I'm struggeling to get enough power from waves to actually flag out the wing. When I do get a little power from the wave I mostly end up overtaking it and lose speed.
Is the problem that the waves are too small, should I turn more to stay in the right part if the wave, or am I using the wrong foil(using axis 999 mostly, but feel like I've had a little more success with my HPS1050).
I'm no expert but I've found riding the waves straight is like riding a bike down a hill, once you get to the bottom you have to figure out what to do (and at which point you aren't on the hill anymore). Since the hill catches up to you you can pump to catch again or like you say go at angle /turn to stay in the power .
when I change wings I feel they sometimes will match the wave speed better but for different waves that means changing the wing a lot
Select to expand quoteBennis123 said..
I'm struggeling to get enough power from waves to actually flag out the wing. When I do get a little power from the wave I mostly end up overtaking it and lose speed.
Is the problem that the waves are too small, should I turn more to stay in the right part if the wave, or am I using the wrong foil(using axis 999 mostly, but feel like I've had a little more success with my HPS1050).
You have to surf the wave - bottom and top turns. This how you sync up with the wave's speed and power
Select to expand quoteBennis123 said..Is the problem that the waves are too small,
More info needed. Enormous difference between riding head high ocean swell jacking up steeply on a swallow reef verses a knee-high wind swell on a lake.
Have you surfed before? Huge point of info there. If not you have a lot more to learn than if you're an experienced surfer just learning to foil.
Have only surfed a couple of times, so don't know much about waves. The waves here are mostly small(wind chop?), with short intervals. In some bays they get a little bigger and cleaner.
I'm wondering if I should go for more lift(HPS 1050 and BSC890) or more glide(ART 999).
One thing I'm also struggling with is actually seeing where I am on the wave. When looking forward going into the wave I can clearly see the peak and bottom, but the moment I turn into the wave and look down it all looks completely flat(if that makes sense).
You need to stay at or near the top of small wind chop and turn back and forth across the top. If you go down to the bottom you lose all lift. Watch downwind foiling videos and see how they pump and join bumps. You need to do that. Waves are different.
Staying high on the foil (foil wing just below the surface) helps in small waves. If the foil is 2 feet under water it won't be picking up the energy in a small wave.
especially when new to wave/swell riding matching your foil to the conditions is important. some foils want to go too slow and some want to go too fast for the speed of the swell. as you get better you can do things to keep yourself on the wave like s-turning, pumping, pumping forward to the next swell or cutting back to the one behind you. For small swell, sometimes a shorter mast is easier as you can keep the foil in the sweet spot of the wave without your board having to be so far out of the water.
This is from yesterday... didn't know where to post it but here seems like an OK spot!
I love that video! it's like all the Foilers say "SQUIRREL!" When they see the wake and converge on it
Select to expand quoteMokesMax said..
I love that video! it's like all the Foilers say "SQUIRREL!" When they see the wake and converge on it
Good one! I had a different analogy involving flies.
if you watch the whole video you can see there's a big pink ONE container ship coming into the bay at the same time... that was the one we were all gunning for. My bar pilot buddy said that the pilot on that boat likes to go fast, and those ONE ships seem to put up a great wake. Under the bridge there was an overhead bow wake but not much coming off the stern. I sailed up to it and there were probably 10-15 wingers on, but after a minute or two most people had bugged off.... something happened and the wake sucked. Some of us spotted the pleasure boat on the other side of the bay and caught this ride which was pretty fun. GPS says the boat was going in the ~12kn range which is very easy and comfortable. The good one the day before was going a much brisker 17kn which was more about just locking in and going straight and keeping up. All good!
