hi everybody ,
I have a JP,165,92 cm wide with a gun foil.
Byron, one of my associates has given me a general answer on Mast track position and its impact on stopping the breaching scenario which has cost me dearly.

My situation is it no matter how much I lean forward when a gust comes, I become so close to breaching. I can't even take my front foot pressure off to move it forward, otherwise I will breach.

my mast track, it was all the way forward, but I heard it needs to be all the way back which is a counter intuitive because of my windsurfing mindset.

If someone could give me just a general answer which way I should move it that would be great. I'm gathering the answer is more complex than that but at the moment I'm all the way forward.

perhaps i need to re-shim the angle of the foil.

some general hints would be appreciated
Already broken my foot and ribs LOL

Mr Delta said that if you foil along nicely balanced at 15 kts and then shoot off down wind to 20 kts and the pressure in your front foot goes up a lot you should shim your stab for less lift (trailing edge down). Try that.

Perhaps the foil is just too powerful..what size front wing is it?

What GasHazard said^^^^
but also, it sounds more to me like a stance issue. Most wind foilers have experienced that "trapped" stance before at least once in their time foiling. You're leaning as far forward as you can, but you just keep rising on the foil till you know you're close to the top of the mast and you're just waiting for the foil out. It's almost always when you're heading off wind. I've done it plenty



Not ruling out the possibility that things need moving around, but that trapped stance is generally what causes the foil out. Your mind has told you that you've hit max forward stance and you're doing all you can to bring it back down. but you've actually just gotten so low and forward that you're now applying almost all your weight to your back foot, which sends you up. you are no longer in a position where you can shift the sails weight forward to bring yourself down and you've psychologically lost you're ability to apply front foot pressure, because your brain is telling you to stay in position.

99% of the time, there are actions you can take that will bring you back down, no matter how you are set up. Practice holding a position where you can get your weight on the front foot. I find keeping my back foot out board when off breeze helps quite a lot. It's more a case of training yourself out of falling into that forward position than anything else.

The other points in the other comments make a lot of sense. What exactly is the foil setup? Looks like gun has a few different ones? It would be good to know what one you are using. And what shims?

And what is the angle to the wind you are usually sailing? When I was first foiling I was doing a lot of beam reaching like windsurfing and struggled for control. I try to go more up or downwind instead of reaching now.

A few of the better foilers here (Berowne, White of Heart) have mentioned tilting the board into the wind for control when it starts getting out of control. I've found this to work really well, but I'm personally not very fast or that good compared to them.

The more geared the foil is to racing, the more it seems that tilting into the wind helps control. But on larger free ride foils they don't seem to hold as steady of a course when you tilt them, it's more subtle, or they shoot upwind and carve that way.

If you're already running the mast base far forward it seems something else is off?

There are a few ways to get the nose down.

1. old habit. move mast forward (limited effect at speed)
2. hang off boom with hands (weak)
3. hang off harness lines (upto 99% of body weigth!)... effective
4. move foot straps forward (weak)
5. depower with rear shim (good effect)
6. rail board to windward (the strongest technique to control nose lift!).

While this thread is about 30knots, the techniques apply to 20kts equally!
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Foiling/F4Foils-Tuning-Tips-Towards-30-knots-

I've no idea how to capture a loop of video, but you can see Costin getting in that position below at the last PWA slalom event in Japan.


It's day three of racing if you want to see the whole breech.

To add you should not be moving your front foot during a session to control an overlifting foil, there should be too much weight on your front foot to move it, you shift your back foot forward.

You can try moving your front strap all the way forward.

If you can easily fly onto the foil without sail or board pump then I would say your front strap needs to move forward.

Also learn how to sheet out without losing mast foot pressure

I was breaching all the time when I started. Tried hanging off the boom(lower back killer), moving the uj forward (massive porpoising off the wind). Then I moved the foil mast all the way back, uj all the way back, and things got way easier.

Sounds like your foil wing has too much lift for your weight. How much do you weight, and what size front wing do you have? I is also possible the foil is not a good match for that board, can you post a picture of the foil?

I weight 82 kg and use an AFS Wind95 foil, the largest wing I have is the F1080 cm2 wing for 8-12 knots, I switch to a F770 cm2 wing once it is 12+ knots, at 18 knots I to go to a S670 cm2 wing which does not want to breach at all in up to 30 knots.

Sail mast track back, footstrap forward and shim tail for less lift (this last one is the biggest thing to do).

One thing not mentioned above, but related to footstrap position, is the position of the front wing. This is THE VERY FIRST THING they go over with you when you buy foiling gear at Sailworks. Balance.

