Looks like good beginner conditions Fri and Sat (14-16) and warm (mid-60's). I'll probably be sailing at Barton's in Rodanthe (seems the best depth for foiling around there). If anyone else will be down there, LMK - it's always more fun to sail with others! (and I could learn a lot just from watching some other more experienced folks :-). (Looking to be seriously windy on Sunday, so will probably bring my little fin board with me, too, and try to get in a short fin session before I've gotta head back on Sun!)

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jims said..
I'll probably be sailing at Barton's in Rodanthe (seems the best depth for foiling around there).

Bartons? I sailed there long time ago, but as far as I remember it's very shallow. You would have to walk half of mile to get chest deep.

Yeah, you need to walk out a bit, but nowhere near 1/2 mile as long as the wind isn't blowing the water out into the sound. Compared to Salvo Day Use Area or Canadian Hole / Haulover, though, I find it more consistently deep at Bartons. Do you have other suggestions for sound-side launching down there?

I was foiling from Island Creek in Avon. Walk to channel, pump on foil in channel, keep left of wind sensor, fly to bay. No problem with 70 cm mast.

Yeah, I know where you're talking about, but that's all private property along there. I'll have to reconsider where to launch from, perhaps - I've generally found the water to be around chest deep about 1/2 way out to the bird blind at Barton's (when fin windsurfing), and deeper beyond the blind, but it is definitely shallow nearer the shore. Canadian/Haulover is deeper farther out, but there are some real shallow areas throughout there near the shore, and just beyond the dredged areas.

I'm on a 90cm mast, and have little control over where/when I get up on the foil - I'm at the mercy of a good gust to get going still, so pumping up onto the foil in a known deeper area is not a level of influence I yet wield. :-)

If you often in OBX you have to get shorter mast. 24" mast probably best for OBX.

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jims said..
Yeah, I know where you're talking about, but that's all private property along there. I'll have to reconsider where to launch from, perhaps - I've generally found the water to be around chest deep about 1/2 way out to the bird blind at Barton's (when fin windsurfing), and deeper beyond the blind, but it is definitely shallow nearer the shore. Canadian/Haulover is deeper farther out, but there are some real shallow areas throughout there near the shore, and just beyond the dredged areas.

I'm on a 90cm mast, and have little control over where/when I get up on the foil - I'm at the mercy of a good gust to get going still, so pumping up onto the foil in a known deeper area is not a level of influence I yet wield. :-)

You can launch from Ocean Air at Island Creek. That's a pretty good launch, but it will not work for your 90 cm mast. That mast will work in the hole at Haulover, but your runs are only 200-300 m long, and the sides are very shallow. Don't foil there at your current level.

Barton's will work most of the time, but you will have to walk out quite far with a 90 cm mast, unless the water level is exceptionally high.

Good call on the mast, @motogon - I called down to Real, and I'll have a 71cm mast in hand tomorrow morning!

@boardsurfr - Thanks for helping to clarify the workable areas down there. Sat should be fine at Barton's w/ the 71cm mast) as the wind will be SW. Sun will be a fin day (30's - too windy for me on the foil), so no worries there. Mon is forecast to be NNE, so I'll have to see how that one plays out, depth-wise and wind-wise. (wind in the 20's, so not quite sure whether I'll fin or try to foil that day.)

I'm never disappointed by a day of 20-30mph winds, but I've gotta say, I'm almost a little bummed that I won't be able to work on foiling the whole time I'm down there! :o)

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jims said..
I'm never disappointed by a day of 20-30mph winds, but I've gotta say, I'm almost a little bummed that I won't be able to work on foiling the whole time I'm down there! :o)

You still can foil, just need small sail. General rule is: if you can plane with fin using X m2 size sail, you can foil in same conditions using X - 2 m2 sail. For example: 6.5 with fin = 4.5 with foil.

71 cm is a good mast size for OBX. The difference to the 61 cm is larger than I would expect.

For NNE in the 20s, I'd go to the Salvo Day Use Area. Nice and flat there, and you can usually stand even a mile from shore.

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motogon said..
You still can foil, just need small sail. General rule is: if you can plane with fin using X m2 size sail, you can foil in same conditions using X - 2 m2 sail. For example: 6.5 with fin = 4.5 with foil.

Yeah, but A) it's hard to pass up a 20-30mph day on my favorite board (a little 71L fin board), and B) by the time it's in the mid/upper-20's, I'm on my 4.3 sail on my fin board, and my smallest sail is a 3.6, which I fear would be too much got m on the foil in strong winds right now. I'll see if the advertised winds actually happen or not, though - all too often, they forecast strong winds, and we only get so-so winds, so if it's in the upper-teens to lower-20's, the foil will definitely see action.

