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charlieuk said..
Dropped into the gong shop today no foils to look at unfortunately and not much swell up that way so we headed down the coast to Le Sables d Olonne. Few bumps here but from past experiences maybe not a great wave to foil ether

Too bad. I don't known the coast north of Bordeaux, but I think beachbreaks there do not have the "Baines" that create the big elongated sandbanks south of Bordeaux, due to the constant current from the north that shape the sand for 100 miles there/

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colas said..

charlieuk said..
Dropped into the gong shop today no foils to look at unfortunately and not much swell up that way so we headed down the coast to Le Sables d Olonne. Few bumps here but from past experiences maybe not a great wave to foil ether

Too bad. I don't known the coast north of Bordeaux, but I think beachbreaks there do not have the "Baines" that create the big elongated sandbanks south of Bordeaux, due to the constant current from the north that shape the sand for 100 miles there/

It's a lot more rocky and lots of reef breaks, I found one spot that may of worked but not knowing fully what was under the water I just took a normal board out. Moving down the coast now will keep looking for foil options

Here is my foil position on my 5'6" foilboard - it's about 7-8" from the very tail of the board (it has a huge swallow tail), but basically my mast is in line with the forward fins.



Here is a pic of the board. SO sick. A litlle tricky at first getting up, but amazing once up on the foil.



And colas I know this is not SUP.

Only a Foiler knows the feeling.
Ride safe,

JB

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ellemenophee said..

That looks like a great spot. The air and water looks so clean. I'm not sure about the guy in the boat, he's crazy. I'm coming to Oz in December for a summer Xmas. I noticed a plane landing in the video, I'm flying into Brisbane. How far is Summer Bay from there? Every time I google it I get a tv show, home & away. Is this the same place?

made it down to st jean de luz and got two sessions in some windy conditions, opted for the short mast to avoid any rocks I was in aware of but still got some nice long rides :)

Tried something different this morning with the GoPro.

Here is the Foils Point-Of-View.

Surf was tiny, so not that impressive, but looks pretty kool from this perspective. Look forward to some better conditions to get some footage.



Ride safe,

JB

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colas said..

Piros said..
Please tell me where Keahi has got it wrong

Kaehi does nothing wrong at his level, of course.

What I say is that beginners will have an easier experience if they do not try to imitate him regarding foil position.
Just like SUPing beginners should not try to imitate pros on all points, e.g. paddling in surf stance is mandatory to SUP in contests, but is catastrophic if a beginner tries it.

Specifically, Kahei paddles into the wave with the front foot in the midst of the white pad area: (and one could argue that if he had his foiling stance there, his front foot will be even further forward)


But he foils afterwards always with the front foot on the forward edge of the grey area. Let's say 6" farther back.

My point is that by moving the mast forwards by 6" (and of course his foiling position by 6" forwards, too!) it will change nothing in the air, but thus he will not need to move the front foot between paddling and foiling, which is nothing for him (he evens moves his feet while foiling), but will make a difference when learning to foil, especially if you have never foiled before. (and also on late take offs, taking off in the foam, etc...)

Colas,
Its time to let the mid mounted foil/footstrap deal go, every post you seem to harp on about it!! Your loosing a never ending battle..
Yep mid mount/straps work but it looks gay as AIDS with 4ft of board trailing behind..
Ditch those straps move ya foil back, learn to move around on the board and enjoy your progression..

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coxy31 said..
Colas,
Its time to let the mid mounted foil/footstrap deal go, every post you seem to harp on about it!! \.

If you read my posts, you will see that I only respond to attacks (like yours, btw).

I began by documenting my setup and progress. I just wrote "Gong put the rider in the center of the board,with an advanced position of the foil & straps. This this more natural to paddle with the feet in the straps, and to balance while flying.", which a fact and is NOT something like "Everybody MUST have a centered position" which is an opinion. I just stated the advantage of such a setup, not that it was the mandatory one.

