Beginner Foiling setup?

[ctvandy23]

Took most of the summer last year to get comfortable.  Almost gave up in the beginning because of sudden breaches and falls.  Quite honestly I was almost spooked at first because I had no control, which made it intimidating.  Glad I persevered because it is certainly rewarding…as others have stated the silence is worth the bumps and bruises.  When you are out there on the end of a long rope, flying and smiling it’s all good!  

[mxmark4]

Swapped to shorter mast yesterday and man what a difference!  Between the mast and lowering the speed a bit I was able to ride way better. Im gonna try going back to the longer mast with the lower speed and see how that does next time out. I was even able to start working on carving and found that helps me with keeping the board out of the water. I guess its from increasing the water speed over the foil?

[hunter77ah]

On 4/24/2022 at 11:10 AM, shawndoggy said:

9 mph is plenty.  really, I'd suggest more like 5-8 to start.  Definitely NO ballast.

Really? I found that it wasn’t until 11.5 or so that I really felt anything solid under the foil. Slower speeds just seemed mushy.  We had the infinity 76 in b position and played around with the board/mast position on the 28” mast. 
 

Yesterday was my first time trying. Wife gave up after slamming the board into her quad.  I may try a slower speed for her next time. Would A position help too?
 

[shawndoggy]

51 minutes ago, hunter77ah said:

Really? I found that it wasn’t until 11.5 or so that I really felt anything solid under the foil. Slower speeds just seemed mushy.  We had the infinity 76 in b position and played around with the board/mast position on the 28” mast. 
 

Yesterday was my first time trying. Wife gave up after slamming the board into her quad.  I may try a slower speed for her next time. Would A position help too?
 

I can’t remember which position is which, but you want the opposition where the front wing is closer to the mast. 
 

for men we go about 10 for newbs. For smaller folks you can go slower. Trial and error are your friends!

[hunter77ah]

3 minutes ago, shawndoggy said:

I can’t remember which position is which, but you want the opposition where the front wing is closer to the mast. 
 

for men we go about 10 for newbs. For smaller folks you can go slower. Trial and error are your friends!

That’s the A position. I’ll try it and see. She was pretty frustrated with it. Hopefully it will help!

[shawndoggy]

48 minutes ago, hunter77ah said:

That’s the A position. I’ll try it and see. She was pretty frustrated with it. Hopefully it will help!

It can definitely be a bucking bronco!

[mxmark4]

A position is for beginners b is for more advanced riders 

[shawndoggy]

6 minutes ago, mxmark4 said:

A position is for beginners b is for more advanced riders 

That's the only position I've ever used on slingshot.

[atLakeSantee]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:19 PM, mxmark4 said:

... When I learned to ride a unicycle years ago, it took me a month to figure it out. One day though it clicked and I rode it all the way across the parking lot at work and then down the street for a whole block. When you get it it will click and you will be stoked. 

I think the unicycle is transferable skill here; although, learning to ride the foil was much easier than learning the unicycle!

Other items to consider for learning:

• Use a wakeboard rope attached to the ski pylon.  The stretch of a ski rope is not good here.  The high angle of tower attachment is not good for beginners.
• Our board can lift around 7 mph if going smooth; therefore, 6-8 seems a good learning speed as it does not aim for the ski as quickly.  Once comfortable with the foil, 11-13 mph is more fun!
• If the board raises up too quickly, then hold the handle shoulder height or higher until the front drops down.  Raising the handle up can be more instinctive and quick-action for new foilers compared with 'shifting weight to front foot'.
• Jump away from the board if it feels fall is imminent!
• Wear a helmet.

[Slurpee]

Gloves aren’t bad either to wear with the helmet. It didn’t take too long for us to learn to fall in the least dangerous way. But I scalped a chunk out of my thumb really early on. I wore slalom gloves for the rest of the day as another layer of protection. 

This is pretty much all we’ve doing this summer. Still learning. It’s a definite challenge. But so much fun when you get that next lightbulb moment. 

 

[Slurpee]

[ctvandy23]

11 hours ago, hunter77ah said:

Really? I found that it wasn’t until 11.5 or so that I really felt anything solid under the foil. Slower speeds just seemed mushy.  We had the infinity 76 in b position and played around with the board/mast position on the 28” mast. 
 