It was kinda weird packing up the car for this trip - I usually take 3-4 boards with me, which means I need to take the family minivan. For this trip, I just packed the Wizard foil board, and my smallest fin board, figuring anything below low/mid-20's, I'll foil, and anything above I'll fin/B&J. I'm traveling a lot lighter than usual! (and in fact, it all fit inside my Prius!! :o)

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jims said..

motogon said..
You still can foil, just need small sail. General rule is: if you can plane with fin using X m2 size sail, you can foil in same conditions using X - 2 m2 sail. For example: 6.5 with fin = 4.5 with foil.

Yeah, but A) it's hard to pass up a 20-30mph day on my favorite board (a little 71L fin board), and B) by the time it's in the mid/upper-20's, I'm on my 4.3 sail on my fin board, and my smallest sail is a 3.6, which I fear would be too much got m on the foil in strong winds right now. I'll see if the advertised winds actually happen or not, though - all too often, they forecast strong winds, and we only get so-so winds, so if it's in the upper-teens to lower-20's, the foil will definitely see action.

It was kinda weird packing up the car for this trip - I usually take 3-4 boards with me, which means I need to take the family minivan. For this trip, I just packed the Wizard foil board, and my smallest fin board, figuring anything below low/mid-20's, I'll foil, and anything above I'll fin/B&J. I'm traveling a lot lighter than usual! (and in fact, it all fit inside my Prius!! :o)

A 3.6 sail should be fine in 30 mph for foiling, depending on the size of your front wing, but you can always increase the downhaul and outhaul to the max. if needed.

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jims said..
Yeah, but A) it's hard to pass up a 20-30mph day on my favorite board (a little 71L fin board), and B) by the time it's in the mid/upper-20's, I'm on my 4.3 sail on my fin board, and my smallest sail is a 3.6, which I fear would be too much got m on the foil in strong winds right now.

I agree with you. After a couple of hundred foil sessions, I still prefer to windsurf when the wind picks up to mid-20s or more.

There are a couple peculiarities about OBX that support your decision even more. One is the nature of the chop there. Due to the water being shallow (even in areas where you can foil, I can often touch the ground), the chop is not very high, but it's very tightly spaced, and often slightly chaotic. That does affect the foil, making rides slower and less fun that in either flat conditions, or with higher chop that's more widely spaced.

The other issue is that mid-20 readings from iWindsurf meters in OBX often feel a lot stronger than mid-20s at most other places. That does not seem to make much sense, but I got this impression on pretty much every single on of my ~ 20 trips to OBX (261 sessions). Up to low 20s, the readings are comparable to typical reading in Cape Cod or Texas, but above, it often seems that I should use a sail size smaller in OBX. Eventually, I realized that the difference is probably due to the meter location and elevation. In OBX, I rely on mostly on the Real Slicks and the Avon Sound meters, which are on the water, about 5 meters above the water. Most other iWindsurf meters I use are on buildings, about 10 meters above ground (this is just about onshore wind directions where all meters have a good fetch). There is a considerable gradient in wind strength which depends on the surface roughness, which remains the same for on-shore meters, but varies a lot for the OBX on-water meters. In 15-20 mph, the water in OBX tends to be nice and flat. That means the wind speed gradient is lower than on shore, and the readings at 5 meter show about the same numbers as 10 m on-shore readings for Cape Cod and Texas. But when OBX reading show 25+ mph, you have considerable chop; at the long distance races, I'd usually switch from slalom gear to FSW gear when it was that windy. The higher chop increases the surface roughness, and therefore the wind gradient, reducing the measurements at 5 meters. So when the Avon Sound or the Real Slicks meter reads 25 mph in a SW wind, the meter at Kalmus may well read 28-30 mph.

So have fun on the slapper!

LoL, well, today was a bust! Wind took a long time to even start filling in. (But I did manage to get the 71cm mast, so it wasn't a total loss! :-) Around 2pm, with the flag at Barton's waving lazily, I figured I might as well rig up and head out. Rigged up a 5.0, as iWindsurf said it was going to get stronger. (Of course iWindsurf said it was already 12-14, and that was clearly not the case. :o) First sign of trouble was when the water was about 20 feet further out from the shore than I've seen it before - hit low tide. So, gamely trudged out, dragging my setup behind me. And trudged. And trudged some more. Walked all the way out to the bird blind before the water was even waist deep. Tried a beach start - not enough wind, even holding the mast near the foot. Uphauled, and stood there bobbing around mostly in place for 20 minutes, periodically bailing as I drifted into and out of shallower areas. Trudged it all back in to shore, packed it all up, and went and had dinner.