Last week I was asked to give advice on the water to a guy who started SUP foiling, and had a no straps and a rear mounted foil. It was his choice so I just said once why I chose to have straps, and that's all. I never talked about it afterwards. I helped him as much as I could (basically helping him to keep his front foot in the proper position, which is really the critical point at first). And he wisely had a hemlet and an impact vest, as he felled quite often on the foil. And I advised him to do some towed-in sessions, as he is from the Mediterannean sea, with not a lot of wave days in summer.
What is happening on this forum with a minority of people is as if this guy wouldn't stop telling me to not use straps and change my foil position.

I did not want to publish here my lastest foil video, thinking "Why bother, the usual band of fools will just nitpick on irrelevant details, polluting the forum".

But since they have now posted it themselves elsewhere specifically to re-ignite a flame war ( www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Want-to-see-how-a-foil-works-watch-this-video#2126066 ), I include it here also for completeness, so all my progression foiling vids can be seen in the same thread.

So, 31st session:



High tide session, too much water for SUPing there, but foiling was a way to avoid the insane crowds on the few peaks that worked, like the one 200m south. So some pumping practice for me. On this video you can see:

- I am not confident enough yet to "Huntington hop" on takeoff, as it will put me off balance once in the air. You can see it happenning at 1:25. I do not know if it is my body which is off balance, or some underwater turbulence caused by the pumping, but I suspect the former.

- Instead (but I do not do it in the takeoffs in the video) I just pump longitudinally, pushing back & forth my feet to give forward acceleration to the wing and raise the lifting speed. I find it easier to enter the flight fully prepared, plus it is stabler in hot situations (late take offs, take offs in the foam) Note that I can paddle feet in the straps, which helps a lot.

- I try too much to get lift, instead of speed. I react to the lack of speed just like a (bad) plane pilot would pull on the controls to raise the nose if he feels that his speed is dropping, instead of diving to get speed.

- I do not use enough my arms and upper body, and I could even use my paddle a bit, synchronized with my pumping.

- my feet are too contracted (my toes are gripping the pad), making me slow to react

But pumping is beginning to work for me. I am not good enough yet to use it on really flat water as I tire too quickly, but it is coming, session after session.

31 sessions Colas and you are doing it large mate.

Hey Colas don't be so hard on yourself. Your explanation of your technique is unnecessary. After all there's no difference between a reason and an excuse.

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Elizondo said..
Your explanation of your technique is unnecessary.

I think you miss the point entirely of this topic, which is to show truthful videos (not edited to remove the falls) and sincere comments so that would-be foilers can have a feeling of the learning curve for various kind of people and learn from their mistakes.

BTW, Idiocracy president Camacho, I have fun foiling... and you? I am eager to look at your videos, if only to show that you are not a fake account... (but something tells me will never see one)

Hey Colas,

Getting there dude. Here's my 2 cents if you want it. I'll keep it pretty straight forward as I think you can handle it. Please note this is not a dig, you're truly ripping. Just my observations after possibly hundreds of hours foiling time now.

That wiggle you're getting (around 1:24) when the foil is making the moves and not you, is from applying pressure to your rails, tail or nose (i.e. trying to force the foil to do something instead of guiding it into the action), every non-linear force applied has an opposite reaction and force by the foil (you can't just push the rail down to turn, you have to guide it into the turn). You show good recovery as most of the time once this action starts is gets worse until dismount. It's important to all foilers to understand that you can not make the foil just change direction, you have to guide it into a motion. I call it sailing it over the rainbow, or leading it with a carrot. Try and imagine you're being towed by your front hip and all actions come from there. This goes the same for pumping, think of it as un-weighting your your board by lifting your upper body as you guide the foil up the rainbow, then compressing and adding downward force as you guide it back down the other side. Kai does well explaining this in this video



I can't find the area specs on the Gong L, but saw they make an XL. Being a bigger rider myself (95kg), can I recommend you get the XL wing. It will not lift you to the moon, but instead make things so much more stable. As you described you're like an under-winged plane searching for lift. I use the large Naish wing, and while I notice the extra drag, the lift is welcome and I am up onto the foil in tiny unbroken waves (probably less than what you are riding in your video) with only 3 or 4 strokes.