You want to locate the front wing at or near the mid point between your feet. The symptoms described by the OP are a classical case of front wing too far forward. You can kinda compensate by moving footstraps forward and by moving the sail mast track forward.

Move your foil further rearward if possible.

My old and tired youtube from 2017:

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aeroegnr said..
A few of the better foilers here (Berowne, White of Heart) have mentioned tilting the board into the wind for control when it starts getting out of control. I've found this to work really well, but I'm personally not very fast or that good compared to them.

The more geared the foil is to racing, the more it seems that tilting into the wind helps control. But on larger free ride foils they don't seem to hold as steady of a course when you tilt them, it's more subtle, or they shoot upwind and carve that way.

What I've found is that, for me, board deck shape and width contributes significantly to the ability to tilt the board to windward.

I've recently moved from a freerace shape that I always struggled to heel properly to windward. The more rounded shape at the back strap made it difficult to apply enough pressure to the rail. My newer board has a wider and flatter deck and it's measurably easier to apply pressure and have it heel to windward.

The newer board also has the mast track slightly more forward which I thought would inhibit early planing and jibing. It doesn't. But having the mast base forward a couple of cm does make it easier to hold the nose off the wind when heeling the board to windward. One doesn't need to buy a foil specific board to enjoy foiling but they do help very much at the margins.

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Paducah said..

aeroegnr said..
A few of the better foilers here (Berowne, White of Heart) have mentioned tilting the board into the wind for control when it starts getting out of control. I've found this to work really well, but I'm personally not very fast or that good compared to them.

The more geared the foil is to racing, the more it seems that tilting into the wind helps control. But on larger free ride foils they don't seem to hold as steady of a course when you tilt them, it's more subtle, or they shoot upwind and carve that way.

What I've found is that, for me, board deck shape and width contributes significantly to the ability to tilt the board to windward.

I've recently moved from a freerace shape that I always struggled to heel properly to windward. The more rounded shape at the back strap made it difficult to apply enough pressure to the rail. My newer board has a wider and flatter deck and it's measurably easier to apply pressure and have it heel to windward.

The newer board also has the mast track slightly more forward which I thought would inhibit early planing and jibing. It doesn't. But having the mast base forward a couple of cm does make it easier to hold the nose off the wind when heeling the board to windward. One doesn't need to buy a foil specific board to enjoy foiling but they do help very much at the margins.

Seems to make sense. I personally haven't had much luck with heeling larger foils (1250cm2 and above, up to 2400cm2 or so) regardless of width. But 900cm2 and below it seems to happen pretty easily, but I've mostly used them on 95cm wide and only limited on 77cm wide. I think the only time I had a ~1250cm2 foil with board that was pretty wide (85cm) was a tillo convertible/tarroa setup and everything felt so new to me I didn't pay attention to the heeling that much, just shocked how easy that setup was to ride.

Still ironing out what I believe are stance faults. I just crash way less when tilting the race stuff to windward when it starts to rise up. With freeride foils it doesn't seem to matter as much, or it's not as visible/noticeable to me anyway.

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Subsonic said..
I've no idea how to capture a loop of video, but you can see Costin getting in that position below at the last PWA slalom event in Japan.


It's day three of racing if you want to see the whole breech.

Maybe save someone else a search. Giphy doesn't work with videos this long. Yeah, she gets higher and higher while hanging like crazy. Haven't we all been there - somebody just punched to 18th floor on the elevator when you just wanted to go to 3 and you're stuck for the ride.

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Paducah said..

Subsonic said..
I've no idea how to capture a loop of video, but you can see Costin getting in that position below at the last PWA slalom event in Japan.


It's day three of racing if you want to see the whole breech.

Maybe save someone else a search. Giphy doesn't work with videos this long. Yeah, she gets higher and higher while hanging like crazy. Haven't we all been there - somebody just punched to 18th floor on the elevator when you just wanted to go to 3 and you're stuck for the ride.

Beginning to think there's something to this tilt windward thing. Looks like by the time it was at full mast it was too late but it rose up with the board flat. Wondering if significant lift was coming from the nose.

The other thing i notice watching the footage is she ends up a lot more inboard, so there goes the leverage to stay heeled, and keep front foot pressure on.


certainly don't mean to pick on her, she more than likely an excellent sailor, doing PWA. But it's a bit of show and tell when we get to watch it happen.

Heeling to windward gets the front wing into the act of cranking the gear upwind. The wing will exert a side force as the sine of the heeling angle. Combine this with the side force exerted by the mast as the cosine of the angle, and you get a lot of upwind power. More effective than keeping it flat and relying on the mast alone. Racers have been doing this forever. You see in all the racing videos.