South Milton, Hydrofoil heaven
I return to local hot spot, South Milton, it’s 8-10 knots. I launch my 16m JN MrF3 mono strut, 27m lines. I am recovering from a virus, therefore a bit flappy for the first five minutes or so. Then, all of a sudden something clicked big time (I am not sure what) and off I went. I started to move my foot back a bit on the board which gives more control once you learn to apply the front foot pressure initially and want to fly the board, I also finally got riding switch a lot more confidently flying the wing. I could ascend and lower the board on the wing with control.
A major penny dropped finally, realising that your board speed as well as your board angle/foot pressure effects the amount of lift. More speed also seems to increase your stability to a point. What I noticed most about this session is how easy it is on your body once you are on the wing, it’s really effortless to travel large distances.
The upwind ability is genuinely incredible. A friend who rides in light wind a lot came down with a 15m and door and couldn’t even get off the beach. As long as the kite will hang in the air and climb reliably you can sail really close to the wind, in complete silence.
Not noticing at the time but I got a bit of that spaghetti style seaweed stuck around the wing which was a strange draggy sensation resulting in a pretty good crash at speed.
My switch tack is still a bit weaker than my regular, so this allows me to get downwind nicely.
I return to the shore a hero and beach-goers whooped at me. My grin is huge. I am not so battered and bruised and very eager for more. Next job is to learn to turn the blighter I guess.
Total water time now is about 4 hours.