Low rider or high flyer?

[plummet]

So how do you foil. Do you foil low to the surface or as high as you dare.

I'm getting more fun out of low riding. I think mainly because of my mast height, chop on sell environment. I find low I can crank in speed/carves and not vent a wing.

[Kamikuza]

High enough, board closer to the water. Same reason as you, no venting.

[SaulOhio]

I love that "I'm the king of the world!" feeling of being as high as I dare, but I do try to ride low as I can without hitting the chop. I'm best off at a happy medium, where I have little danger of overfoiling and not too close to falling off a plane. But I am a beginner, and still haven't used a full sized mast yet. I had one session on my friend's Cabrinha where I had the foil planning right along the surface, the top of the wing out of the water, and riding stable. That was an interesting experience. We'll see where my preferences evolve as I get better and develop my home made gear.

[MattyM]

Breaking the surface is always worse than touching down - so I ride low - just high enough to not clip the chop.

[Foil]

The swell and chop dictate how high you need to fly, yet again today the swell was big, so I had to come back in and change down a kite size to make it easier to control my height, which needed to be high when driving over the peaks, the next to dive down low, then turn away from a wave face which lifted to foil due to the speed generated, cutting back over the wave face made the ride over the top and down the back an exciting ride, learnt a lot today due to the very challenging conditions and some very large swells, twin tips were on 12 mtr kites, I changed down to an 8 and was very happy, the 9mtr was just to much as the power kept lifting the wings to quickly for me to respond in time. 91 cm mast was good but I am thinking a longer mast might help me in the future when my skills warrant it.

[Peter_Frank]

High flyer, no doubt, the higher the better, faster and more agile and more fun

The more experienced I have gotten, the higher I fly more consistently, meaning, higher without ventilating, also in turns.

In fact often semi ventilating without crashing, but reattaching - which is the utmost goal.

Being able to ride high, on the verge to too high, but not crash when you got the feel where the limit is, and can ride just on the edge intuitively - THAT is the best

PF

[3InletsWindsports]

I’m a high enough to not touch but just type.
But I have found the forgiving nature of the Spitfire to venting allows it to vent but catch it on way down to not touch down so keep going. This gets me more relaxed with running higher.

[bragnouff]

Could it be that it also depends on how you fly your kite? With the kite low, venting the foil is more likely to end up in a crash whereas when flown overhead, it can be recovered more (even more so on a Spitfire).
Low kite flying would influence the rider in staying conservatively low enough to be on the safe side.

In the end, it's all dictated by water conditions. Too high and you really have to follow every bump in the surface to prevent breaching, and too low, lots of surface touches also if not following the chop/swell. There's a middle ground that is more comfortable. I find that typically on my first couple of runs into a session, I can get some straight line crashes, while later on it won't happen anymore. I suppose that's the adjustment phase to the daily conditions as much as the getting back into it.

[juandesooka]

Low flyer. Nearly always ride in chop and wind swell, less likely to breach surface. I rode in the worst choppy conditions yet last weekend, like kiting in a washing machine. At times had to slow right down to point of board falling flat on surface, to avoid breaching when punching through the back of waves. It was a "challenging experience" (actually quite fun overall, though too much work at times).