Stop this thing

[njrider]

Hi all. Full foil ride today - yeah. I had that click moment. So my question is how do you stop the foil. It just seems to go faster and faster. I tried to head straight downwind and straight upwind and did not sense that it was slowing. The only thing that seemed to help is when I brought the board down to water.

Thanks!

[Flyboy]

Violent face plant always seems to work for me.

[njrider]

Good suggestion - violent face plants it is!

[stevez]

Rig a smaller kite.
But if you're in this situation in the now:
Say you're going downwind and you don't slow down, go more downwind. Keep kite high. If you're going straight downwind you should be riding straight towards the kite and it will lose power and you'll slow down. If this doesn't happen, drop off the foil.
Then before you pick up speed turn around and go sharply upwind. You have to do this before you pick up speed again, because if you're already picked up speed and you turn upwind, you increase the apparent wind and get even more powered.

[njrider]

Great tips - that makes a lot of sense. One question if you ride towards the kite won't it drop out of the sky?

[deniska]

just bring the kite back to 12 it will slow you down.. and yes you can ride downwind a bit to lose extra tension while you fixing your kite position

[Flyboy]

Hi all. Full foil ride today - yeah. I had that click moment. So my question is how do you stop the foil. It just seems to go faster and faster. I tried to head straight downwind and straight upwind and did not sense that it was slowing. The only thing that seemed to help is when I brought the board down to water.

Thanks!to slow down

Seriously: I have experienced the same problem. Unlike on a TT or SB, heading upwind does not really help. Sheeting out to depower the kite works, but the efficiency of the foil means you don't slow down dramatically immediately. If you can't depower the kite enough to slow down to a comfortable speed ... you probably need to switch to a smaller kite.

[juandesooka]

Yeah that was a scary time in the progression. When you get going so fast that jumping off is scary but staying on is scarier!

As noted above your only options are to bleed off speed by pointing straight downwind with kite above (good drifting kite) or angle as hard upwind as you can.

But a thought for your future soon.....I remember getting sick of the high speed self initiated wipeouts and finally just said "screw it I will hang on and see what happens". And a shocking thing ... not only did I not wipeout spectacularly but I made it and seemed to actually gain more control with speed. A key unlocked, a gate opened, welcome to the next level.

[stevez]

Great tips - that makes a lot of sense. One question if you ride towards the kite won't it drop out of the sky?

You want to point far enough downwind that the kite loses power and you slow down, but no so far that you ride straight under it and it falls out the sky.
One more thing:
If you feel like you're going so fast and out of control and need to bail, here's how:

[Whattheflock]

Bring kite to 12 slowly and lower altitude until you start touching down. I know the feeling it was pretty scary in the beginning!