Hello
I've read this forum for a year and a half now and it helped me a lot to buy and ride on windfoiling. My focus is only light wind with small wave sails (<5,5m2), that's why I bought a big front wing (1600 NP glide), though I weight only 70 kg. There were similar examples on the forum.

On the other side there are a lot of people which prefers freeride foiling with bigger sails (6-7m2) and smaller wings, I guess more focused on speed.

I've found my option could be more suitable to strapless, as controlling a big front wing being a light weight in gusty winds could be easier stepping forward than moving the sail base all the time. However the other day I put a washer as shim and the foil changed from front foot to back foot immediately. I'm not ready for strapless yet, I will try it in short term. Compared to wave sailing boards, I think in wide windfoiling boards it's more difficult to find one single good stance for upwind and riding swells. Strapless is also a good solution for that.

It seems the smaller wing-big sails option needs less tunning. Do you change your tunning in each session? (sail base, foil mast, footstraps, etc) or you found a good configuration and you only change a little bit the sail base from one session to another?

Thanks.

Mucel,
I made the switch to strapless very easily. It feel it is easier than getting in and out of straps. When I learned to foil with straps I had to practice ashore to learn how to get in to the aft strap. The hardest thing was learning how to carry the gear without the straps. I do not tune the foil or sail location, I found a good setting and roll with it. Sail choice and front wing choice is my gross tune. Moving my feet is how I medium tune the ballance for different wind and wave angles. Feet inboard and forward as you turn downwind and ride waves. Out and aft as you turn upwind and load the harness lines. Back foot moves more and more often than front foot. Hips, head and sail trim provide the fine tune just like strapped riding.

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utcminusfour said..
Mucel,
I made the switch to strapless very easily. It feel it is easier than getting in and out of straps. When I learned to foil with straps I had to practice ashore to learn how to get in to the aft strap. The hardest thing was learning how to carry the gear without the straps. I do not tune the foil or sail location, I found a good setting and roll with it. Sail choice and front wing choice is my gross tune. Moving my feet is how I medium tune the ballance for different wind and wave angles. Feet inboard and forward as you turn downwind and ride waves. Out and aft as you turn upwind and load the harness lines. Back foot moves more and more often than front foot. Hips, head and sail trim provide the fine tune just like strapped riding.

+1 to this reply. There are different styles and preferances of course and some of these may lead to value to the foostraps. However, I think most of us are trained from fin windsurfing that footstraps is the way to go. Another bonus no mentioned in the above of no footstraps is no risk to ankles and knees. Seeing those going with only the front footstrap makes me uneasy. I know someone who recently went strapless due to a "one strap" knee twist "pop." There was little to no transition for me going from strapped to strapless. Mind you I did this fairly early in my windfoil life.

What works for me sailing mostly inland flat water or wind chop/swell. I'll tune wing size, mast base position and shim for the day's general conditions, sail size, etc. Straps (small board is front only) stay where they are once I find a good all round position. A lot of that is determined by what strap position keeps the board flying through a jibe.

Mast base positions are only changed a cm or 2.

I find I'm much less picky about stuff on my smaller board with smaller sails (<5.4) Mast base goes in the sort of middle, maybe tune a bit of the boom height on the water and the back foot moves up or back a bit if things still need a tweak.

I depend on the front straps for getting off the water and making sure my balance point is consistent. Going upwind even on a small board, I sail pretty much out on the rail and it feels nice having the strap to anchor on.

I run small sails, small board, big foil, straps at centerline like a waveboard. Rarely move anything once I'm happy with the setup. 14-25kts is just sail size and even then I've run the 5.3 the whole time.

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Mucel said..
It seems the smaller wing-big sails option needs less tuning.

Maybe, maybe not. Race wings generally come with shims for tuning, while freeride foils like the Slingshot Infinity do not. But then, race foils are used from 6 to 25+ knots, with the same sails, while the "big wing, small sail" option usually goes with multiple sails for different wind strength, and quite often with different size front wings. When the wind picks up to 17+ knots, I find a smaller wing (TC68, 1100 cm2) a lot more enjoyable than a bigger wing (i84, 2066 cm2).

