I find I get overpowered very easily downwind on my IQ foil if I stay hooked in. If I unhook, it's murder on the arms. Do the pros unhook or use adjustable lines?

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dohertpk said..
I find I get overpowered very easily downwind on my IQ foil if I stay hooked in. If I unhook, it's murder on the arms. Do the pros unhook or use adjustable lines?

Lots use long, in-flight adjustable lines. The shortest setting is about where I would set up normal lines from elbow to base of fingers. I have these: harnessline.com/products/long-adjustable-duo-harness-lines/

I personally prefer to almost always be hooked in unless in survival mode.

Downwind I'm typically out of rear strap, in harness, and go deeper downwind to deal with excess power. I've had difficulty (fear and control) staying hiked out downwind and giving it full power. Would like to know how others deal with it as well.

Downwind:



More upwind or reachy depending on wing/fuse as I have been playing with the 650/725 and the 105+ as well.

Staying sheeted in is a big part of it. Staying hooked into the harness lines really does help that.
If you sheet out in gusts, you lose the rig pressure at the mast foot, which contributes a lot to holding the lift from the foil in check.

I find it usually helps to have a little bit of extra length into the adjustable harness lines so you can get away from the rig, but not too much, as it gives the rig too much pivot room with a stood up foil rig. Especially when you're chasing gusts to dive as deep offwind as you can, because you're stood with a more upright stance.

its then a game of diving off wind further in gusts, and back up to a lesser angle in the lulls to keep the rig powered.

The F4 aiming for 30 knots thread addresses most of this.

Time on Water is definitely key. Get a foam protector for the board.

I had a 25 knot session on 1000 wide F4 foil and 10.0 yesterday. 15knot NE. 100cm Patrick v2 on the absolute limit! Mast base quite forward. Foot straps in 2nd or 3rd holes from the front.

At speed I had 90% (+) body weight in the harness, both feet locked in the straps for control, long harness lines to my high hook seat harness. Fully hiked outboard. Sail leaning over my head. Harness line position quite far back and fairly neutral hand weight on boom.

Sail pressure keeping the nose down, feet controlling board lean angle and compass direction.

As I was "Sending it" I thought. I haven't got much margin for error, and no more body weight to keep the board trim in control if I need much more!


One run I got overpowered. and scary high. but just managed to heel board to windward and dust off a few knots before falling to windward rather than catapulting.

No video this time.

Agree with subsonic about the downwind angle.
gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2022-04-15&team=33

All good pointers. At the margin of loosing control (the threshold of which you learn to push up & up through TOW) unhooking may in some circumstances be the only thing between crashing (=very slow) and staying up (=less slow), but generally I agree that staying hooked in with longer lines (than you'd use upwind or for fin) is the way to go to maintain downforce on the foil. Depending on downwind angle and board (eg, a 100cm foil board is way wider in the tail than a 100cm "old" formula board, so optimal stance will also be different) you may or may not want to be in the back strap, but what really matters is maintaining front foot pressure (remember that your front wing that's generating all the lift is underneath your front foot, not your back foot as is the case on a fin).

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Subsonic said..
Staying sheeted in is a big part of it. Staying hooked into the harness lines really does help that.
If you sheet out in gusts, you lose the rig pressure at the mast foot, which contributes a lot to holding the lift from the foil in check.

I find it usually helps to have a little bit of extra length into the adjustable harness lines so you can get away from the rig, but not too much, as it gives the rig too much pivot room with a stood up foil rig. Especially when you're chasing gusts to dive as deep offwind as you can, because you're stood with a more upright stance.

its then a game of diving off wind further in gusts, and back up to a lesser angle in the lulls to keep the rig powered.

Subsonic, how much do you weigh? As a lightweight (low 60s), I'm confounded by the fact that I feel fully powered with not much more wind than it takes to get off the water. My fastest runs tend to be when winds are in that range. From then on, I'm trying to deal with excess power which means at least feathering the sail to keep the power in the rig relatively the same.

If any other lightweights can shed some light on this other than suggesting the obvious of using a small sail/wing as that's not always an option and I'm usually down a size from others on the water.

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Paducah said..