The feet contracted will go, but it's from trying to force your foil again. Once you learn to guide your ride, then you'll be firmly planted on the board and not feel like you need to hang on with eagle claws. Again this is not a dig, but this is what I mean about the foot strap thing, it can allow you to hold on longer doing the wrong thing instead of learning. But this answer is not about that .

I hope this reaches you the right way, keep shredding.

Ride safe,

JB

Thanks JB for the analysis, I guess you are right, I often try to drive maybe too aggressively, as recovery is easy with straps, you can try to push the limits without automatically wasting the ride.

On the size, the Gong wing is only available for now in L and M (they contact you to have you choose the size after some discussion on your intended practice), I guess the XL you saw is the suitability scale for the weight of the rider that is present on all the products pages.

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colas said..
"Why bother, the usual band of fools will just nitpick on irrelevant details, polluting the forum".

I want to hear what Patrice Greunole thinks about foil technique. Maybe he could clear up some details and cut through the BS, instead of the usual fool spam polluting the forum

BTW your profile pic has a big head with a small body. I'm conflicted.

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...instead of the usual fool spam polluting the forum...

You don't see the irony of your comment? If you have something constructive to say, we are all ears. Otherwise, isn't there some other forum you could go and troll?

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Elizondo said..
I want to hear what Patrice Greunole thinks about foil technique.

I give the link to the relevant Gong forum, where Patrice advice posts his advice (even translating the more important ones in English) in my first videos. Plus the Gong forum has a whole foil section, with 3 forums (first steps, howto, gear), with nearly 2000 posts.

Here is a link to one of his posts, for instance: www.gong-galaxy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=120320
First part of the post is in French, second part is the English translation.

Colas & JB, I have two questions:

Now that you have been foiling for a while, would you prefer to be on your foil on a full wave or a normal board on a breaking wave?

And, given your comments above, and Kai's description of how to steer the board, do you find it hard to get on a normal board and steer it correctly? Or do you surfing skills kick right back in?

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cantSUPenough said..
Colas & JB, I have two questions:

Now that you have been foiling for a while, would you prefer to be on your foil on a full wave or a normal board on a breaking wave?

And, given your comments above, and Kai's description of how to steer the board, do you find it hard to get on a normal board and steer it correctly? Or do you surfing skills kick right back in?

Interesting questions.

If I see a surfable breaking wave with no crowds, there is no question, I will just grab my SUP. But I think it is related to my long windsurfing years: for some reason SUP foiling give me the same feelings as windsurfing in waves (the speed, the technicity, the required concentration, the mobility across a large area...), the power source being a submerged sail instead of an aerial one... we can even pump both! :-) So for me the novelty factor of the foil may be not as high as for other people after the learning phase. SUPing is just simpler, more close to the wave.
Also, the Gong line is unique in SUPing as it has sported for many years some atypical boards designed for slow weak waves that makes a lot of crappy conditions fun, so that I can have fun without a foil on a wide range of conditions as I had in the mediterranean sea.
But on the other hand, getting the joys of windsurfing without the hassles (porting the gear, rigging/unrigging) is also what I like in foiling.

But I have a friend that prefer foiling, and have resold his small-wave SUP board, as he will always take the foil if the conditions were both SUPable and foilable.

On the transition to/from, I had my 13 first foiling sessions in one streak, and I found that I was SUP like an old lady afterwards, because I was not moving my feet anymore! I would forget to move back the rear foot for the top turns. But surprisingly, I got eventually used to it, and now switching from/to foil is the same as when I change SUP boards: the first 2-3 waves may be a bit awkward, then everything clicks back in place.
So, when I SUP after a foil session, I have to remember to move the back foot on the tail pad in turns.
When I foil after a SUP session, I have to remember to nosedive down the face of the wave instead of moving back to avoid pearling.

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colas said...
Gong forum has a whole foil section, with 3 forums (first steps, howto, gear), with nearly 2000 posts.

If you keep up the good work directing traffic to the Gong you could get it way over 2000.
But I guess most of the posts on there came from you...

