Hello, I have windsurfed for 30+ years but never foiled until 3 weeks ago so as a complete beginner I thought some tips may help others just starting out. It would be great if others and those more experienced add their top tips to this thread.

First, my setup: I'm 76kgs and sailing a JP Foil 7'0 at 115 litres with a NP Glide Surf Large (about 1500cm2 projected). Here are my beginner tips (in no particular order):

- don't bother with foot straps front or back. I've not needed them at all and it has alowed me to adjust balance of both feet by small amounts. E.g 1 inch back with the front foot makes all the difference getting up on the foil.

- get some protection for the nose of your board as you will fly over the handle bars and smash! I use a stick on Unifiber and it works well.

- foil position is key. Get this right quickly otherwise you will spent time wondering why your board feels like a bucking bronko / wild horse! For anyone with a JP Foil, i now set my foil as far back as it will go - back bolts about 1" off the nut holes.

- foot position is next, balanced over the front wing. No foot straps means you can quickly play around with this.

- don't sail under powered, more sail makes it easier to get flying. I figure, light wind pumping (sail and board) can follow in the learning curve.

- make sure your board has enough volume to uphaul and tack (at 76kgs i find 115 liters very doable).

- pointing off the wind helps get flying

- dont bother with a harness, just gets in the way and when up on foil the rig goes so light anyway. Interestingly, today i was way overpowered on a 4.1m so put my harness on to help but took it straight back off again as just got in the way. Flying harness and footstrap free feels amazing..

- when up on foil i find pitch the hardest to control but after 4 x 2 hour sessions startingtto get it dialled. Top tip, dont look down at the nose of your board, lookup and forward 50 yards instead. Like riding a bike or slacklining if anyone does that!

- going up wind is so easy im having most trouble getting back down wind again!

- i find holding the boom slightly more forward than with windsurfing helps

- when up on foil stand up straight over the board rather than leaning back

So there you go, hope it helps someone. Using the above im managing 500m flights but no gybes yet after 4 sessions.

Please feel free to add to this list with anymore tips.

Also, i appreciate im on a windfoil / sup foil board as im into WWF style with long US tracks so regular windsurf foil boards may need to adjust some of these tips.

Also, what works for me wont suit everyone and im sure plenty out there swear by footstraps and a harness etc. so find what works for you.

Thanks

I have the same board same foil but medium front wing. My foil is more fwd, about 75cm front my mast plug, so maybe diff front wing? Diff stand? However I tried a wizard with i76 front wing and you can more ride the board locked in foostraps like a windsurfing, our board is different, their distance (mast / base) is about 106cm I think...much more windsurfing position. I really like the JP!!!!!!

Ive got the large front wing on the shorter surf fuse. Front of mast is probably not much more than 75cm back from mast base hole so similar.

My back foot is close to the bumper and front half way over the black/white deck pad.

Seems to work ok but suspect ill refine..

Ill prob try one of the SS boards but expect ill start winging more than wind foiling eventually.

Hoping the JP also works for winging with foil pushed forward.

Thanks for your advice Jezza. I've been windsurfing for 35 years and have just bought a 2019 Falcon LW 159 with a Naish 1150 foil. Never foiled before so will take heed of your words mate.

Tony, I can't teach you anything about how to windsurf!!
Couple of tips that helped me - initially, focus is bringing the board back down ON the water as you accelerate, not flying, core survival skill is reducing ride height at will - second tip is that for fin windsurfing the water keeps the board pretty flat, in foiling YOU have to make that happen through technique ie. both longways/ride height, and side to side, as without constant inputs the board heads in every direction - Sam Ross and other vids give you the HOW on all this, wish his 2.0series was around when I began, would have avoided some nose repairs!!

My setup is the 130L SS Dialer, 90cm SS mast with the i84 front wing and 42cm rear wing. I too foil strapless and it feels great!
One major thing I learned is be easy on forward and back foot pressure. Foil is super sensitive and responds quickly. Feel the feedback that the foil is giving you and you will learn it fast. I have been windsurfing for 15 years and have been foiling for 6 months with 40 foiling days under my belt. It's a wonderful feeling to fly a board over the water. Enjoy!

Great tips for only foiling for 3 weeks. I have a Glide foil medium wing small stab and really like it. I also started ignoring the foot straps with this foil. I also have a starboard race foil and the front foot strap at least is always used. Also committed to hanging in the harness to apply mast base pressure, so two different techniques depending on the foil and sail size. Have fun with it!

Just get your weight from backfoot pumping to front foot foiling.
Standing tall on front foot does wonders.
Start with low flight foiling jibes.
Best use a 6 meter sail in 6-14 knot breezes.
Flying is easy. Finding 6-14 wind extremely impossible.