Yesterday was my first time trying. Wife gave up after slamming the board into her quad.  I may try a slower speed for her next time. Would A position help too?
 

We go with 11.5 most of the time with a slow start.  We have played around with ballast, speed and rope length to try and dial things in to the point that we feel like we are actually improving a bit each time we go out.  This past weekend we used no ballast, 11.5 with surf gate left with no wedge and found that the first wake push was very smooth and manageable.  Without surf gate, at that speed the first wake is very rough.  I’m certainly not good enough to pump my way around the lake to circle back to the second wake where things appear to a bit calmer so I am trying to learn on the first wake.  It is definitely a decent learning curve but still worth the effort! 

[shawndoggy]

13 minutes ago, ctvandy23 said:

We go with 11.5 most of the time with a slow start.  We have played around with ballast, speed and rope length to try and dial things in to the point that we feel like we are actually improving a bit each time we go out.  This past weekend we used no ballast, 11.5 with surf gate left with no wedge and found that the first wake push was very smooth and manageable.  Without surf gate, at that speed the first wake is very rough.  I’m certainly not good enough to pump my way around the lake to circle back to the second wake where things appear to a bit calmer so I am trying to learn on the first wake.  It is definitely a decent learning curve but still worth the effort! 

Which foil setup are you on?

[hunter77ah]

3 hours ago, Slurpee said:

Gloves aren’t bad either to wear with the helmet. It didn’t take too long for us to learn to fall in the least dangerous way. But I scalped a chunk out of my thumb really early on. I wore slalom gloves for the rest of the day as another layer of protection. 

I accidentally kicked the foil when waiting for the slack to come out of the line. That was quick lesson learned. 

[ctvandy23]

1 hour ago, shawndoggy said:

Which foil setup are you on?

We are on an Axis BSC 970/400, 75cm mast and a short fuselage with a 3”10 Appletree board.  We started out with Axis PNG 1150 but found it too tough behind the boat at our experience level. 

[shawndoggy]

10 hours ago, hunter77ah said:

I accidentally kicked the foil when waiting for the slack to come out of the line. That was quick lesson learned. 

I sliced the top of my foot open last year the same way. 

[shawndoggy]

8 hours ago, ctvandy23 said:

We are on an Axis BSC 970/400, 75cm mast and a short fuselage with a 3”10 Appletree board.  We started out with Axis PNG 1150 but found it too tough behind the boat at our experience level. 

That seems like it would be a tough board to learn to get up on!  Cool setup tho!

[Slurpee]

We settled on a 60cm mast, 70cm Fuse, CF1200 wing, CF300 tail, and a Dwarfcraft 120cm board while we learn. 

[shawndoggy]

3 minutes ago, Slurpee said:

We settled on a 60cm mast, 70cm Fuse, CF1200 wing, CF300 tail, and a Dwarfcraft 120cm board while we learn. 

Nice setup!

For what it's worth, we had a boat friend pick up the liquidforce pod kit and try it for the first time with us last weekend.  He did try our slingshot infinity 76 setup last season, but didn't have much success.  The pod seemed to be much easier to get from in the water to standing, and he seemed to be able to control it better than other beginners have controlled the slingshot.  Not riding ropeless, but did catch the push on first wake for 30ish seconds a few times.  I'll need to ride it next time just for comparison's sake.

One thing to note on the pod board is that the nose is like a ski jump and seems pretty forgiving for inadvertent touch-downs.

With infinite room on the boat or if I lived on a lake, I'd think that a super-high volume board could be useful to get people on foil easily.  Something like a small SUP that you can almost stand on while floating.  It would take the whole transition from in the water to on top of the water out of the equation.  I think there's even an inflatable board out there with a foil mounting box in it.

[Slurpee]

I have mixed feeling about the bigger boards. We also have the 100cm dwarfcraft. I love it for starts over the 120cm. Easier to kick down. But it has no forgiveness if you porpoise. The 120 has a little bounce to save you on minor bobbles. Just a bit harder to start. That makes me wonder if the much bigger boards would be easier or worse. 

