Blog post and video on my first days foiling

d0uglass

Hi Y'all,

It has been a week, and I am more tickled than ever with my new toy, the Slingshot Hoverglide Fwind 2019 with a 90 cm mast, mounted to my 15 year old formula board. I've posted a blog with video and thoughts on the foil setup and foil learning experience.

http://jimbodouglass.blogspot.com/2019/03/coral-reefs-and-hydrofoil-windsurfing.html

The first part of the blog is some personal stuff and pictures from a snorkeling trip, so you can just scroll down through that to the hydrofoiling part.

-James

joethewindsufa · Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 1190 Location: Montréal

wow - no reaction in 2 days

thought this was the hottest thing since sliced bread Smile

since you have done it all
is this just more mowing the lawn, BAFFing, just cool cuz it is the latest or ??
i always appreciate your opinions
thanks in advance
joe
nb am guessing you did not re-enforce the fin box ??
no musak on the vid yet -you usually put the "good stuff"

brand_adam · Joined: 01 Dec 2015 Posts: 25

d0uglass · Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2019 9:04 pm Post subject:

Joe- Thanks for the props. I reinforced the deck atop the finbox with four layers of fiberglass, and I'm using extra large washers on the tops of the fin bolts to help distribute the load. There's also a flange on the bottom of the tuttle box adaptor on the Slingshot foil that helps distribute the load on the bottom of the box. So far it seems secure, knock on wood.

Since I'm not very good yet I've mostly just concentrated on sailing steadily and controlling my altitude - a glorified version of mowing the lawn. But the foil is clearly capable of a lot more. The upwind angle that it can go when powered is fantastic. And despite its upwind and light wind power, it's super maneuverable- I'm just not comfortable enough with it to take advantage of that maneuverability yet. Hope to make some more jibe attempts my next session.

Here's my latest foiling video, which is a boom mount view of a light wind session with the 8.0 sail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfSzfNx2tMA

No music in my videos now since my habit of dropping whatever song I felt like into the videos was against the law and got my vimeo account deleted. My youtube videos will be music free unless I can figure out a legal way to get good music in them without having to pay through the nose and deal with a lot of bureaucratic stuff.

brand_adam- I'm really looking forward to getting to the point where I can do upwinder-downwinder sessions in swell, too. I've enjoyed that kind of sailing with my conventional formula setup, but the banging upwind and uncontrollable / non-maneuverable downwind feel on formula is less appealing than a mellow, swell-riding style would be on foil