A Year (Windsurfing) en Provence: windsurf

Showing posts with label windsurf. Show all posts

Sunday, May 21, 2017

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/

Thursday, May 4, 2017

IWT Featured Rider - Preparing for Morocco

It was a huge thrill to be profiled as one of the International Windsurfing Tour's ‎featured riders. The IWT asked me 20 questions and here are my responses:

https://internationalwindsurfingtour.com/featured-rider-carl-spiess/

The most fun part of that was when Boujmaa Guilloul reposted the article and said I was an inspiration.

That coming from one of only 3 windsurfers I know of to attempt a triple forward loop. His passion for the sport is an inspiration to me! Watch his triple forward attempt video at:

Boujmaa Guilloul about his triple forward from Mysticboarding on Vimeo.

Boujmaa also had a pretty epic wipeout at the Aloha classic last year that I watched live from the beach: http://windsurfing.tv/video/wipeout-of-the-day-moroccan-canon-ball/ It really is inspiring how Boujmaa really goes for it!

I'm now heading to Morocco for the first IWT stop May 6-13. We'll be sleeping on tents on the beach.

I will admit to being a bit anxious. Even though I went to Boujmaa's Moulay event last year, the time away from family and work stresses me.

Well, I'll admit the foreign country, remote surf location, potential for big crashing waves and high level competition ‎all provide a bit of stress too.

Oh well, here goes. Stay tuned at:
https://internationalwindsurfingtour.com/morocco-spot-x/

Monday, March 28, 2016

Windsurfing Antigua with my son!

My son's Grade 12 school ship was anchored in Antigua. After 7 months of living and going to school on a tall ship crisscrossing the Atlantic ocean, when asked what he wanted to do on Antigua, his answer was "go windsurfing".

So we arranged to rent some gear from Patrick at Windsurf Antigua. Phillip took a 5.0 and a 96l board, I was on a 5.4 and a 90l Naish Global wave. We had lucked out; the wind was stronger than normal.

Phillip had a great first run. He water-started and easily got going out. But then he jibed and struggled water-starting out in the big rolling waves. He was drifting downwind toward a shallow and sharp looking reef where the waves were crashing. It looked quite menacing. I circled back twice swapping my upwind gear with his. That bit of time and distance was all he needed and got going again back to the beach.

I'm happy to be following my son around! Fun windsurfing in Antigua

We then sailed back and forth for an hour, while the rest of the family watched from the windy beach. I used a waist harness for the first hour, then switched to a seat harness because I'd recently bruised my ribs. I'd forgotten how nice a seat harness can feel.

Some of Phillip's classmates from Class Afloat had arrived on the beach and were taking kiting lessons. (I really think all kite lessons should start with 2 hours of trainer kite flying - but that is just my opinion.)

My tracks - Prickly Pear island (to the right/north) was a nice spot to jibe

It was the perfect session. The next few days the wind dropped off, and Phillip's ship departed for the Dominican Republic, the Azores and then grade 12 graduation in Amsterdam.