I hadn't heard of this one before. I may have done it subconsciously, or maybe others do...

Pulling in the front hand to reduce speed instead of going upwind/bearing off in slalom foiling.

It would be nice to have a foiling compendium of little techniques like this, as well as an overall tuning guide. I haven't seen anything that quite fits the bill.

Sebastian Kordel mentioned it here a little after the 5:45 mark in the video:

Learned this in Andy Brandt's (ABK) clinic ages ago. The sail rotates around your harness line not the mast. You can sheet in by either pulling in the back hand or extending the front hand; or doing both and rotating the sail. Newbies try to sheet in by pulling on both hands which is why they are often ineffective in generating power.

Also a time honored light air planing technique to extend the front hand to gain power (opposite of your "hand braking" but applies same concept). This is why a lot of big sail racers - formula, RS:X - use the uphaul as the front hand, to extend an artificial front hand further than they can comfortably with their own hand.

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Paducah said..
Learned this in Andy Brandt's (ABK) clinic ages ago. The sail rotates around your harness line not the mast. You can sheet in by either pulling in the back hand or extending the front hand; or doing both and rotating the sail. Newbies try to sheet in by pulling on both hands which is why they are often ineffective in generating power.

Also a time honored light air planing technique to extend the front hand to gain power (opposite of your "hand braking" but applies same concept). This is why a lot of big sail racers - formula, RS:X - use the uphaul as the front hand, to extend an artificial front hand further than they can comfortably with their own hand.

I'll freely ask the dumb questions then: How is this different from a back hand push? Is it just due to different leverages in front of vs. behind the boom?

I've played around with light air grabbing the uphaul on the foil and felt a little bit more power.

I feel like the more I learn the more I feel like a kook

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aeroegnr said..

I'll freely ask the dumb questions then: How is this different from a back hand push? Is it just due to different leverages in front of vs. behind the boom?

Sebastian is talking about what he calls the safety flight, i.e. when you're in, or trying to regain, full control over the flight by assuming an upright position and by completely depowering the sail. If you were to push on your back hand from that position you would in fact be powering the sail, albeit from the opposite end (leeward/extrados). That would be the opposite of control

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bel29 said..

aeroegnr said..

I'll freely ask the dumb questions then: How is this different from a back hand push? Is it just due to different leverages in front of vs. behind the boom?

Sebastian is talking about what he calls the safety flight, i.e. when you're in, or trying to regain, full control over the flight by assuming an upright position and by completely depowering the sail. If you were to push on your back hand from that position you would in fact be powering the sail, albeit from the opposite end (leeward/extrados). That would be the opposite of control

Yeah that's true in an upright position, but he says (6:00):

"Also for slalom foiling, if you go reaching...you don't have to bear off or turn into the wind to decrease or increase the power and your speed...even I use this on a regular basis when I go for runs on slalom gear."

Maybe I'm just overthinking this or maybe I've just always mainly focused on backhand sheeting in/out but I might experiment more next flights.

Thinking about it:Is it simply just that sheeting in with front hand = more front foot pressure which helps balance the loss of mast base pressure?

Vs. sheeting out with back hand reduces back foot pressure some, but not as much because the leverages are different (i.e. typically flying with back hand further down the boom so it has more leverage relative to the center of pressure than the front hand)?

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aeroegnr said..

bel29 said..

aeroegnr said..

I'll freely ask the dumb questions then: How is this different from a back hand push? Is it just due to different leverages in front of vs. behind the boom?

Sebastian is talking about what he calls the safety flight, i.e. when you're in, or trying to regain, full control over the flight by assuming an upright position and by completely depowering the sail. If you were to push on your back hand from that position you would in fact be powering the sail, albeit from the opposite end (leeward/extrados). That would be the opposite of control

Yeah that's true in an upright position, but he says (6:00):

"Also for slalom foiling, if you go reaching...you don't have to bear off or turn into the wind to decrease or increase the power and your speed...even I use this on a regular basis when I go for runs on slalom gear."

Maybe I'm just overthinking this or maybe I've just always mainly focused on backhand sheeting in/out but I might experiment more next flights.

Thinking about it:Is it simply just that sheeting in with front hand = more front foot pressure which helps balance the loss of mast base pressure?

Vs. sheeting out with back hand reduces back foot pressure some, but not as much because the leverages are different (i.e. typically flying with back hand further down the boom so it has more leverage relative to the center of pressure than the front hand)?

My take from rewatching the umpteenth time: I'm in the more simple camp that sheeting "in" with the front hand encourages both a more forward/upright stance and the ability to keep pressure on the mast base. We see this not infrequently in posts from new foilers on their first flights when they sheet out and the board still wants to go to the moon.

The other issue with some new foilers is they are without a harness so when they release the back hand, they release most of the pressure on the rig vs us being hammered into our harnesses and just adjusting the trim angle on the sail.

I've not quite thought about it the way he does but I think we both do the same thing and you've been doing this long enough you are probably doing it, too. I got to practice this yesterday when I was caught out more than 2m2 overpowered.

If there's more to this that I'm missing, I'm open to other views.

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Paducah said..


My take from rewatching the umpteenth time: I'm in the more simple camp that sheeting "in" with the front hand encourages both a more forward/upright stance and the ability to keep pressure on the mast base. We see this not infrequently in posts from new foilers on their first flights when they sheet out and the board still wants to go to the moon.

The other issue with some new foilers is they are without a harness so when they release the back hand, they release most of the pressure on the rig vs us being hammered into our harnesses and just adjusting the trim angle on the sail.

I've not quite thought about it the way he does but I think we both do the same thing and you've been doing this long enough you are probably doing it, too. I got to practice this yesterday when I was caught out more than 2m2 overpowered.

If there's more to this that I'm missing, I'm open to other views.

Thanks Paducah, that's making sense. Maybe I'm just doing some of this automatically and not thinking about it, and if I deliberately think about focusing on the front hand I'd have more control/it would be more deliberate.

Oversheating, or pushing front hand, just stalls the sail, does not "brake".
Like letting off the gas pedal.

That is what I do, tuck the mast in towards my shoulder when up and overpowered by a big long gust, but if is just a short gust will just sheet out a little to keep my speed up. But if I want to keep my speed up with a big long gust then will cut a little upwind initially and lean out "as needed" to get my speed up smoothly and stay close to the same course, like if I am running down some kitefoilers!

Kitefoilers.
Wasn't Johnny Heiniken clocked at 44 mph during one of the Bridge to Bridge races?
Last spring, some kitefoiler limped in at Marina Bay, obviously in distress. 11 meter foil kite, I landed his kit and he showed me his GPS reading.....43 mph in gusts of 24 that day.
While I love to brag about my windsurfing prowess, I think I might have hit 26 mph once that day. Naish Freeride 97, 5.5 Retro.

I run most of my sheeting through the front hand, keeps pressure on the front foot and mast base. Very useful for modern waveboards as well.
I also think it tends to extend the range of whatever sail you're using.

Works in slalom sailing on fins too.