I'm still very much a noobie too, with 7 sessions under my belt. Flights of 500 - 1000m when in control. My other top tip was get someone experienced to sail your gear if possible. This will help with your setup faster than you can achieve the same result. I had two guys sail my gear and the immediate feedback was raise your boom height. I find the boom high height has greatly improved my flying time. Gear; Redwing foil, Isonic 117 (74 wide?); generally old 5.3m wave sail.

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Peter Hands said..
- initially, focus is bringing the board back down ON the water as you accelerate, not flying, core survival skill is reducing ride height at will

So much this. We all see those pics of someone with about 2 m. of foil mast showing and somehow we think that's the way it needs to be done at the outset. It's okay to skip off the water as you are learning. You don't get extra points for being way high. If you are just coming off the water and you lack speed, put it back on the water - especially as you are learning to pump. Otherwise, you'll simply stall and plop back into the water with zero speed.

Brilliant

Thanks for the tips ????

Back foot for pumping up on to the foil and 'Standing tall on front foot when flying' is a great tip!

Im going to try a higher boom as well

Tips for fast, steady improvement (freeride).

Make sure your equipment is balanced and has proven performance.
Go out in tough conditions - you'll learn fast on the ocean when it's blowing over 20 knots.
Persevere (TOW is crucial) and be fearless.

Persevere 4 sure!
I've been foiling for about a year, mostly in ocean chop/swell and probably not ideal learning conditions. Today, the wind was OK, if gusty, for some flat water close to shore and I was dead excited to get, perhaps not a full foiling gybe, but at least getting closer!
Foiling in swell is awesome fun, when you can get on a swell, sheet out and balance through the ride. Got a couple of good rides today and will see if there's any footage worth sharing.
JP135, 5.8m S1, NP Glide large foil.

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Jezza22 said..
Im going to try a higher boom as well

I went for the higher boom position on the basis of WoH advice and would never go back. I'm only 5'6" and have the boom at the top of the cutout on all sails. It really helps when heading up wind, rather than sheeting in close to your chest and arm fatigue.
Cheers

When you go for the harness, the thing I have found that doesn't seem to get mentioned much, is unlike a sailboard you can NOT change pressure in the harness line every time the wind changes.... you need to keep the same pressure on the harness even when the wind changes. As you accelerate you need more and as you slow you need less, but while going the same speed, you need to maintain the same pressure through gusts or foot movement or whatever.

for me the most important tips:
1 - add nose protection to your board
2 - always hang on to the boom if you fall so you stay away from the foil
3 - start with a small sail even if it's light wind
4 - work on balancing your foil first: if you have to keep pushing your back leg to maintain flight, move the foil forward and/or the straps and mast foot back
5 - a large wing helps using smaller sails and fly at slow speed, so its easier for learning

Good luck Tony, you'll be a champ in no time !

Some good advice but I have a different view on straps and harness. I have been foiling for about a month. Before I started I watched Balz Muller and have stuck with his advice about starting with the front foot in the straps. I use both straps and harness for all upwind sailing. No harness or back strap for downwind. Without a harness I could not do 2-3 hr sessions.

This is maybe a bit more of an intermediate tips, but should be relevant to intermediate windsurfers who are beginner foilers. These things helped me go from less than a handful of foiling gybes total, to 20+ in one session... (ok, we also finally had steady 12-15kt wind too).

1. Memorising the foot steps, and being able to step your new front foot straight into the front strap on the new side. Part of my struggle was I've always sailed freestyle and wave boards, so the outboard footstrap positions on my foil board just weren't familiar, and I really didn't put enough effort into learning the foot strap positions. I think practising on the beach with the board on a towel would have probably accelerated my progress, instead I took the slow way and eventually figured it out on the water. So yeah don't do what I do, because if you can't get into the footstraps without looking at your feet, you will look at your feet, which means you won't be looking where you are going, and you basically have zero chance to successfully gybe.
2. Grab right back on the boom as you enter the gybe. Again, my struggle, was that pre-foiling I'd typically do laydown style gybes, which meant I didn't really need to move my hands much going into gybes, and this didn't translate well into foiling. Issue with foiling, especially with bigger sails as you turn downwind, its very easy to get backwinded. So really reaching back on the boom helped me keep the sail open, and flip early or sail out clew first.

And this is completely opposite to the opening posts advice, but I got told to get into both footstraps before foiling, and thats worked really well for me. Actually I'm pretty sure on my first foil run, I was in both footstraps and hooked in as soon as I got foiling.

The one thing that seems to help beginners, is to keep the rear leg locked out. Due to bad habits from windsurfing, that's the one thing I see beginners doing (bending leg and a rail lifts or dips).