Amazing how your muscle memory does adjust to new experiences.
Been mucking around on a foil for the past 12 months.
First 9 months trying to learn on a highish aspect foil. I got to the point that I actually gave up. Just wasn't getting it at all. At 61 I though must be too old, can't teach old dogs new tricks.
After a month I thought this foiling is not going to beat me so I bought a low aspect wing in Dec and now can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Last weekend the wind was very gusty and the sea was a bit angry so I decided to take my surfboard for a spin. (hadn't used it in that past 12 months)
Man, I was like a fish out of water, nothing felt right. After 10 minutes of kookiness I cracked the sh1ts and went back in and grabbed my foil and had a blast for the rest of the day. Everything just felt right.
Just for a laugh, I took the high aspect foil out for a run last week. Still hate it!!!!! Now a potting work bench in my wife's garden.

61!!!!!!!!!
wow, no wonder you need a geriatric wing to foil on.

I have multiple toys. 3 mountain bikes, 8 skateboards, 5 kites, landboard, foilboard, mutant, kite buggy, TT. If I regularly swap from between toys I don't seem to have a problem swapping at all. But if there is some time between on similar toy and another then the one I haven't used for a while feels wrong until I get used to it again. The longer the time the worst the difference feels. The closer the toys are, the worse they are affected. EG, downhill bike and trail bike a quite similar. If i dont use the DH for a month if feels very weird when i get back on it. Foil board and kite buggy are very different. Doesnt really matter at all if i use one or the other for a period of time.,,,

A dude around here is 70. He has taught himself to foil in the last two years, and the only reason it took him so long to get the basics was because he built his own foil from wood. He had little specs and kinda winged it if you now what I mean. He has his foil dialed in now, but I tried to ride it and thought it would kill me. Never the less, one isn't too old to do anything. It's about state of mind...except wing suit flying....you might want to start that a little sooner in life.

I have to say I only notice the swap time when I go back to something I have some competence in.

I'm not great at foiling (still have to concentrate) so I can jump on the foil whenever and after 3-4 months off I won't notice the difference. However, get back onto the twin tip and because I have the unconscious competence (not concentrating) then I really notice the adjustment period.

Mind you, I feel the same every time the wind blows from the wrong direction too. I'm so used to hitting the chop on starboard tack that when the wind blows the wrong way and I start hitting it port tack, I feel like it throws me off my game

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high as a kite said..
Amazing how your muscle memory does adjust to new experiences.
Been mucking around on a foil for the past 12 months.
First 9 months trying to learn on a highish aspect foil. I got to the point that I actually gave up. Just wasn't getting it at all. At 61 I though must be too old, can't teach old dogs new tricks.
After a month I thought this foiling is not going to beat me so I bought a low aspect wing in Dec and now can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Last weekend the wind was very gusty and the sea was a bit angry so I decided to take my surfboard for a spin. (hadn't used it in that past 12 months)
Man, I was like a fish out of water, nothing felt right. After 10 minutes of kookiness I cracked the sh1ts and went back in and grabbed my foil and had a blast for the rest of the day. Everything just felt right.
Just for a laugh, I took the high aspect foil out for a run last week. Still hate it!!!!! Now a potting work bench in my wife's garden.

Im interested to hear your story - Im 56 and lost one foil to the depths of the lake ! (tuttle box - another on the way !!) What was your high aspect foil (brand and model) . I agree with all of the hype about learning foiling - absolutely forget every muscle memory of TT and surfboards - its just different!!
So what was your highish aspect foil ?? I started on a full carbon 100 cm mast Spotz 2 freerace - just about had it worked out before disaster !!
What foil are you trying to sort out ??

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Lambie said..

high as a kite said..
Amazing how your muscle memory does adjust to new experiences.
Been mucking around on a foil for the past 12 months.
First 9 months trying to learn on a highish aspect foil. I got to the point that I actually gave up. Just wasn't getting it at all. At 61 I though must be too old, can't teach old dogs new tricks.
After a month I thought this foiling is not going to beat me so I bought a low aspect wing in Dec and now can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Last weekend the wind was very gusty and the sea was a bit angry so I decided to take my surfboard for a spin. (hadn't used it in that past 12 months)
Man, I was like a fish out of water, nothing felt right. After 10 minutes of kookiness I cracked the sh1ts and went back in and grabbed my foil and had a blast for the rest of the day. Everything just felt right.
Just for a laugh, I took the high aspect foil out for a run last week. Still hate it!!!!! Now a potting work bench in my wife's garden.

Im interested to hear your story - Im 56 and lost one foil to the depths of the lake ! (tuttle box - another on the way !!) What was your high aspect foil (brand and model) . I agree with all of the hype about learning foiling - absolutely forget every muscle memory of TT and surfboards - its just different!!
So what was your highish aspect foil ?? I started on a full carbon 100 cm mast Spotz 2 freerace - just about had it worked out before disaster !!
What foil are you trying to sort out ??

