Only three sessions in and going great guns but finding it hard to go up wind... any tips please. Jonesy.

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JonesySUP said..
Only three sessions in and going great guns but finding it hard to go up wind... any tips please. Jonesy.

Make sure you have a big enough wing and foil for the wind. Speed, sheet in, lean foil over slightly to windward side, close the gap between wing and water and look where you want to go.

I've heard a few guys advise closing the wing gap to the water...

I'm intrigued by this aspect of going upwind.

Is it so that the wing is more efficient in trapping the wind thereby generating lift to enable you to go upwind (if all your other technique is in place)?

Kinda like kiteboarding, low foil powered up is what you need for upwind.
Lite powered high kite takes you downwind.

Like this

The more you go out - the more up wind you go

As mentioned above, you will get better at it the more you ride. But in general,

- Ride fast
- Have your Wing vertical as possible
- Don't oversheet/choke your wing but do keep it sheeted on
- If you can cant your board slightly to windward once your up and locked off.
- I like to reach forward with my front arm. I also like to especially in light winds lower my front arm slightly and bring the LE in contact with the board.

When you have it dialled you'll pull great angles.

Ride safe,

JB

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Windgenuity said..
As mentioned above, you will get better at it the more you ride. But in general,

- Ride fast
- Have your Wing vertical as possible
- Don't oversheet/choke your wing but do keep it sheeted on
- If you can cant your board slightly to windward once your up and locked off.
- I like to reach forward with my front arm. I also like to especially in light winds lower my front arm slightly and bring the LE in contact with the board.

When you have it dialled you'll pull great angles.

Ride safe,

JB

Cheers

Here's an idea of the angles you can get in open ocean in surprisingly light-ish conditions.



Ride safe,

JB

That's impressive JB!! I'm new to winging and only had 2 sessions but super keen to stay at it.

Amped to head out tomorrow & put these tips into practice!

Thanks to you guys for taking the time to post these tips!!

Last session I had was the first I managed to maintain my position...hoping tomorrow I'll be heading upwind...!

One tip that really helped me was to move the wing back a bit, rotate your core and move hands a little so that the trailing edge is closer to the tail of board.

On my first session out I was trying to push the leading edge forward and upwind like going upwind on a kite and this was having the exact opposite effect. I find the effect of moving the wing back is more noticeable in slogging/non foiling mode but still quite noticeable when up and foiling.

I think the biggest killer of holding ground and making ground upwind is all the falling off and
Faffing about trying to get back up and going. It's amazing just how quickly you can lose ground doing this but I guess that is pretty hard to avoid in the learning stages.

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Windgenuity said..
Here's an idea of the angles you can get in open ocean in surprisingly light-ish conditions.



Ride safe,

JB

This is interesting, my nerd side wanted to know how efficient we were upwind.Not useful for anything practical but i just wanted to know :)

I hope i have gotten this right, i have measured 122* between tacks which is 61 degrees from straight upwind.

A good kiter driving a 15m race hydrofoil kite can do about 43* from upwind in 13kt , impressive angle but i do not think it is as playful and throwabout as a wingfoil :)

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yt04 said..
That's impressive JB!! I'm new to winging and only had 2 sessions but super keen to stay at it.

Absolutely, those tracks would give a lot of kitefoilers a run for their money. Having spent some time in the Northern Beaches years ago I can appreciate these distances, what an amazing spot for winging.

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mcrt said..

Windgenuity said..
Here's an idea of the angles you can get in open ocean in surprisingly light-ish conditions.



Ride safe,

JB

This is interesting, my nerd side wanted to know how efficient we were upwind.Not useful for anything practical but i just wanted to know :)

I hope i have gotten this right, i have measured 122* between tacks which is 61 degrees from straight upwind.