Camacho, one of the uses of ambassadors like me is to act as a "troll shield" to spare Patrice the time and energy to be harassed by trolls and/or fake accounts, that are afraid to go to the Gong forum where they could be more easily unmasqued. You can see that I did not mention the link to the Gong forum when I posted my foil progression videos on seabreeze, it would have been bad etiquette (just as saying that some product is "the best one" without having actually compared to others, etc...).

But you asked me for them, in your little game of pretending to ask naive question who you already know the response to. And I play this game only when the answers can be of use to others, otherwise I don't bother. "Don't feed the troll!"

Now Colas you know I didn't ask you for a link. You just took the opportunity to plug the dong once more. I asked for juniors expert opinion instead of yours, which quite frankly is more like a parrots then anything else.

These observations aren't meant to troll you.Here's a metaphor to help you understand what I mean.
Its like learning Golf from a well intentioned newbie (thats you) who's short and long game suck but is a walking book of knowledge, instead of learning from the Club pro (still waiting for the messiah)who has mastered the sport and can steer you away from bad habits that creep into your game and hinder your progress.

Again these comments aren't meant to troll you. But it is criticism,"Constructive Criticism" No one else was going to tell you because they're too polite or PC. Or maybe they tried but you where too proud to hear it.

Now get out there a make video #32... I'm not going to watch it but I'll check back in at #64 to see how you have improved. If you have, good on you!!!

BTW my name is Elizondo, it's not Camacho. Just like your name is Colas, not Fat-Head (joke)

(3 kisses because I know you Europeans are into that)

Man I appreciate the heck out of Colas. The guy has a lot of knowledge in a lot of different board sports.

I also respect the hell out of him for putting up videos of him learning and falling. I learned watching him fall. And it made me see what falling looks like. I saw that bad stuff happens quickly. And that the foil comes at you. I started out with a helmet and impact vest. (Now that I know what the foil wants to do, I don't use the vest or helmet most days.)

I also appreciate the heck out of Piros.

I'm envious too... that guy lives right! I've learned a heck of a lot from him too. I can't thank him enough for sharing his learning curve with us, and details on which boxes, which distances from the tail, etc. I got behind a boat because of him, and nailed it quickly.

A forum is a place for a free exchange of ideas. Colas and Piros have freely shared their ideas here for a long time.

Thank you both!

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cantSUPenough said..
Colas & JB, I have two questions:

Now that you have been foiling for a while, would you prefer to be on your foil on a full wave or a normal board on a breaking wave?

And, given your comments above, and Kai's description of how to steer the board, do you find it hard to get on a normal board and steer it correctly? Or do you surfing skills kick right back in?

This is a very good one. I think I am still heavily suffering from foil stoke and only had a few std surfs and SUP's since foiling took over my life. When I have made the transition back I had no issues, but I am used to crossing over lots of sports sometimes all in the same day (Surfing, SUP, Longboarding, Kiteboarding, Wakeboarding, Windsurfing, Foiling).

I think Foiling is opening up some amazing rides, and for the majority of conditions I would rather be foiling at the moment. But, I am sure a perfect day with clean waves and no crowds down the south coast could quite easily change my mind.

An interesting thing I am finding as my experience increases is I am now foiling on waves way beyond what I had ever thought would be possible.

Living the stoke,

JB

Thanks JB & Colas (and sorry, I meant to ask Piros too).

I have my foil on order and can't wait to try.

All good you got plenty of good answers. For me being out of the water most of this year injured , my froth is 100% on the foil. Once you get the foil bug you grow a third eye and look for different waves. It's all I want to do and this weekend looks like the first chance we can open ocean Downwind Sup foil. This will be huge riding limitless runs. I can't wait.

So watch this space we will have the full foil crew. Towing , paddle in prone & Sup foil on waves and downwinding, then break out the kites all riding Sup foils. My goal from all this is to showcase what Sup foils can add to your ocean experience.

It's even inspired me to start thinking about Living The Stoke 3 Foil Adventures . What do you reckon JB.....

Merimbula this year will be a foil fest for anyone thinking of going .

Imagine those long rolling waves into Pambula river mouth..