Hi Lambie I am interested in your experience on the freerace eg what did you like, what did you find the most challenging etc.
I am 71 started almost 12 months ago and currently have Zeeko aluminum and KFA firefish freeride (flat wings) carbon 102cm mast.
On Zeeko all good with occasional on foil jibe and 80% on water successful jibes. On KFA while mostly ok its more challenging in jibes, down wind and roll control.

Obviously when I retire I'll get enough time to practice and get better, if the Government lets me.
longer masts offer a roll resistance that is a 2 edged sword.
the more mast in water the more roll stability, as you get more mast out of water you lose the stability caused by water and gain leverage against that stability.
this makes it an exponential type of increase in instability has you get higher. Which in turn means the point of where you feel the change from stable to unstable can be a small distance.
practice and muscle memory are the key factors.

this seems to have most effect when trying a turn, as you want maybe more mast out of water when starting the turn to allow for some height loss during. But this makes you more unstable going into turn which is not fun.
nothing for it but to Train Train ??

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warwickl said..

Lambie said..

high as a kite said..
Amazing how your muscle memory does adjust to new experiences.
Been mucking around on a foil for the past 12 months.
First 9 months trying to learn on a highish aspect foil. I got to the point that I actually gave up. Just wasn't getting it at all. At 61 I though must be too old, can't teach old dogs new tricks.
After a month I thought this foiling is not going to beat me so I bought a low aspect wing in Dec and now can't get enough of it.
Anyway, Last weekend the wind was very gusty and the sea was a bit angry so I decided to take my surfboard for a spin. (hadn't used it in that past 12 months)
Man, I was like a fish out of water, nothing felt right. After 10 minutes of kookiness I cracked the sh1ts and went back in and grabbed my foil and had a blast for the rest of the day. Everything just felt right.
Just for a laugh, I took the high aspect foil out for a run last week. Still hate it!!!!! Now a potting work bench in my wife's garden.

Im interested to hear your story - Im 56 and lost one foil to the depths of the lake ! (tuttle box - another on the way !!) What was your high aspect foil (brand and model) . I agree with all of the hype about learning foiling - absolutely forget every muscle memory of TT and surfboards - its just different!!
So what was your highish aspect foil ?? I started on a full carbon 100 cm mast Spotz 2 freerace - just about had it worked out before disaster !!
What foil are you trying to sort out ??

Hi Lambie I am interested in your experience on the freerace eg what did you like, what did you find the most challenging etc.
I am 71 started almost 12 months ago and currently have Zeeko aluminum and KFA firefish freeride (flat wings) carbon 102cm mast.
On Zeeko all good with occasional on foil jibe and 80% on water successful jibes. On KFA while mostly ok its more challenging in jibes, down wind and roll control.

Hi Lambie ,
My foray into foiling has been interesting to say the least.
I started off on an old carbon KFA foil. (I think it was the MK1 )
Don't know much more than that but I did get to speak to Marv who was the first owner. He told me it wasn't a user friendly combo compared to todays foils.
Mast flex too much which was like riding a bucking bull.
A lull in speed and all it want to do is touch down. No way in hell could I gibe it.

Bought a Cabrinha Double Agent after trying one in Bali.
Jagged a gibe on the first transition on DA. Knew straight away the out lay was worth it.

I live right down the bottom of SA, no foiler's within 4 hour drive so I've haven't had the chance to try anything else.
Would love to have ago on other brands (Zeeko) but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I went for the Double Agent because its slow and I can play around in waves. one other reason for wanting to go slow is there is a lot of reef's and sea weed where I kite. I got sick of face planting at speed. The front wing on the DA is looking worse for wear already.

The low aspect points up wind pretty good, goes down wind without too much fuse as well. =Happy camper!!!
I can tack up wind to my favourite wave in 4 tacks. would take at least 20+ tacks on a surfboard.

What tuttle box outfit did you loose?

Warick- 71 respect !!!!

Had another session on KFA Firefish now tuned with a shim under the back wing.
I could not believe the level of significant improvement.
Easy control with close to equal weight on both feet.
So smooth easy up and down wind and roll issue gone.
Jybes now also looking promising
Kite 6.2m Cloud strutless in 8 to 10kn breeze and up on foil easily often at 18kn speed.

I'm 58 and learned foiling the last year on a Moses 93cm strut ( mast) and 550 /330 wing. It's apparently not as easy as the low aspect LF types. But in 10 hours I was flying back n forth. 20 hours with control. Now exactly 1 year in and 60 or so hours, I'm out in pretty tough conditions - 2m swell/waves, 1m chop and overpowered on my 7m kite. I'm still learning flying gybes in rough conditions. On smooth water no problems.
My biggest control problems have been pitch control and avoiding breaches in overpowered and overtaking waves. Now I've sorted that out too.
I've made learning more difficult because I've changed boards several times, a long story short: first from a too big board with dangerous straps, to a good one with foot hooks,
, but was really a surfboard and dragged when on the surface, then a better one I built but too light: ( broke it), then a too small one with low rocker: a 4-6 dwarfcraft, then a heavy one: my repaired broken one, now one that feels good. It takes several hours to adjust to the board...so a board that works for you is important.
Then I tried a 548 moses wing, it didn't work for me, more breaches. Then back to 550 wing.

Basically f-uing around with gear too much....