Foiling comfort: Hiking out further and the hand drag

I've been wondering how I get there. There are probably lots of things I can do to change my stance. The fact that I cannot do it, or haven't done it yet seems to be indicative of other issues?

On a regular windsurfer, I can do it when powered up on a appropriately sized board, but I think even on 9.0/900/115+ I've been too upright on the board to pull it off.

I think part of my issue is having the harness lines too far back, such that I don't have a slight backhand bias for when I let off with the front hand. I've been experimenting with line position with the easily movable lines I've got, and it feels a lot better. I think they had a slight forward bias before, because I felt my front arm burning and would get too powered up if I leaned fully into the harness.

I can also go even further on my harness lines now because the race lines go much longer than my previous Chinook ones.

Other issue is needing to fully commit to the straps. I hadn't been using the back straps as much in certain wind directions because there is only a short reach in the protected area before running too shallow and hitting the shoal, so I have to get going then almost immediately prepare to jibe, as things come quickly at 20-25mph.

Any tips from you more experienced guys?

I figure being able to do this will also help me deal with overpower on the foil more as well.

Around 1:20 he does a solid hand drag, 1:43 looks a lot more sketchy with a wing tip breach but he stays on.

Aeroegnr thanks for the video, really good. As for dragging a hand, looks like the guy is using really long harness lines. But a screw up in that position could really cost you.

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sl55 said..
Like this? You need a large sail, race foil and strong wind to support you at this angle.

Bingo, yeah. I've got all the right setup. I wouldn't want to try this on my Slingshot gear, but the foil race stuff with a 9.0 is what I'm trying to get more comfortable with hiked out.

Here's another example I thought was cool:

Only young supple ankles need apply

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6u1d0 said..
I'm quite sure that the Goyard clip is shot at 'la Piantarella' in Corsica. I can tell you that this spot is the best flat water and consistent wind I know, for having learnt windsurfing small gears there. The right spot, the right time, the right gear...
I don't know where Amado's clip is shot, but it also look like a dream flatwater spot.

Amado's clip looks like Bonaire.

What I wonder is how much the sail is generating lift that sustain the rider weight. I usually consider that rider's weight is transmited to the board via his feet and the sail (via the mast base). But with such an attitude, the sail being oversheeted considering apparent wind, isn't it more acurate to consider that a large part of the weight is lifted by the sail as a wing at least for its lower part ? IMHO, that must be, otherwise even with a race foil, the weight transfered to the mast foot would cause the board to dive.
It must get closer to handgliding... adjusting the sheeting must be fine pilot skill.

Yeah you're hanging on the boom, but the sails lift center is above, so the sails also press the board down. I just wonder what is the weight distribution between the sail and the board. It must depend on the sail profile. My guess is that a longer boom makes it possible to have more weight on the sail, and thus piloting this lift by oversheeting in or out really makes the flight. Probably better with a camed wide sleeve.

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eightbft said..

Dishpet said..
What I've discovered to be good are long lines (34' inches) ...

... weighing about 100kg ...

We both weight 100kg, but you, my friend, you are a 2m tall giant!!!

If I would use 34 inch harness lines,my fingers wouldn't' even touch the boom and I would have to hold onto the lines like a monkey climbing the rope!

Nevertheless, I think I am going to follow your advice and try it out myself:
sitting into the harness for tilting the board and then straightening the body out might be the key factor (for me).

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. This is proven by our common friend (gino) who is 70ish kilos, average height, well into his fifties and he is running 36'' lines, the man in question :

You dont need super long lines for the handdrag. I used 26-34 adjustable at around the 30 mark most of the time and worked just fine. Its mostly a matter of tuning the line position, mastfoot and straps to maintain equal flight height when leaning out more. Generally you increase mastfoot pressure that way and the board will want to go down, having a very powerful (front foot powered) setup like most PWA pro's set theirs up actually makes everything a lot easier as the board will maintain a way more consistent flight height.

Edit: Maybe longer lines could make it easier, because it allows you to be further hiked out with the sail more upright, meaning less change in mastfoot pressure. The negative of longer lines in my experience is that its harder to keep the board banked over / controllable laterally during the hand drag, so I guess its a tradeoff. Like I said, for me a little shorter worked better.

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aeroegnr said..

WhiteofHeart said..
You dont need super long lines for the handdrag. I used 26-34 adjustable at around the 28-30 mark most of the time and worked just fine. Its mostly a matter of tuning the line position, mastfoot and straps to maintain equal flight height when leaning out more. Generally you increase mastfoot pressure that way and the board will want to go down, having a very powerful (front foot powered) setup like most PWA pro's set theirs up actually makes everything a lot easier as the board will maintain a way more consistent flight height.

Do you have the lines set up to be biased to need some back hand pressure?

I have them setup to have exactly equal pressure on both hands, down to the milimeter. From what I've felt having backhand pressure kills upwind performance and control in gusts. The latter also goes for exessive front hand pressure too though. Equal pressure means (in theory) all your weight is on your lines and none of it is on your hands. From what I can gather from Thomas Goyards instagram / videos for Phantom he also rides with exactly equal pressure as he often lets go with both hands for extended periods of time.

In very steady winds maybe having backhand pressure makes doing handdrags easier, but if its gusty backhand pressure will make ride height less controllable.

Edit: Important to note is that I dont have my hands equally distant from the lines, I pretty much always ride with my front hand closer to the lines than the backhand, but when having the hands like that its "equal" pressure. Similar to how thomas is holding his boom in this video when he's blasting:

www.instagram.com/tv/CWynFPqonWH/?utm_medium=copy_link

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6u1d0 said..
What I wonder is how much the sail is generating lift that sustain the rider weight. I usually consider that rider's weight is transmited to the board via his feet and the sail (via the mast base). But with such an attitude, the sail being oversheeted considering apparent wind, isn't it more acurate to consider that a large part of the weight is lifted by the sail as a wing at least for its lower part ? IMHO, that must be, otherwise even with a race foil, the weight transfered to the mast foot would cause the board to dive.