First session yesterday on my new 6'10"x30"x125l "Simmons" board

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I have SUPed this same 6'10" board for some time now, and for me it is one of the stablest shape I used.

And after 35 sessions on my 8'9" foiled board, I felt I was quite OK foiling (nearly never missing a takeoff, controlling my flying height, pumping to keep & accelerate flying, connecting waves), but of course with still a lot of things to learn (how to pump for the takeoff, pumping on flat water, smoothly threading bottom rollers...)

But: mixing the two: 6'10" + foil... I didn't thought it would be so hard!
Not in the air, of course. 1' less at the nose and the tail, plus 1.5kg less total makes the board incredibly easier to lift out of the water and control in flight.
And actually, on waves steep enough to take off normally on a SUP, it was as easy as with my 8'9". But things were ... interesting ... otherwise. Weak waves were very hard to manage (granted the chop from 15knts onshore winds did not help)

I guess that on very short SUP boards, you develop a "3D balance" where you are moving your board around in all directions both to keep your balance and move around while paddling and takeoff phases (things that do not happen in prone surfing, the body in the water dampen things). But these movements, especially the rocking, will interfere badly with the foil dynamics, and vice-versa the foil forces will interfere greatly with a short board that will move more in response to foil forces. Trying to pump the foil would result in the board sinking vertical by the tail or nose, titanic style. Pumping in the air is simpler: you only have to manage the foil. Pumping on takeoff seems quite harder, as you have to manage both the board and the foil, and they react differently.

After 30mn I began to get a bit the hang of it, but there will be work. For now, on weak waves, I move a lot forward on the board (front foot near the front edge of the pad) to "choke" the foil and take off using the body movements I am used to for taking off with Short SUPs, and move to the straps once taking off is under way. And on steeper waves, I just take off feet ins straps as usual.

But this is not ideal, I guess now I have to learn to move the board on takeoff on weak waves so that the movements are beneficial both with the board and the foil. Back to the beginner stage!

And to people wanting to start SUP foiling: just like SUPing, do not start with too short a board! Granted my 6'10" is much nimbler in the air, but the technique is the same on my 8'9", only with slower reactions. So you can learn all the flying techniques as well on a longer board, no worries.

PS: I guess in understand now why foil-specific short SUP boards seem so thick. It may be to dampen the reactions of the board and let the foil do the talking...

Yeah Colas the shorter we keep going on the Sups the further back we are pushing the mast mount , because of the fore and aft rock. The boards won't paddle with too much front foot pressure it pushes the nose in which you have found , so if foil is too far forward you can't paddle in with your feet back. On a board that short you mast mount (IMHO) should be just in front of the front fins on a Quad set up , forget about the handle position. I'm sure if you had track mounts in that board and you could slide the mast back it would make a huge difference or drop in another Tuttle mount right behind the one you have.

I'm onto my 3rd Sup foil now and 3rd prone foil and as we progress the mast just keeps going back. Give it a try. Nice looking board keep at it and keep us posted. Also maybe take the straps off next session so you can freely move your feet and take a mental marker where your feet are comfortable and then refit the straps. The straps at the moment may be in the wrong place , you are riding a proto type not always right first time round.

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Piros said..
Yeah Colas the shorter we keep going on the Sups the further back we are pushing the mast mount , because of the fore and aft rock. The boards won't paddle with too much front foot pressure it pushes the nose in which you have found , so if foil is too far forward you can't paddle in with your feet back. On a board that short you mast mount (IMHO) should be just in front of the front fins on a Quad set up , forget about the handle position. I'm sure if you had track mounts in that board and you could slide the mast back it would make a huge difference or drop in another Tuttle mount right behind the one you have.

I'm onto my 3rd Sup foil now and 3rd prone foil and as we progress the mast just keeps going back. Give it a try. Nice looking board keep at it and keep us posted. Also maybe take the straps off next session so you can freely move your feet and take a mental marker where your feet are comfortable and then refit the straps. The straps at the moment may be in the wrong place , you are riding a proto type not always right first time round.

Plus one for what piros said