Have decided after many months of deliberation to step out of speed sailing to take full advantage of the freedom of the foil
Found that my development on speed kit has stagnated, rarely get the conditions conducive for good speed and when they come gains are minimal.
Planning on keeping bump and jump gear for nuking days, if they ever happen...
Excited about simplifying sail quiver and board count from 6 to 3. Yes foil cost more than makes up for this but hey you only live once.
Not really looking for comments just had to tell someone else other than the other half and my mates. But hey if you feel the need to chime in with positive or negative experiences in doing the same, bring it

Comes a time when you get sick of gpstc, this is happening to me now, and I am thinking of dropping out. I foil 95% of the time now, but I want to keep the speed gear because nothing is more exciting.
Farewell all my friends, from now on only catching up in person, not on the posts.

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powersloshin said..
Comes a time when you get sick of gpstc, this is happening to me now, and I am thinking of dropping out. I foil 95% of the time now, but I want to keep the speed gear because nothing is more exciting.
Farewell all my friends, from now on only catching up in person, not on the posts.

George really hope to see more from you on Gpstc, foil or speed, I enjoy coming home after a rubbish day at work and seeing all the fun, skunkings and PB'S. The on the water community is far above the negative rubbish that goes on. Planning to post all of my SLOW speeds and enjoy seeing others achievements/ experiences. Share the stoke and pasta

Personally I forced myself to quit windsurfing alltogether the moment I thought that windfoiling was something I would have liked to do & learn. At that time my consideration was: so I go to the beach is 15 knots, I would normally put a 6.5 and go windsurfing, I am proficient, I jibe, I tack, I jump, so why putting on the foil? I would never learn this way, and many peers gone this route and never learned windfoiling; yes they get airborn, but that is all, no jibe, no high wind, no waves, very limited and they are scared of any condition which is not ideal (12 knots of steady wind and flat water).
My route instead was to quit windsurfing, I sold all my equipment but the wave sails and a Sealion board which I love for doing tricks and manouvers and going into waves and suping, so to avoid having doubts when getting to the beach, I do windfoiling and that is all.
I believe to do both you need to be a person who accesses to good conditions at least 100+ session a year, otherwise it is very difficult to manage.
Yes I became a novice again...but learning is interesting and motivating.

I'll take the best of both worlds thanks.

Mixing it up keeps life interesting. I do find what gear i pull out of the van is dependant on wind strength though.


And the only reason i've still got a bigger slalom board is because sometimes we race in those winds. Otherwise i'd do away with it.

I like to do both, and find that they complement each other with techniques. Trying to learn tricks, it's easier to do on fin or foil first then on the other.

For instance, I found getting into switch stance while planing a lot less intimidating at first on fin, and am now trying to add it on foil. I could enter it from a jibe by just staying in the front strap but it was something I wanted to immediately get out of. Sending it downwind and going fast is a lot less scary on fin than foil, and helps calibrate a bit for foil.

Jumping conditions are a lot easier to get for foil, but to me it's intimidating on a tall 103cm mast, a lot less so on a 72cm mast. I don't find them anywhere near as scary on fins but we don't get good conditions here on the regular. The guys that do them well here have 2-3x the years or more in the sport than I do. I figure with the TOW on foil I'll probably end up trying forwards at some point when I'm convinced I can jump reliably enough. Can I get the TOW with light wind to learn them with fins at all before trying on foil? Or will I try on foil first then on fin when it's finally windy enough for me to do it?

Honestly I'm stoked to see some good wingers show up here on days that I'm working on jibes, and they are jumping 10-15ft up, spinning, flipping around at high speed on 900cm2 wings, and it makes me want to be not a garbage lawn mower on a windfoil (which I pretty much am )

Same thought process with planing/flying 360s, helis, ducks, etc.

Jibes are way easier on foil, especially when the wind is not very strong or not even planable on fin, and that has given me a much better feel that bleeds over into fin. And nothing is quite like flying out of a jibe. Sometimes it still seems so far away for me on fin, but I know I can make it happen on foil (although unreliably).

The other side of it is some times, the wind direction and moon/sun cycles don't line up to be deep enough for foiling at a close spot, or strong enough for fin, so that makes the choice easy.

Now the main question is: if the tide is deep and the wind is strong, what to pick? At the end of the season here we had days with wind strong enough to plane on my smallest sail, a 4.4, so of course I chose fin, as then I knew I could make it out of the shore break alive in the biggest waves I've been in and not wreck my gear. Not quite there on foil yet, and other foilers in those conditions would be on more like 3.7s or maybe even smaller. But so far in real waves and strong wind I stick to fin. More than 2-4ft swells and <5.0 I start to feel over my head on foil very quickly.