For riding swell at our local spot, there's no way I could use the back foot strap (I usually don't use foot straps with freeride wings). The stance is a lot wider, with the back foot about 5 cm further back and much further inboard than when going upwind. The far back position is necessary to prevent the board from going down onto the water when going down a swell; just shifting weight to the back foot is not enough. But how a foil reacts when riding swell seems to be quite dependent on the foil size, what the swell looks like, which direction you are riding (straight down or at an angle), and how fast you are going. Smaller foils and more speed can make for a smoother ride. Others, with different foils and riding styles, have reported exactly the opposite of what I usually see - they have to move weight forward to push the nose down.

To add a bit more confusion, I'm starting to suspect that even the type of mast may make a difference. I have had a few sessions on a SB SuperCruiser recently, and some things are very different from Slingshot foils. The SB mast is a lot wider, so "spinouts" that are common with short Slingshot masts (71 cm or shorter) seem a lot rarer, if they happen at all. But when going almost parallel to chop in shallow water (1 - 1.5 m), there's more lateral instability, which might come from the circular motion of the water affecting the mast. That sometimes makes me wish for foot straps on this particular foil (but I have not tried it yet to see if straps would really help). But I figure I need at least 10 sessions, and some playing with tuning options, to get the new foil dialed in.

I do not change the foil setup, one stab. shim on AFS W95 with either F1080 or F770 wings, do not change mast base position, do not change boom height, do not change front foot strap position. The only thing I change is the sail size and the downhaul/outhaul. That works from 8 to ~22 knots, my current smallest sail is a 5.8 and it gets overpowered around 25 knots.

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Loonie said..

utcminusfour said..
Mucel,
I made the switch to strapless very easily. It feel it is easier than getting in and out of straps. When I learned to foil with straps I had to practice ashore to learn how to get in to the aft strap. The hardest thing was learning how to carry the gear without the straps. I do not tune the foil or sail location, I found a good setting and roll with it. Sail choice and front wing choice is my gross tune. Moving my feet is how I medium tune the ballance for different wind and wave angles. Feet inboard and forward as you turn downwind and ride waves. Out and aft as you turn upwind and load the harness lines. Back foot moves more and more often than front foot. Hips, head and sail trim provide the fine tune just like strapped riding.

+1 to this reply. There are different styles and preferances of course and some of these may lead to value to the foostraps. However, I think most of us are trained from fin windsurfing that footstraps is the way to go. Another bonus no mentioned in the above of no footstraps is no risk to ankles and knees. Seeing those going with only the front footstrap makes me uneasy. I know someone who recently went strapless due to a "one strap" knee twist "pop." There was little to no transition for me going from strapped to strapless. Mind you I did this fairly early in my windfoil life.

I hand some close calls with feet getting stuck in straps particularly when learning, not sure how I avoided injury. I just got lucky. I am happy to not have that risk anymore. If I use straps again it will be for jumping and to do that you have to accept a certain level of risk anyway. I think strapless is something a lot of folks feel is "advanced". After doing it I feel it is what begineers SHOULD do.

There's also the small sails / small foils (sub 1200 high aspect) / small boards option, but I admit there's not that many people in that camp with me. Balz Muller, Phillipe Canari (from Horue), some more PWA freestylers are what I can think of this fast ;). Admittedly Im by far the heaviest of this group that I know at 95kgs, with most being around 75kg.

For me, I'm mostly riding strapped, dont see the point in strapless when mostly practicing jumps ;). Granted I dont use the backstrap that often, only when loading up for the jump. I dont tune much, found my settings and sticking with them. PWA pro Jordy Vonk once told me that he really became a good windsurfer the moment he stopped tuning his kit every time the wind changed and just sticked with his settings & setup for the day and learned to deal with it using technique. After sailing like that for two years I'm with him!!

On the other hand, when I was still racing a lot I regularly had training sessions where people stopped to switch masts & battens every 40 minutes haha.

Only thing I do tune a lot is my outhaul and trapeze line position (they always go together).

