After having some bad falls and injuries, I wanted to share some of my safety measures to provide some ideas for beginners like myself. In order to minimize a head injury, I am using a baseball hat with back adjustment as I do not prefer using hard core helmets due to their weight despite I know their protection is much better than the baseball hats. One of our WS friend had a bad hit on his head by his mast and caused bleeding. Helmet or baseball hat would have protected from this type of accident. After a bad fall when foiling, I badly injured my ribs despite wearing a life vest since it was short not covering lower part of chest wall. It took 6 weeks to heal and the first 2 weeks were very difficult to sleep. Since then I ordered 4 different long vests to test and decided on the O'Neill vest since it extends fairly low. I leave the zipper open in order use my waist harness but use the cleats to keep it close. Lastly when I fall down, I hold on the boom if I could but sometimes depending on the fall, I may not be able to keep this position.
In order to prevent a foot injury, I am using half straps so that when the board turns over when the foil comes out of the water, my feet won't be twisted as I had had multiple times in full straps. I hope some of this information may help others beginning foiling.

Gath helmets & NP high hook vest and booties. Vest has good floatation and long enough. Gath helmets are local from Margaret River.

There only two hazards different to normal windsurfing.

Kicking the foil when water starting.

Letting go of the boom and falling backwards whilst the board tips to leeward, It's fun watching those foils rushing at you and the LAST TIME you will ever let go of the boom in a crash on a foil.

Everything else you describe can be (I've) done on a slapper.

Yep as above, NEVER let go of the boom if you can possibly avoid it, keeping hold of it gives you the best chance of staying clear of the foil in a crash. I wear a life jacket/impact vest and helmet but that's really only because we have to for racing so I just do it to keep it familiar.

Also regarding your straps, i'd consider half straps way more dangerous that normal straps as at least with normal straps you can ride it out safely. If your feet are getting stuck/twisted ankles your straps are setup wrong....most people actually have them setup wrong to be honest. Look at how the freestylers set them up, this is how they should be, narrow and tall, gripping on the sides of the feet. When you set them up like this you can always bail easily if required and your foot can actually rotate in the strap saving the ankles. In freestyle this is always an issue so setting your straps up this way is the best prevention.

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CJW said..

Look at how the freestylers set them up, this is how they should be, narrow and tall, gripping on the sides of the feet. When you set them up like this you can always bail easily if required and your foot can actually rotate in the strap saving the ankles. In freestyle this is always an issue so setting your straps up this way is the best prevention.

Interesting, thanks for that

+1, never appreciated this approach until now. Is there are general consensus on this? (Straps narrow and high)

Of the two boards I use for foiling, only one has straps. I'm still undecided if the straps have any real advantage other that forcing my feet to be in the right position. On the strapless board, I sometimes jump backwards to clear the board and foil when crashing. Works great, but is not really an option with straps, since it could lead to falling onto the foil if a foot gets stuck in the straps.

I also really like the Slingshot suggestion of starting with a shorter mast to learn foiling. Crashes with a shorter mast are less dramatic and less likely to lead to injury. The shorter mast forces you to concentrate on controlling flight height a lot more than a longer mast. You can see that as a pain, or as development of useful skills. I find being able to fly low quite useful in overpowered and gusty conditions. With the 60 cm mast (and even more with the 45 cm), you pretty much are forced to learn when the foil flies too high and how to correct it before you crash. You also get lots of practice in recovering from breaches and spinouts without crashing. After that, a 90 cm mast is really easy .

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Stretchy said..
+1, never appreciated this approach until now. Is there are general consensus on this? (Straps narrow and high)

I tried my straps narrow and high last session, now I've moved the straps back to normal width and high - my feet can rotate in the staps and move side to side with booties on.
I always use both straps but make sure when I'm heading downwind in swells or on a wave that my feet are not pushed all the way in.
Probably had more than 1000 crashes - so far so good...I think

Two schools of thought.
One is traditional tight straps, set so you can pivot your heal to get out.
The other is freestyle, high and narrow, so you feet can roll inside the straps to absorb twisting.
Worst thing you can do is both or neither. Setting normal spread and slightly high, then jam your foot fully inboard.

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CJW said..
Also regarding your straps, i'd consider half straps way more dangerous that normal straps as at least with normal straps you can ride it out safely. If your feet are getting stuck/twisted ankles your straps are setup wrong....most people actually have them setup wrong to be honest. Look at how the freestylers set them up, this is how they should be, narrow and tall, gripping on the sides of the feet. When you set them up like this you can always bail easily if required and your foot can actually rotate in the strap saving the ankles. .

I also noted in some of other forums that foilers controlling board without straps more convenient although one could loose the ability to pump efficiently. I found on my non-foil board (free formula SB) the straps are not in the correct place as in foil dedicated board and at times I took off the straps so that I find exact balancing point on the board. There are already some foil boards without straps on the market.

I've ben foiling for the past 3 years and not yet an injury, as opposed to slalom where I would crash a lot at high speed and hurt myself quite a lot.
There is a lot of paranoia about the wings but apart from kicking them when you're waterstarting there are very few chances you'll ever hurt yourself on them.
The main danger would be for other users as the blessed thing doesn't stop on the spot so I try to stay clear of others. (and sneaky dugongs.... )

Some great tips here thank you. Already had two days off work from foiling and my foot staying stuck in the footstrap. Hate downtime from the water too.

So far, have had 4 major crashes at full Naish speed when I was ripped forward hooked in feet and board cartwheeling over my head to land ahead of me.
Not recommended for 70 year oldsters, but less violent than a slalom board crash at 13 mph faster.

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LeeD said..
So far, have had 4 major crashes at full Naish speed when I was ripped forward hooked in feet and board cartwheeling over my head to land ahead of me.
Not recommended for 70 year oldsters, but less violent than a slalom board crash at 13 mph faster.

Wow!! Those seems to be really dangerous falls. I hope you protect yourself. Don't give up but learn to control the board nose and always hold onto boom during a fall. Learning foiling could be really gradual. As you learn to take off, press to front to control too high lifts and build confidence until going longer distance. You may also make a transition with shorter masts but I found out the longer mast gives me more depth so that the foil does not come to surface which is the main reason for catapults. As I communicated earlier consider no foot strap or half strap until you build skills to foil longer distance.

I rode a lot without straps. But straps let me rip upwind at higher angles and handle stronger gusty wind much easier. Easier also meaning more steady foil height control.

My straps are set the way they have been for the last 39 years. Tiny. Just barely enough. No chance of sticking.

Well, lucky for me, I was hooked in before, during, and well after those catapaults..so I let go after initial impact to tuck in.

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DWF said..
I rode a lot without straps. But straps let me rip upwind at higher angles and handle stronger gusty wind much easier. Easier also meaning more steady foil height control.

My straps are set the way they have been for the last 39 years. Tiny. Just barely enough. No chance of sticking.

I always use straps in regular WS but foil feels different to me. Therefore, I would prefer learning foiling without straps or half straps to be cautious.