Subsonic said..
Staying sheeted in is a big part of it. Staying hooked into the harness lines really does help that.
If you sheet out in gusts, you lose the rig pressure at the mast foot, which contributes a lot to holding the lift from the foil in check.

I find it usually helps to have a little bit of extra length into the adjustable harness lines so you can get away from the rig, but not too much, as it gives the rig too much pivot room with a stood up foil rig. Especially when you're chasing gusts to dive as deep offwind as you can, because you're stood with a more upright stance.

its then a game of diving off wind further in gusts, and back up to a lesser angle in the lulls to keep the rig powered.

Subsonic, how much do you weigh? As a lightweight (low 60s), I'm confounded by the fact that I feel fully powered with not much more wind than it takes to get off the water. My fastest runs tend to be when winds are in that range. From then on, I'm trying to deal with excess power which means at least feathering the sail to keep the power in the rig relatively the same.

If any other lightweights can shed some light on this other than suggesting the obvious of using a small sail/wing as that's not always an option and I'm usually down a size from others on the water.

I'm somewhere in the high 60 kgs, don't know my exact weight, it's been a while since I've been on a set of scales. The gear I'm on at the moment is a jp 175 (91 wide), with an iqfoil set up and either an 8m or 9.5m HGO. I've got an 800 wing, but as you say, going smaller isn't always an option. Sometimes when racing you need the lift upwind that the 800 can't always deliver.



18knots (or so) of wind is probably my upper limit of being ok with what's going on, on the course racing gear. Unless the water is flat, things start getting real sketchy downwind after that. And just plain inefficient upwind, as I have to feather too much,even with the outhaul cranked right on. It's taken a while to start getting a knack of staying sheeted in down breeze, and I'm definitely not amongst the fast foilers here.

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berowne said..
The F4 aiming for 30 knots thread addresses most of this.

Time on Water is definitely key. Get a foam protector for the board.

I had a 25 knot session on 1000 wide F4 foil and 10.0 yesterday. 15knot NE. 100cm Patrick v2 on the absolute limit! Mast base quite forward. Foot straps in 2nd or 3rd holes from the front.

At speed I had 90% (+) body weight in the harness, both feet locked in the straps for control, long harness lines to my high hook seat harness. Fully hiked outboard. Sail leaning over my head. Harness line position quite far back and fairly neutral hand weight on boom.

Sail pressure keeping the nose down, feet controlling board lean angle and compass direction.

As I was "Sending it" I thought. I haven't got much margin for error, and no more body weight to keep the board trim in control if I need much more!


One run I got overpowered. and scary high. but just managed to heel board to windward and dust off a few knots before falling to windward rather than catapulting.

No video this time.

I think that's 945cm2 vs the iq 900, so pretty close. Yeah, around 15knots with the 9.0 I've got excess power. Still haven't hit 25kts like you. I think 23kts on the 650 with some downwind angle, casually, out of rear strap. The lift in the front at that speed with the 900 is scaring me and usually limits me to 22kts or so. Moving the mast base forward helps when there's more wind like that.
This sounds like a silly question but what's your tactic to get the downwind angle? Do you just get in the straps and go from upwind to downwind while trimming through the reach and send it or do you work to it a different way, like take off and accelerate downwind immediately?
Maybe I need to spend more time in both straps and steering through the angles a little bit sheeted out just to ease into more downwind power? With the 105+ It's so much less scary.

Subsonic says: "its then a game of diving off wind further in gusts, and back up to a lesser angle in the lulls to keep the rig powered."

Exactly right. This is precisely how we used to get downwind in formula racing with monster sails. The deeper you go, the less pressure on the sail--IF--you keep it sheeted in. It also helps to have adjustable outhaul so you can release some of the outhaul for downwind. This makes the sail less twitchy and more stable.

This takes practice and lots of gonads.

I'm sailing with 1000 SB wing on Foil 100 board (new) and 9.0 HGO, and putting more and more time on the foil, pushing a bit more every time, is the key to be comfortable. Downwind with chop and waves is really scary at first. Racing is all about feeling enough power on the sail to go deeper downwind sheeted in. I put my back foot out of the strap but windward to the centerline.