I somehow feels the opposite way. When I discovered windfoil, I had had no gear for about 20 years, as good conditions for windsurfing are rare within less than 2 hours around my home. I decided to invest in windsurfing gear compatible with foil and rediscovered how much I love windsurfing. As my foiling skills improved, I switched to dedicated gear (freefoil styled along wave sails). More recently I got a good deal on a wave board I would not have dream to be able to use before getting into foiling, and found out that my general sailing skills rocketed with foiling. And I now enjoy windsurfing the very few days when we get a blast over 35kt of wind at my local patch of water. But windfoil is my primary toy...
What changed is that my sails over 4.6 have been dry for more than a year, and I just bougth a sub 3m sail.

Just stay away from winging, or you may end up selling all your windfoil gear, too! I mostly windfoiled for a couple of years, but kept my windsurf gear so that I could switch to the slapper when the wind picked up with the same sail. Tried winging and would have given up if not for my wife, who demonstrates how much better winging can be in our typical conditions every day. After a dozen wing sessions, I finally had one where I got the feeling that it might be fun. After about 50 sessions, my best wing sessions now are zen-like - the feeling compares to a dreamy light wind session on glassy LG, except that chop only increases the fun factor. That's even though I still fall in a lot of my turns, my "wave rides" are slow little turns, and I'm still on a draggy and slow beginner foil. Watching Nina play in the same conditions shows me that the most fun is still to come. I still have windfoil and windsurf gear in the van, but rarely even think about using it. So stay away from winging !

I love this thread! Everyone is right!
Foiling brought me back to windsurfing so I started with few distractions. I now own a fin board, a begineers board and I am giving lessons!

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boardsurfr said..
Just stay away from winging, or you may end up selling all your windfoil gear, too!

I DO winGfoil. I've been for 2 years. But even though I am convinced it works better (no side slip of the foil), it feels much more like surf and a lot of free flying, which is not my favored type of riding. I love to play with my sail (duck jibe trying heli or 360...). Plus I don't like wing esthetic so far (I prefer Baltz windfoil vids to his wingfoil vids, however spectacular).
Mostly winging when I just go to the next pond as an emergency measure when some stress needs to be released. For example last time my mother in law came by...

Down to one wave board but it doesn't fit inside a Corolla like the windfoil does,board boom two masts three sails and two complete foils and room for a couple of cold ones.

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Mr Keen said..
Have decided after many months of deliberation to step out of speed sailing to take full advantage of the freedom of the foil
Found that my development on speed kit has stagnated, rarely get the conditions conducive for good speed and when they come gains are minimal.
Planning on keeping bump and jump gear for nuking days, if they ever happen...
Excited about simplifying sail quiver and board count from 6 to 3. Yes foil cost more than makes up for this but hey you only live once.
Not really looking for comments just had to tell someone else other than the other half and my mates. But hey if you feel the need to chime in with positive or negative experiences in doing the same, bring it

Traitor!!!!!!

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duzzi said..

Mr Keen said..
Have decided after many months of deliberation to step out of speed sailing to take full advantage of the freedom of the foil
Found that my development on speed kit has stagnated, rarely get the conditions conducive for good speed and when they come gains are minimal.
Planning on keeping bump and jump gear for nuking days, if they ever happen...
Excited about simplifying sail quiver and board count from 6 to 3. Yes foil cost more than makes up for this but hey you only live once.
Not really looking for comments just had to tell someone else other than the other half and my mates. But hey if you feel the need to chime in with positive or negative experiences in doing the same, bring it

Traitor!!!!!!

Ha ha, still plan to windsurf. Just on wave gear when conditions are good. Who knows I may get the speed bug again.... but for now the joy of freeriding and developing a new skill is far more enjoyable.

Two factors are making me keep my WS boards.
The shallow areas I occasionally sail and the fact I still love to windsurf on those bigger days,

I made the same step as you but I decided to keep the slalom fin board..wind and wing foil are my go to sports but the adrenaline and the speed of the slalom fast board is something unique.and sometimes I miss it!

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sportalcentro said..
I made the same step as you but I decided to keep the slalom fin board..wind and wing foil are my go to sports but the adrenaline and the speed of the slalom fast board is something unique.and sometimes I miss it!

I am sure I will miss some epic speed sessions due to my decision and at some point miss it. Will enjoy getting back to my freeride roots for the moment. I will speed sail again, but when I have more time to invest....

I can use the Koncept 3 cams for foiling and speed. Funny the same 2015 5.8 has both my speed and foil pbs
I tried the new Koncept 4 cams for foiling and it didn't feel good.