Strangest thing of the day - as I was walking out (in very shallow, clear water), there were all these little yellow round things all over the bottom in a large area - looked like corn, but figured it must be some type of little shellfish. Finally reached down and picked one up (wasn't much else to do, LoL) - damned if it wasn't corn!! Why in the Hell would there be corn all over the bottom of the sound??? :-). There'd been a flock of seagulls in that area before I headed out, but there was a lot more corn than there had been birds. And it was spread over a very wide area. Was almost worth the trudge, just to discover Sound Corn. Damnedest thing!

Water levels today were quite low, -0.2 ft in the early afternoon (at the Rodanthe ferry, from fiman.nc.gov). Seems like the big high over the ocean is pushing the water level down. We had 1-2 feet more water just over a month ago (enough for some minor sound sound flooding in Avon). When it's that low, Hatteras is not that great for foiling. Could be fun tomorrow at Salvo Day Use with your 3.6 and the 71 l board, though.

No foiling today, but DAMN it was a hell of a fin day! :-)

I have heard this more than once, people like to fin when the winds are in the 20+ range. But at my local bay that usually means 2-3 foot waves, and with a fin I had to plow through the waves to first get out, and then turned around and dropped into a wave trough and shot down that, only to have to plow back out. With foiling I get to fly both ways.

Finally got a few solid hours in on the foil! It was in mostly-overpowered conditions - 3.6 was downhauled and outhauled to the point that I worried for it's welfare, and I was still able to waterstart with it, though things calmed down a little bit for the latter part of the session. Things noted:

- you can fly on the foil while seated on the board! (I slipped getting up on a waterstart in the overpowered conditions - ended up on my butt, sitting on the board but still hanging onto the boom as I tried to salvage things, and immediately it all popped up onto the foil and started barreling downwind with me sitting on it - needless to say, that ride didn't last real long, LoL. Lasted long enough to let loose quite the string of expletives, however.

- it is possible to get catapulted from a seated position on the board. It sucks at least as bad as getting catapulted from a standing position.

- I like the 71cm mast! I banged into some of the taller chop in the rough conditions with it, but it felt a little more stable and a little less death-defying when up on the foil. Plus, when the foil starts making the GOD noise (the Gurgle Of Doom - additionally various utterances involving the root word 'God' seem to instinctively pour forth from my mouth when I hear it...), I seem better able to recover on the 71cm than I am on the 90cm. (And when I fail to recover, the yardsale seems slightly less violent.) I only had 1 high-speed collision with a sandbar - I'm sure there would have been more with the 90cm. (I fully believe that the 90cm will be better in the longer-term, but for presently at on the learning curve, the 71cm is staying on there.)

- high-speed collisions with sandbars suck. Bad.

- high speed on a foil would be 'meh' speed on a fin, but it feels like you're going about a bazillion mph on the foil

- I can see where a harness could actually be do-able - I was finally able to reach a semi-balanced stance on the board (vs being all curled up right under the boom), and could have actually have made use of a harness. (I'm not quite yet that brave, however.)

- I can see where a rear foot strap could be useful - on Dean's very good advice, I've left the rear strap off for learning, but in the fight for control in the stronger conditions, keeping the board level (side-to-side) required a lot of attention and effort with the back foot just sitting on top of the deck - I can see where having something to get some purchase on could be helpful, and could help level out the board. (The rear strap would be useless to me in lighter conditions at present, however.)

- I tend to unconsciously turn the board upwind (by heeling over to windward a tiny bit) when on a reach, especially when overpowered. Turning too far upwind inevitably leads to the GOD noise - I got a fair bit better at recognizing and recovering from that, but it's still an issue.

Overall, despite being out in conditions that were way beyond my ability, it was a productive, educational, and fun session!

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jims said..
Finally got a few solid hours in on the foil! It was in mostly-overpowered conditions - 3.6 was downhauled and outhauled to the point that I worried for it's welfare, and I was still able to waterstart with it, though things calmed down a little bit for the latter part of the session. Things noted:

- you can fly on the foil while seated on the board! (I slipped getting up on a waterstart in the overpowered conditions - ended up on my butt, sitting on the board but still hanging onto the boom as I tried to salvage things, and immediately it all popped up onto the foil and started barreling downwind with me sitting on it - needless to say, that ride didn't last real long, LoL. Lasted long enough to let loose quite the string of expletives, however.

- it is possible to get catapulted from a seated position on the board. It sucks at least as bad as getting catapulted from a standing position.

- I like the 71cm mast! I banged into some of the taller chop in the rough conditions with it, but it felt a little more stable and a little less death-defying when up on the foil. Plus, when the foil starts making the GOD noise (the Gurgle Of Doom - additionally various utterances involving the root word 'God' seem to instinctively pour forth from my mouth when I hear it...), I seem better able to recover on the 71cm than I am on the 90cm. (And when I fail to recover, the yardsale seems slightly less violent.) I only had 1 high-speed collision with a sandbar - I'm sure there would have been more with the 90cm. (I fully believe that the 90cm will be better in the longer-term, but for presently at on the learning curve, the 71cm is staying on there.)