Anyway, I can't get more than 22 knts with this setup (1000 front wing). I'm 83 Kg.

Dont know how much faster the 900 is really....

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Manilo said..
I'm sailing with 1000 SB wing on Foil 100 board (new) and 9.0 HGO, and putting more and more time on the foil, pushing a bit more every time, is the key to be comfortable. Downwind with chop and waves is really scary at first. Racing is all about feeling enough power on the sail to go deeper downwind sheeted in. I put my back foot out of the strap but windward to the centerline.

Anyway, I can't get more than 22 knts with this setup (1000 front wing). I'm 83 Kg.

Dont know how much faster the 900 is really....

The faster guys (and even gals) are in the upper 20s approaching 30. Fastest guys around 32.

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Paducah said..

Manilo said..
I'm sailing with 1000 SB wing on Foil 100 board (new) and 9.0 HGO, and putting more and more time on the foil, pushing a bit more every time, is the key to be comfortable. Downwind with chop and waves is really scary at first. Racing is all about feeling enough power on the sail to go deeper downwind sheeted in. I put my back foot out of the strap but windward to the centerline.

Anyway, I can't get more than 22 knts with this setup (1000 front wing). I'm 83 Kg.

Dont know how much faster the 900 is really....

The faster guys (and even gals) are in the upper 20s approaching 30. Fastest guys around 32.

With the 1000 fw?
Wow.... I have a long way to go still.... Anyway they're pros and olympic sailors, there will always be a big difference in speed and upwind VMG

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Manilo said..

Paducah said..

Manilo said..
I'm sailing with 1000 SB wing on Foil 100 board (new) and 9.0 HGO, and putting more and more time on the foil, pushing a bit more every time, is the key to be comfortable. Downwind with chop and waves is really scary at first. Racing is all about feeling enough power on the sail to go deeper downwind sheeted in. I put my back foot out of the strap but windward to the centerline.

Anyway, I can't get more than 22 knts with this setup (1000 front wing). I'm 83 Kg.

Dont know how much faster the 900 is really....

The faster guys (and even gals) are in the upper 20s approaching 30. Fastest guys around 32.

With the 1000 fw?
Wow.... I have a long way to go still.... Anyway they're pros and olympic sailors, there will always be a big difference in speed and upwind VMG

Oh, no... sorry. With the 900. For me, a crummy and slow foiler, the 900 is at least 2 kts faster. Better foiler than me prefers the 900 in almost all conditions because of the speed difference for up/down racing.

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Paducah said..

Manilo said..

Paducah said..

Manilo said..
I'm sailing with 1000 SB wing on Foil 100 board (new) and 9.0 HGO, and putting more and more time on the foil, pushing a bit more every time, is the key to be comfortable. Downwind with chop and waves is really scary at first. Racing is all about feeling enough power on the sail to go deeper downwind sheeted in. I put my back foot out of the strap but windward to the centerline.

Anyway, I can't get more than 22 knts with this setup (1000 front wing). I'm 83 Kg.

Dont know how much faster the 900 is really....

The faster guys (and even gals) are in the upper 20s approaching 30. Fastest guys around 32.

With the 1000 fw?
Wow.... I have a long way to go still.... Anyway they're pros and olympic sailors, there will always be a big difference in speed and upwind VMG

Oh, no... sorry. With the 900. For me, a crummy and slow foiler, the 900 is at least 2 kts faster. Better foiler than me prefers the 900 in almost all conditions because of the speed difference for up/down racing.

Oh no I'm even crummier and slower, 22kts is my PB with the 900 and 23-24 with the smaller wings but I also haven't gone into reaching/send mode, I'm scared

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aeroegnr said..


I'm scared

Scared is the wrong word. Its called self preservation.

Yep, i cant seem to go faster than 23 knots myself but im not worried about that. For me its all about VMG coz im set up for windward / return racing. I find that i m not as fast as some of the young sponsored kids downwind, but i can usually beat them upwind by enough to hold on and win races in the right conditions. Im still trying to get faster, but my issue is sudden drops or lift from my IQ Foil while heading downwind in strong breezes so if im racing i often just run a little deeper and slower to make sure i survive the race,