UKSurf wrote: ↑Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:29 pm
Short mast makes hydrofoiling a lot safer and easier - I would not say it is a waste of time. Hydrofoiling is a dangerous activity, especially in the early phases. I agree there is definitely a temptation to stay on the short mast too long, I am certainly in this camp.
I agree with recommending using the school mast learning stages and surface riding as
it is a safer and much faster way to get to the point of sustained level flight with big smiles and celebrating the yeeharr moments.
Pushing forward as quickly as possible through the mast lengths will get you through to this ultimate goal, staying short may dull the experience and you may get comfortable in the short zone without experiencing the real rush you get flying fast and high,and almost in in control, being completely in control only seems to happen in short bursts linking these in-control moments together becomes the aim of everybody but this takes lots of water time and the challenges never seen to get easier which is one reason why I just love it, its never easy, even though others seem to make it look so easy.
When your comfortable with a long mast of 90cm or over, you do look back and view the short masts as school kit, I sold my 71cm mast after 3 months as I wanted to concentrate on my long mast without distraction, however I did eventually regret this decision.
I found that the long mast let me cruise around at speed feeling like I had it nailed and craving more and more speed, however flying gybes became a sticking point for me as it does for many others, some never seem to get past this stage and give in or accept that bum in the water gybes are good enough, this is where the large surf style pump wings attached to a short mast came to my rescue and shortened my learning pain.
It instantly removed the problems I was experiencing, mainly the fear of crashing hard, multiple times and getting totally frustrated, I like many others found that using a standard long mast with standard freeride wings were holding my progress back, as I found out that looping the kite to pull me round into a gybe was just so hard as this was so counterintuitive as my brain was telling me the
faster you go the more this will end badly and will hurt,and everyone was telling me you need to do this to succeed,It was ruddy difficult and I was stuck.
The short mast and big wing allowed me to fly gybe instantly, in the same 2 or3 attempts glide round on the fly and sail away on a wobbly toeside direction which when I felt it a little too wobbly turned back to heelside still on the fly, which in disbelief I cracked on my first attempt, after practicing this until my legs were tired I packed up for the day so excited about the next day I could hardly sleep.
The next day I screwed on the 101 long mast with the big wing and tried the same again, this time I found I was still making my turns on the fly, only the toeside riding became more wobbly as I was much higher up and faster, and more scarry with some nasty wipe outs at maximum mast height and maximum speed,many ouch moments but the main thing was I was going round corners both ways and turning back to healside, with unexpected ease(most of the time)
The short mast with the big(massive)633 wing should not be seen as just a tool to move onto faster learning, its a new and exciting way to explore the other experiences on offer that the longer cruiser masts can't offer so easily or so often, and when you jump from one size to the other as I do, you soon realize the two masts and wing sets have their own place and time on the water, expanding time and opportunity to grab more water time and enjoy more sensations that the other mast combination may fail to deliver at certain locations or water states.
And to finish this ramble I have to say the shorter mast big wing combination when used in wavy conditions is more fun although more challenging than the long mast that flies over the crests without the need to follow the wave shapes,but the short combination does tire you out more quickly as you need to work much harder, but the gains are much higher as you carve around humming a beach boys tune, however I only seem to know one tune and this is now a problem as my session time on the water has doubled since I moved on a stage, and my gps watch now records 20-30 miles covered on each decent session with a crazy number of turns completed compared to previous sessions.