- high-speed collisions with sandbars suck. Bad.

- high speed on a foil would be 'meh' speed on a fin, but it feels like you're going about a bazillion mph on the foil

- I can see where a harness could actually be do-able - I was finally able to reach a semi-balanced stance on the board (vs being all curled up right under the boom), and could have actually have made use of a harness. (I'm not quite yet that brave, however.)

- I can see where a rear foot strap could be useful - on Dean's very good advice, I've left the rear strap off for learning, but in the fight for control in the stronger conditions, keeping the board level (side-to-side) required a lot of attention and effort with the back foot just sitting on top of the deck - I can see where having something to get some purchase on could be helpful, and could help level out the board. (The rear strap would be useless to me in lighter conditions at present, however.)

- I tend to unconsciously turn the board upwind (by heeling over to windward a tiny bit) when on a reach, especially when overpowered. Turning too far upwind inevitably leads to the GOD noise - I got a fair bit better at recognizing and recovering from that, but it's still an issue.

Overall, despite being out in conditions that were way beyond my ability, it was a productive, educational, and fun session!

Nice post.. Butt foiling sounds hilarious. I had all kind of contortionist moves getting started with many expletives. Like "how the hell did I end up on my back on top of the sail ?". Lol. I have a couple micro divits in on the nose of my board that was probably from my face

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jims said..
Finally got a few solid hours in on the foil! It was in mostly-overpowered conditions - 3.6 was downhauled and outhauled to the point that I worried for it's welfare, and I was still able to waterstart with it, though things calmed down a little bit for the latter part of the session. Things noted:

- you can fly on the foil while seated on the board! (I slipped getting up on a waterstart in the overpowered conditions - ended up on my butt, sitting on the board but still hanging onto the boom as I tried to salvage things, and immediately it all popped up onto the foil and started barreling downwind with me sitting on it - needless to say, that ride didn't last real long, LoL. Lasted long enough to let loose quite the string of expletives, however.

- it is possible to get catapulted from a seated position on the board. It sucks at least as bad as getting catapulted from a standing position.

- I like the 71cm mast! I banged into some of the taller chop in the rough conditions with it, but it felt a little more stable and a little less death-defying when up on the foil. Plus, when the foil starts making the GOD noise (the Gurgle Of Doom - additionally various utterances involving the root word 'God' seem to instinctively pour forth from my mouth when I hear it...), I seem better able to recover on the 71cm than I am on the 90cm. (And when I fail to recover, the yardsale seems slightly less violent.) I only had 1 high-speed collision with a sandbar - I'm sure there would have been more with the 90cm. (I fully believe that the 90cm will be better in the longer-term, but for presently at on the learning curve, the 71cm is staying on there.)

- high-speed collisions with sandbars suck. Bad.

- high speed on a foil would be 'meh' speed on a fin, but it feels like you're going about a bazillion mph on the foil

- I can see where a harness could actually be do-able - I was finally able to reach a semi-balanced stance on the board (vs being all curled up right under the boom), and could have actually have made use of a harness. (I'm not quite yet that brave, however.)

- I can see where a rear foot strap could be useful - on Dean's very good advice, I've left the rear strap off for learning, but in the fight for control in the stronger conditions, keeping the board level (side-to-side) required a lot of attention and effort with the back foot just sitting on top of the deck - I can see where having something to get some purchase on could be helpful, and could help level out the board. (The rear strap would be useless to me in lighter conditions at present, however.)

- I tend to unconsciously turn the board upwind (by heeling over to windward a tiny bit) when on a reach, especially when overpowered. Turning too far upwind inevitably leads to the GOD noise - I got a fair bit better at recognizing and recovering from that, but it's still an issue.

Overall, despite being out in conditions that were way beyond my ability, it was a productive, educational, and fun session!

Good writing!
I use 71 cm mast most of the time. 90 cm mast get used when wind chop gets bigger than just couple feet.
When you get more experience with foil you will laugh on some of your own observations ("bazillion mph", "GOD noise", ...)

When you go back home to deeper water, avoid the temptation to cling to that short mast. The longer mast gives you so much more room to adjust without hearing the trumpets of Gabriel. Plus, deeper water means bigger chop and it becomes a struggle even if your flight control is accurate to keep all the precious bits underwater.

Challenging conditions, for sure! Like the others, enjoyed the recap.

I agree about the mast length. Even in shallow Florida waters, I couldn't get rid of the 71 cm mast fast enough. I went with the 91 cm mast exclusively, but I have to choose Florida spots at either high tides or spots that are deep enough even at low tide. Yes, there are such spots in Florida, even on inshore waters, but you have to find them and survey them. Dean has such spots in the Cocoa Beach FL area, and I have a few in the Clearwater FL area.