Foiling on a gusty day at the lake

[dllee]

Point San Quintin, E entrance, and one hour parking for 5 cars.

[dvCali]

[coachg]

Interesting event today at Lake Garda. Two formula foilers on 8.5’s was doing a race with a slalom board using 8.5 rig. Wind was around 18 knts on an Ora so very big swell out in the middle. A zodiac was pacing the three of them just up wind & filming. They made about four runs. The slalom kid kept winning by about 1 to 1.5 lengths. During one of the races one of the foilers blew up making me realize how risky it is doing a reach for speed with a foil. It was a nasty crash & he was down for a few minutes. Good thing he was young & had the zodiac to help. Both foilers were very young & very good. I was watching them the day before nearly completing downwind 360’s with 8.5 rigs on formula boards.

Coachg

[dllee]

Yup.
I've mentioned that at Berkeley, no foiler regardless of skill would match up with me on freeride kit powered up.
ONE try, maybe, for a short stint.
Foilers kill me upwind and beat me downwind.
Yesterday wind came up to 23 while I was foiling on 5.3. Tried to beam reach with a good ws dude on 6.0 and 108 Fanatic Hawk.
We were closely matched for maybe 200 feet, then I exploded..not breaching.
Did it again a couple runs later.
Of course, I didn't match up with him in peak gusts..and I should have been on 4.0.

[dllee]

Fun explosions hooked in.
Feet go somersault over board and my head.
Board follows feet over my head, the pivot point along with the sail.
Not recommended for old people.

[dllee]

To clarify, ws dude later comes up and tells me it was really finny. My head was atop the sail, me hooked in, and the sail was planing atop the water for at least 15', according to him, as my feet and then the board flew over my head and the sail.
Gee wot! My boom broke 10 minutes later.

[dllee]

Can I warrantee the boom?

[grantmac017]

Not sure why you'd try to drag race a freerace board using a surf foil, especially on a beam reach.
If you want to measure success via GPS then you need to look at a different foil.

[dllee]

Why not? I already knew what the results would be.
Both the top and 4th CalCup guys have tried to reach with me on their smaller foils, with the same results.
Of course, I got a bruised forearm, creaked neck, bruised collarbone [where it overlaps from misalighned healing], tweaked back, and sore butt.
Everything comes at a price.

[isobars]

Sadly, we often don't know the price until we get the bill.