NW Thursday

[Slappy]

How's the fun factor though?

For me the fun of foiling is:
1) exploring, I can go down to kits beach, over to stanley park then up to tower beach in 30 minutes.
2) going downwind in light wind which creates almost zero apparent wind
3) surfing the swell

[adam2]

It's good, time will tell how long it takes to get bored of it, but I don't see it happening soon, it has exceeded my expectations in this regard. The setup isn't as playful as a kitefoil, but it works really well for super long reaches that I wouldn't normally feel comfortable doing kiting. It goes upwind almost as well as a kitefoil and steep downwind reaches are pretty easy, you can't outrun your sail the way you can with a kite. The setup has a lot of potential for exploring. I've found with trying to get on swells I'm outrunning them even with my relatively slow foil, but I tend to be rigged pretty big so that I don't have to uphaul. The hover sensation from kiting is definitely there.

[grantmac]

Which foil do you have Adam?

[adam2]

Hi Grant, it's a Foil Works windfoil, basically a rebranded Windance discount version of the Slingshot Fwind1 (H2 wing). I'm running it on a windance PowerPlate in a Tuttle box. It gets me going reasonably early at the expense a high top end. I plan to change out some parts for kitefoiling it in the fall.

[grantmac]

I have the Fwind1 and I think I'm going to get the new wing that Slingshot just released, it's over 50% bigger.
I'm not sure I'll need much less wind but perhaps a smaller sail and I'll be able to ride swells. I can turn on waves now then I quickly outrun them.
There is a guy on Oahu windfoiling swell with the Naish which is right between the two in size.

[adam2]

I'll be curious to know how that goes, that size sounds about right for it.. I have seen videos of guys surf foiling the H2 on fairly steep waves, but I agree it's probably a bit too small to be a good swell riding windfoil.

[grantmac]

I'll demo it first this time. Maybe on my next Gorge trip.

[tweegster]

A guy on NW kite is currently selling a used SS H4 batwing if that is the wing you are looking for.

[grantmac]

The H4 actually needs a lot more power, but in return it carves a bit better apparently.

The wing I'm thinking of is new and known as the H11.