it a day pretty quickly. No foiling today.

Got planing twice!

I'm looking forward to a classic west wind bay day - likely in August!

How to carry a windsurf foil board

Another weekend, and another chance to foil. The southwest wind hovered from 10-15 knots all day, and the 6.2 wasn't quite enough to get going.

While I was carrying the board back and forth to the water several times, I finally figured out how to carry the foil board. I had tried my traditional footstrap and universal joint method and wound up breaking one footstrap. I had also carried the board on my head, but that kind of hurts. And carrying the board from the foil mast doesn't work well either.

My wife got this shot of my new carrying technique, you hold onto the foil fuselage and a footstrap!

My new wind foil board carrying technique

Then, just as I was ready to call it a day, the wind picked up and was blowing 13-17. My wife got some nice video:

11th wind foiling session from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

I got a number of runs, but many ended in low impact catapults. 32km/h top speed! Here's the chart.

A good number of foil runs in my 26 minute session.

First wind foil practice!

The foil all ready to go behind the boat

OK, so foiling is all the rage. I was inspired by Kai Lenny's SUP foil video and Sebastian Kornum's windsurf foil successes. I knew I'd need to get one.

Tom Soltysiak was wearing his Silent Sports hoodie in Morocco so I when I heard through my wife that Silent Sports had just received a shipment of windsurf foils - I dropped in. I picked up the Slingshot hoverglide windfoil #1 and the flight school learning kit.

After the fairly complicated conversion of my board (see tech talk below), I took the advice of first trying the foil behind a boat. It also wasn't very windy, so I couldn't actually try it with a windsurfing sail. Thankfully my wife and daughter were up for towing me.

Here's the summary of my first 8 attempts. I got up and promptly fell the first 4 times. I wobbled so much on those first few attempts I wondered if I would be able to do it at all.

But since the speed is so slow, only one of the falls I had hurt! By my 5th and 6th tries I was amazed that I was actually foiling and shouted "This is so f@c&ing cool!".

Here's the video of rides 5-8. Thanks Katie for the footage.

My first windfoil practice from Canadian Guy on Vimeo.

Happy about my first 4 foil attempts & 2 rides!

I took a break and on my 7th and 8th attempts I was simply enjoying the sensation of floating over the water. It was so quiet I could hear the bubbles coming up in the boat wake. Those rides were each around 2 minutes long. My smile says it all.

My 7th attempt!

I can't wait to try the board and foil with a windsurfing sail.



Technical notes:

Here's the tech talk about how to modify a BIC Techno for a Slingshot foil.

Slingshot deep tuttle connector

I'd heard that my BIC Techno 148 could be used as a foil board from some of the US mailing lists I'm on like Isthmus Sailboards. But I wanted to buy local. And if I'd had more time maybe the Kerfoil would have been a good option - and with no board modification needed.

I knew I'd need to drill out the fin screw holes on my board to accommodate the bigger bolts for the slingshot deep tuttle box adapter. I was a bit worried that would impact the future use of one of my favourite light wind boards - my BIC Techno 148 - the same type of board I'd used in 3 HIHOs.

That conversion turned out to be harder than I thought. I did have the perfect sized drill bit to expand the M6 holes to accommodate the M10 bolts. But the metal washers inserted into the bottom of the holes on top of the tuttle box started to spin as the drill caught the last bit of material. The rotation started to slightly damage the inside edges of the board. So I stopped drilling - a bit frustrated that I might be permanently damaging my board.

My solution to the bolt problem:
 some pipe cut to make sleeves and transfer the
 load to where the fin screws normally seat

Also, there was the issue of how to get the M10 bolts with the big hex heads to sit up high so they don't damage the board and yet still transfer their load to the box? I solved that by cutting some pipe of 2 different diameters to make sleeves for the bolts.

With that problem solved, I went back with a round file and made the mostly drilled out holes in the washers slightly bigger and drilled the holes in the box from the bottom as well.

Top view of the cut pipes I used as spacers

Now the bolts sit a bit proud from the board - I'm ordering some M10 allen bolts to see if that will provide a flush mount.

The upside of the Slingshot kit over some of the fixed masts is that there are different lengths for learning. I used the 24 inch flight school mast which was recommended by the shop for first timers. I can graduate to the longer ones when I get better.

PS, a while later, Slingshot published this video about moving from M6 to M10 bolts: https://blog.slingshotsports.com/diy-convert-your-board-10mm-foil-hardware/