With the sail being tilted to windward, there's a strong upward component in the forces from the sail. That means part of the sailor's weight is lifted by the sail, as you say. At the same time, this should reduce mast foot pressure, compared to a more upright sail held at the same angle.

When windfoiling, mast foot pressure seems to tilt the board to leeward. Freeriders with small sails and little mast foot pressure can stand close to the center of the board, or use narrow boards like many the current Slingshot boards. Larger sails require wider boards, and more outboard footstraps, to counteract the increased tilt force to leeward from the higher mast base. Wingers, who don't have to deal with mast base pressure, can tilt even very narrow boards to windward, and achieve very good upwind angles, even with the feet close to the centerline.

So hiking out far with a large sail on a race foil, and pulling the mast to windward, facilitates tilting the board to windward more, which enables upwind angles (as well as easy control of gusts by changing the board angle, as discussed in other threads). The accurate placement of harness lines would be critical in gusts; with lines to far forward, increased pressure on the back hand would lead to increased backfoot pressure, and thus unwanted flight height changes. Makes me wonder how much harness lines that are too far forward contribute to dolphin rides, on both race and freeride foils.

For those who are better at it - when I heel hard, my board tends to nose dive. Harness lines feel proper and I'm pretty front footed. Because of my lack of kg, I tend to run a pretty flat stab. Any thoughts?

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WhiteofHeart said..


I understood its the other way round. Because the sail is fixed, heeling it over towindward increases mastfoot pressure! You can do an at home experiment to verify, try doing "reverse" armwrestling where you try pulling /levering the other ones hand up off the table with your elbow sat on the table. You'll feel the pressure on your elbow is much larger than when the hand is higher up.

That also explains my and paducas problem of the board going down when hand dragging.

@paducah, what helps me is to be properly powerd up and pull the sail back! But its not foolproof.

Seems like then you need to get more back footed when you're heeled?

I've gotten some hiked out times going upwind, not enough to drag, but I think the biggest issue I had was dropping speed and having the windward pressure overwhelm the foil and get squirrely on me.

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WhiteofHeart said..
I understood its the other way round. Because the sail is fixed, heeling it over to windward increases mastfoot pressure!

Look at a force diagram, like the one from the MUF treaty about sail forces:

Pulling the sail more to windward increases the "up" part of the sail force vector, so the sail "carries" more of the sailors weight. That means less of the weight pushes down on the mast foot.

It's quite possible that the mast foot pressure changes differently due to indirect factors. The weight is transmitted onto the board over both feet and the mast foot. If the distribution of the relative amounts changes, then that will have a larger effect on mast foot pressure than small changes in mast angle. For example, a freeride foiler with an upright stance can have most of his weight on his feet, and very little weight in the harness. In that case, the pressure on the mast foot is mostly the weight of the rig.

In contrast to this, a foiler hiking out far over the water must have most of his weight in the harness, not on his feet (using arms will work for a short time, but still puts his weight on the mast foot).

So if a foiler goes from an upright stance to being hiked out on the water, without changes in the wind or direction, there's a pretty good chance that he'll also transfer more power into the harness (possibly without noticing it). That will have a larger (and opposite) effect on mast foot pressure than the mast angle changes - increasing mast foot pressure, and pushing the nose down.

What you want is stable mast foot pressure as the mast is leaned to windward, so you'll have to carefully limit the transfer of weight to the harness lines. That pretty much means you'll have to have most of your weight in the harness before moving the mast to windward - which in turn should require quite a bit of body and ankle tension.

I can't speak for you guys, but I know that when foiling, I tend to have a lot more weight on my feet than when windsurfing. That's probably partly because I mostly foiled on big freeride foils and small sails. I've switched to faster foils, but changing these habits will take me a while. After perhaps a dozen sessions on the faster foils, I'm nowhere close to the harness commitment I have when windsurfing on slalom gear.

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Paducah said..

boardsurfr said..
...
I can't speak for you guys, but I know that when foiling, I tend to have a lot more weight on my feet than when windsurfing. That's probably partly because I mostly foiled on big freeride foils and small sails. I've switched to faster foils, but changing these habits will take me a while. After perhaps a dozen sessions on the faster foils, I'm nowhere close to the harness commitment I have when windsurfing on slalom gear.

When I'm on big gear, I have most of my weight on the harness. Part of it, I suspect is because of my size (smaller) and the relatively lighter conditions where I typically sail. On freeride gear, like you, more weight on the feet but, still, going upwind, I'll hang pretty hard. Since most of my input is virtually - places like seabreeze - hard to say if I'm doing it right or just adjustments for bad habits.

I'd say on the racing kit I'm mostly weight in the harness too. Thats when it starts really flying. Same goes for speedruns on the freeride gear. Its like you can enter sixth gear when you have your weight all hanging from the harness and let the board just fly underneath you. If anything feels like you have to pull or push that costs speed. Ofcourse this only really works when (beam)reaching, for upwind i'm a lot more upright, ride my board flatter and pivot the whole kit in the direction I want it to go, with a lot of force pushing through my legs, trying to be maximum extended.

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aeroegnr said..
I gave it a shot. Wasn't flying that high. It was a little gusty

Well, in the end, you did drag your hand through the water so... technically successful?

As soon as that puppy turned downwind on you, we knew the ending.