Postby meteo » Wed Dec 09, 2015 2:46 pm
Outings 96 to 103, November 28 to December 8 2015, hours 125 to 138.
Now I am certain that I will reach all of my goals on a hydrofoil… This week I practiced a lot on the Spotz3… I am now able to (water) jibe it without problem… do jumps, land them, jibe, everything without falling of the board, but still have not found the courage to do aerial jibes and toe side riding with it, still too fast for me…
I decided to go back to the beginners foil (my Liquid Force) and to my surprise had to relearn to ride it… took me at least 15 minutes to get my feeling of the board back… But now, I decided that I would attack the aerial jibes… GO IT…I had done some before just above the water… but now, I do it like in the videos… Way up there, mast at about 60 to70% out… Unfortunately, I still mist a lot of them… I still need a lot of concentration to get them… but now I know that I will eventually be able to get them all... When I was struggling with my on top of the water foot change, somebody told me: one day you will wonder why it was so difficult to achieve this simple maneuver… and I found this to be true… So… I now believe, that with practice, I will arrive at a point were doing aerial jibes will be super easy…
IMPORTANT: I friend of mine, a very good TT rider and one of the local instructors decided to have a go at foiling… So, not wanting to spend money on a beginners foil, he went directly with an intermediate foil, which is faster than my liquid Force foil, but still much slower than my racing Spotz3… After three weeks of riding almost every day and getting beaten by the foil, he decided to try out a beginners foil… and to his amazement, got it in less than 20 minutes… So after practicing a couple of days with the beginners foil, he went back to his intermediate foil… now he is able to ride it.. but still a lot of work… He told me that now he understands why it is almost mandatory to start with a beginners foil, and kept it, to try different manoeuvers, if you want this adventure to be pleasant... I would never get the courage to try difficult maneuvers with my racing foil…like trying a forward roll… back rolls are easy and natural to do, but front rolls are much more difficult… so I tried them with my beginners foil first… I go super slow, about 5 to 6 kts… bring the kite at noon and push the foil out of the water and throw myself forward… so easy at low speed, got it on the first try… Same thing with aerial jibe, the first ones are done at low speed, about 9 to 10 kts… I bring my kite slightly up, this gives me a gentle lift, do my feet change, as I do this my speed drops a bit, but since I have a big fat wing under me… I continue on a foiling stance… could not do this on my racing foil… but I will eventually, as I get better on my beginners foil, this ability will be transferred to my racing foil.
Conclusion of the day: I now see the difference between a FUN foil and a racing foil…