A good kiter driving a 15m race hydrofoil kite can do about 43* from upwind in 13kt , impressive angle but i do not think it is as playful and throwabout as a wingfoil :)

Yes about 60* is pretty accurate. My height is probably close to 50* but you get a lot of slip, especially when it is light like this. I was on a 6m Wingsurfer and the swell was about 1.5-2m. On flatter water you can punch a little higher.

Wing Foiling is way more playful than Kite foiling. But yes a kite foiler would beat a Wing Foil up wind most days i would think.

Regards,

JB

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Windbot said..

yt04 said..
That's impressive JB!! I'm new to winging and only had 2 sessions but super keen to stay at it.

Absolutely, those tracks would give a lot of kitefoilers a run for their money. Having spent some time in the Northern Beaches years ago I can appreciate these distances, what an amazing spot for winging.

Yep, there's some great places to play, but you will find that just about anywhere does if you think outside the box. Forget all the limitations from other sports, the foil and wing just open so many doors.

Here's a Pittwater, central coast and broken bay run I did a while ago in a super crappy gusty westerly where kites could not even stay in the sky between the gusts. Made a generous distance upwind in one "LONG" tack even hunting round the back of Lion Island.




And another fun upwind down wind from palmy to Flint and steel and back. Again some good angles up wind in a light but gusty westerly. Both these sessions above were on the 3.6m Wing-Surfer.




So much fun just going adventuring, don't let lulls or headlands hold you back, the wing and foil can go just about anywhere.

Ride safe,

JB

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Windgenuity said..So much fun just going adventuring, don't let lulls or headlands hold you back, the wing and foil can go just about anywhere.

Nice tracks JB. Agree, the foil's a game-changer for exploring - sail or wing powered

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Foiling/Taking-a-trip-?page=1#21

JB, Those tracks are insane! I'm working on building up my mental game for getting further from the coast. I keep getting that feeling that I'm going to F up in some way and end up with out the wing or the board and deal with self-rescuing, despite spending very little time in the water. My last session was 30+ mph day and I saw a tanker about a mile offshore. I started to make a run for it to hunt some wakes, but chickened out and stuck near shore.

Do you carry any fall-back safety gear, like a phone etc. with you?

This is a 19km all up distance on the wingfoil as the crow flies about 6km upwind you can cover plenty of ground quite easily
happy days

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Windgenuity said..

mcrt said..

Windgenuity said..
Here's an idea of the angles you can get in open ocean in surprisingly light-ish conditions.



Ride safe,

JB

This is interesting, my nerd side wanted to know how efficient we were upwind.Not useful for anything practical but i just wanted to know :)

I hope i have gotten this right, i have measured 122* between tacks which is 61 degrees from straight upwind.

A good kiter driving a 15m race hydrofoil kite can do about 43* from upwind in 13kt , impressive angle but i do not think it is as playful and throwabout as a wingfoil :)

Yes about 60* is pretty accurate. My height is probably close to 50* but you get a lot of slip, especially when it is light like this. I was on a 6m Wingsurfer and the swell was about 1.5-2m. On flatter water you can punch a little higher.

Wing Foiling is way more playful than Kite foiling. But yes a kite foiler would beat a Wing Foil up wind most days i would think.

Regards,

JB

Sorry for the Off topic but i'll clarify that the 43* upwind angle for a kitefoil that i calculated was taken from a track at the Mexico Hydrofoil Pro Tour (Ozone's Matt Taggart - Mikes Lab Hydrofoil and 15m R1v2, wind maybe 13knots).

An amateur kitefoiler on everyday kitefoil gear will probably be at 50* upwind angle.

So 60* is super impressive for a Wingfoil, which was never designed as a racing machine.

Plus it makes it easy to calculate your Vmg (Velocity made good=how fast you are moving directly upwind).Just divide your speed by two.

So if you are doing 10knots when sailing upwind that gives you a Vmg of 5kt.
This nerd fact can actually be somewhat useful to plan outings.

There's only 1 real useful tip to go upwind. It's simple.... Look upwind, you'll be amazed how it just works it twists your body. Then look back at the trail in your water you'll see

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Windgenuity said..

