Here is an interesting video where "Hell June" details his setup for very light wind sessions on a small lake. In French but with English subtitles.
As you can see, there is practically no wind, so he sits on his board for 5-10 minutes, waiting for a small gust of wind to pump the board on a plane, by a cork effect: pushing hard to submerge the board, and take off on the pop up. His board is 70 liters for his 88kg, but he is an expert pumper, who has mastered beach starts. He even says it would have been less tiring to just do beachstarted pumping foil sessions rather than winging on this day. I guess your ability to pump the foil is key there.
Note also how he uses an electric pump to pump up the wing while he manually pumps the board to save time, but that he does not trust the built-in pressure gauge, and stops at the figure (6psi) that "sounds" right under the finger, and inflates less the boom strut than the leading edge one.
He uses a medium aspect foil wing with a high aspect stab, and a big mast.
I would call this "extreme" wind foiling -- extreme in the sense of low winds. Hard to believe someone can get up on foil in these super low winds. You have to be pretty dedicated to sit around waiting for little gusts in order to foil for a couple of minutes and then sit around some more waiting for another gust.
It would be more fun foiling in these low winds with another foiler -- competition to see who could get on foil the most and go the farthest.
First, you need to develop a high skill level (pumping) to even give this a try.
Outside of Gong the biggest wings I can think of are in the 7 metre range.
I watched the video and went foiling.
This flat pumping technique works really nice, it got me up on foil much better than trying to porpoise the board as i was doing.
Very happy,thanks Colas for posting it!.
dejavu: "First, you need to develop a high skill level (pumping) to even give this a try."
Yes. Basically he (nearly) does not need the sail :-) He is inland in Toulouse, so he can do quick sessions on nearby lakes during work days.
mcrt: Great! I encourage you to look at his other vids in his channel, he gave a lot of tips also for dockstarts and beach starts.
Select to expand quotedejavu said..
First, you need to develop a high skill level (pumping) to even give this a try.
Hi, I'm 98 kg and not that skilled. Went out in 5-10 knots with the 9m and it got up and flying easily. Wish I had Hell Junes skills.