[shawndoggy]

41 minutes ago, Slurpee said:

I have mixed feeling about the bigger boards. We also have the 100cm dwarfcraft. I love it for starts over the 120cm. Easier to kick down. But it has no forgiveness if you porpoise. The 120 has a little bounce to save you on minor bobbles. Just a bit harder to start. That makes me wonder if the much bigger boards would be easier or worse. 

Can you ride them both "flat" on the surface without being "on foil?"  That's the advantage of the larger boards in my experience... super easy to get up with an extra slow pull, vs smaller board that needs to be angled a bit aggressively and takes a firmer pull to get the nose out of the water, only to have it shoot for the moon as soon as it's on the surface.

Are you doing "deep water" starts with the board under the water, or more of a wakesurf start with the board tipped up on the surface?  I've only ever tried the latter.

Edited July 6, 2022 by shawndoggy

[Slurpee]

We start with the board flat and our heels on the edge just like a surf start. 

No we can’t ride these boards like surf boards before the foil engages. At least not for longer than a few seconds. It doesn’t matter how slow you drag the rider up. Not enough buoyancy for my 170lbs  

Easiest is a smooth pull with the surfer off to the side of the boat out of the wash. And decently fast get on plane. If the rider gets all their weight on the front foot the start is pretty stable actually. We all start fine every time. It’s after that where we’re learning to stand tall still. 

 

[CaptainMorgan]

1 hour ago, shawndoggy said:

Nice setup!

For what it's worth, we had a boat friend pick up the liquidforce pod kit and try it for the first time with us last weekend.  He did try our slingshot infinity 76 setup last season, but didn't have much success.  The pod seemed to be much easier to get from in the water to standing, and he seemed to be able to control it better than other beginners have controlled the slingshot.  Not riding ropeless, but did catch the push on first wake for 30ish seconds a few times.  I'll need to ride it next time just for comparison's sake.

One thing to note on the pod board is that the nose is like a ski jump and seems pretty forgiving for inadvertent touch-downs.

With infinite room on the boat or if I lived on a lake, I'd think that a super-high volume board could be useful to get people on foil easily.  Something like a small SUP that you can almost stand on while floating.  It would take the whole transition from in the water to on top of the water out of the equation.  I think there's even an inflatable board out there with a foil mounting box in it.

i've tried starting on the inflatable/big/buoyant foils where i start on knees and climb up while driver pulls at 3mph...i found it very difficult to find foot placement as i clambered around, and as i moved arms around there would be slack temporarily that would then pull me off balance (and it doesn't take much to cause a total fail).  Given a background with wakeboarding and surfing, it was much more natural to do a deep-water start, wakeboard style with board perpendicular to rope.  that way my feet were in right spot and like @Slurpee said, once i got the extra front foot pressure, the starts got easy (staying up is a different beast of course).

[shawndoggy]

17 minutes ago, Slurpee said:

We start with the board flat and our heels on the edge just like a surf start. 

No we can’t ride these boards like surf boards before the foil engages. At least not for longer than a few seconds. It doesn’t matter how slow you drag the rider up. Not enough buoyancy for my 170lbs  

Easiest is a smooth pull with the surfer off to the side of the boat out of the wash. And decently fast get on plane. If the rider gets all their weight on the front foot the start is pretty stable actually. We all start fine every time. It’s after that where we’re learning to stand tall still. 

 

Well if you can get vertical on foil on top of the water 99% of the challenge of learning has been solved!  Now you just need to dabble with getting push and reprogramming your surf brain to do the opposite weight transfer (back foot speeds up, front foot slows down… kinda)

Edited July 6, 2022 by shawndoggy

[hunter77ah]

13 minutes ago, shawndoggy said:

Well if you can get vertical on foil on top of the water 99% of the challenge of learning has been solved!  Now you just need to dabble with getting push and reprogramming your surf brain to do the opposite weight transfer (back foot speeds up, front foot slows down… kinda)

I struggle with scrubbing speed. I tried the front foot down method. It didn’t end great lol. Thankfully the slingshot board can be ridden on the surface and is really buoyant.