Windbot said..

yt04 said..
That's impressive JB!! I'm new to winging and only had 2 sessions but super keen to stay at it.

Absolutely, those tracks would give a lot of kitefoilers a run for their money. Having spent some time in the Northern Beaches years ago I can appreciate these distances, what an amazing spot for winging.

Yep, there's some great places to play, but you will find that just about anywhere does if you think outside the box. Forget all the limitations from other sports, the foil and wing just open so many doors.

Here's a Pittwater, central coast and broken bay run I did a while ago in a super crappy gusty westerly where kites could not even stay in the sky between the gusts. Made a generous distance upwind in one "LONG" tack even hunting round the back of Lion Island.




And another fun upwind down wind from palmy to Flint and steel and back. Again some good angles up wind in a light but gusty westerly. Both these sessions above were on the 3.6m Wing-Surfer.




So much fun just going adventuring, don't let lulls or headlands hold you back, the wing and foil can go just about anywhere.

Ride safe,

JB

That is so cool to be able to wing there in a Westerly. I'd be ****ting myself though if the wind drops and you slowly drift out to the ocean !

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MidAtlanticFoil said..
JB, Those tracks are insane! I'm working on building up my mental game for getting further from the coast. I keep getting that feeling that I'm going to F up in some way and end up with out the wing or the board and deal with self-rescuing, despite spending very little time in the water. My last session was 30+ mph day and I saw a tanker about a mile offshore. I started to make a run for it to hunt some wakes, but chickened out and stuck near shore.

Do you carry any fall-back safety gear, like a phone etc. with you?

I go about 4-5km offshore especially if I am hunting swells. But in general, this is a usual upwind/Downwind I would do. These tacks are about 3km offshore.


I always have my apple watch on which has cellular.

VMG is very important, not quite as easy as halving your speed as you can slip. I use the calculated linear distance of my GST and the time stand of that portion of the run. Distance/Time multiplied out to /hr.






7.12km in 47.5minutes - 9km/h pretty much straight upwind - VMG. Pretty good. Again this is open ocean and I think I played around for a bit at Mona vale headland as there was some waves, so probably more like 10kmh+.

I was quicker than a few 40'er's on Pittwater over the weekend, but could quite catch the 60'er upwind on the Sunday races. very shifty wind, and the Yachts have the upper hand in the lulls, but in the gusts can smash em.

Here's one of the races. I grabbed the second leg from off Sandy Point to Taylors Point. (it was two laps). Mind you I always give way to the yachts and bare away quite often to give them room.

Second upwind lap extracted.

Linear data/
Linear of 3.9km over 27.25 minutes - 8.6kmh VMG (approx.). Again could have been much faster, but I stay well clear of the yachts when their racing, baring away if there is any chance of getting close (not efficient).

Anyway, great fun.

Ride safe.

JB

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Alysum said..
There's only 1 real useful tip to go upwind. It's simple.... Look upwind, you'll be amazed how it just works it twists your body. Then look back at the trail in your water you'll see

Yep and drive through your hips.

JB

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Alysum said..
There's only 1 real useful tip to go upwind. It's simple.... Look upwind, you'll be amazed how it just works it twists your body. Then look back at the trail in your water you'll see

I like that simplicity. Suppose it works for kiting... why not this.

Obviously, no one read my reply at the top

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hilly said..
Obviously, no one read my reply at the top

Ha ha what, who are you, what are you trying to say.

Yep pretty much nailed it all.

In general with any sport. The body will often like to follow where the eyes look.

Can anyone recommend a tracking app good for foiling specifically for the Garmin watch line...?

Cheers crew

Can't wait to get out there and go up Wind.... for a cracking downwind run.

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longboard said..
Can anyone recommend a tracking app good for foiling specifically for the Garmin watch line...?

I use a custom activity on my Garmin Fenix 6 with the data I want to see. Works well.