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utcminusfour said..

Loonie said..

utcminusfour said..
Mucel,
I made the switch to strapless very easily. It feel it is easier than getting in and out of straps. When I learned to foil with straps I had to practice ashore to learn how to get in to the aft strap. The hardest thing was learning how to carry the gear without the straps. I do not tune the foil or sail location, I found a good setting and roll with it. Sail choice and front wing choice is my gross tune. Moving my feet is how I medium tune the ballance for different wind and wave angles. Feet inboard and forward as you turn downwind and ride waves. Out and aft as you turn upwind and load the harness lines. Back foot moves more and more often than front foot. Hips, head and sail trim provide the fine tune just like strapped riding.

+1 to this reply. There are different styles and preferances of course and some of these may lead to value to the foostraps. However, I think most of us are trained from fin windsurfing that footstraps is the way to go. Another bonus no mentioned in the above of no footstraps is no risk to ankles and knees. Seeing those going with only the front footstrap makes me uneasy. I know someone who recently went strapless due to a "one strap" knee twist "pop." There was little to no transition for me going from strapped to strapless. Mind you I did this fairly early in my windfoil life.

I hand some close calls with feet getting stuck in straps particularly when learning, not sure how I avoided injury. I just got lucky. I am happy to not have that risk anymore. If I use straps again it will be for jumping and to do that you have to accept a certain level of risk anyway. I think strapless is something a lot of folks feel is "advanced". After doing it I feel it is what begineers SHOULD do.

Select to expand quote

utcminusfour said..
Mucel,
I made the switch to strapless very easily. It feel it is easier than getting in and out of straps. When I learned to foil with straps I had to practice ashore to learn how to get in to the aft strap. The hardest thing was learning how to carry the gear without the straps. I do not tune the foil or sail location, I found a good setting and roll with it. Sail choice and front wing choice is my gross tune. Moving my feet is how I medium tune the ballance for different wind and wave angles. Feet inboard and forward as you turn downwind and ride waves. Out and aft as you turn upwind and load the harness lines. Back foot moves more and more often than front foot. Hips, head and sail trim provide the fine tune just like strapped riding.

Hello, I switched to strapless and no problem. In fact it's much easier to control breaching than with footstraps. You can move easily forward- backward and inboard- outboard as you said, depending on the particular situation (overpowered, upwind, downwind, etc). Now I don't have to change sail mast position all the time. Next step is making my windfoiling more manoeuvrable. I think I will try putting the sail mast backward and the foil mast more forward

I ride a Naish freeride setup with different size wings and sails between 7.0 and 4.0. I found the best of both worlds is to keep the front straps and remove the back straps. The back straps are always in the way when learning to jibe, sometimes too inboard for going upwind, and when on the edge downwinding I prefer to move the back foot more inboard. But I come from slalom windsurfing, like the feeling of being in the front straps, more connected to the board.

FWIW...
I started in april on my SS114, 90cm mast I76 wing. I'm 5'8" 140 lbs. I use 3 sails to cover 13 -30 knots. 3.7,4.5,5.2 .

I struggled in the beginning getting balanced. I couldn't control foiling out, even carving hard up wind. I ended up removing the straps and everything got way easier once I was able to move my feet 3" farther forward than the most forward strap location. Once I found my balance point, I effectively moved the forward strap holes 3" forward. Now I can use the harness comfortably as well. Getting the sail mast closer to my feet was the key. Sail mast is 1" from all the way back in the track. Same for the foil mast using position "B" on the fuse. I only use the forward strap as my rear foot needs to "dance" between lulls and gusts. If I do put the rear strap on, it will probably be dead center for carving around going off the wind. I like to have both feet on the rails for going tight up wind. I've finally advanced to foiling jibes after 1000 attempts . Took a lot of tuning to figure things out, but I'm absolutely having a blast now.

One other note on being a beginner..
I had 2 foot injuries early on trying to learn. I would have been better off learning strapless. IF your foot gets stuck, you essentially have a 3 foot lever on your ankle. Once you figure balance out, the risk goes way down IMO. I also keep them loose.