Unpredictable foil injury

[twig]

Hi,

I want to share this fall I had some weeks ago while foiling.
Maybe some of you have the knowledge on how to Not end up with a twisted knee like I did.


As im going slightly downwind I loose balance and the board shoots away.
As my mast is placed far forward, the board starts a fast rotation to the left as my body's weight suddenly pushes the tail to the right(far behind the mast), and the rocket shooting board is launched to the left a little behind me.

In the process my left knee is folded inwards and twisted. It doesn't look that bad but I got a twist, and my knee is now a bit weaker. This clip shows my fall and is slowed down 10 times.





I learned to foil in the spring and am still learning to go downwind, and cannot gybe or tack, but feel confident charging upwind.


Do any of you expert foilers have experience with this type of fall and how to avoid this??

I've had lots of falls and never hit the wing, or anything. But this feels like I'm 1 in 1000 to get this type of injury. I could walk after 1 week and now back at work, but need some rehab before kiting again.
Knee injuries can really change the way you do sports. Trying to keep a positive attitude at the moment.

Thanks

[tmcfarla]

Looks like you had straps on, so first remove those. Next, when you are losing it, don’t try to recover, just keep the kite high and walk off the front of the board. Good luck on getting back on the water soon. Probably a good idea to talk to a sports doc or physical therapist, I know some people who have had seemingly minor knee injuries that never really healed, probably because they never really gave their knee a chance to heal.

[Sgallian]

That's a weird front strap... Didn't know this existed, what are the advantages compared to 2 straps in V or one strap parrallel to the stringer?

[twig]

I have just 1 strap thats very loose, that i made very loose to waterstart. I made it longer myself and Ive never got hurt bacause of the strap. I ride kind of strapless - sometimes I ride with my foot in it.
Its maybe not the best strap, one can argue.

But in this fall the strap is not holding anything, the foot does not slip off because the board pushes straight towards me/my foot, in that second when I twist my leg.

[slowboat]

Sorry about your injury and I hope it heals well.
Looked like your left foot was momentarily caught in the strap. Strapless or single front hook is the safest way to go.

[cor]

Thx for sharing this. The problem is here that you tried to correct the situation (around 0:02) by staying on the board. Then, while doing that correction, you had your weight to much forwards which made you loose control over the foil. The solution for this is to not try to correct those kind of situations but trying to slip out of the straps asap. For that, you want to make your straps as loose as possible. When I say loose, I mean that you could slip in with 3mm boots and still have enough wiggle room to slip out. Yes, that kind of loose. You do not need straps that tight. Even for jumping, you do not need that.

Falling forward is the most dangerous fall you can have on a foil in my opinion. There are worse scenarios than yours where you are falling into the foil itself so you were actually pretty lucky. Avoid it at all costs. Falling is not a problem. But you always need to be in control of the fall. Always get out of the straps or - even better - fall on your back, with the foil in front of you. But NEVER fall forward because you cannot control it at all.

All the best and hope you get better soon.

@tmcfarla @slowboat I am a bit sick of reading this to be honest. Removing straps seems like a good advice at first but at the same time, recommending to get rid of straps is like saying "yeah do not do unhooked. Do only freeride now" or "yeah go strapless on your waveboard because it's safer" or "go drive a car instead of a motorbike because it's safer". I never understood that. Unless he is really only doing casual freeriding or maybe wavefoiling, this is not very practical in my opinion. It means that you would change your preferred style of riding into something completely different and most people have straps on because they made a conscious decision to do so.

[matth]

I have just 1 strap thats very loose, that i made very loose to waterstart. I made it longer myself and Ive never got hurt bacause of the strap. I ride kind of strapless - sometimes I ride with my foot in it.
Its maybe not the best strap, one can argue.

But in this fall the strap is not holding anything, the foot does not slip off because the board pushes straight towards me/my foot, in that second when I twist my leg.

I had the same set up and never thought my foot would get stuck.I have now been of the water for three weeks with a torn quad/strained quad but thankfully it's getting much better and I should be back in a week or so.
I will never ride with my foot in a strap again on a foil. I'm either going to mount my front strap 6 inches forward and ONLY use for water starts or grab a half hook for the front only......

[purdyd]

Looks like you came out clean from the strap. I’m a proponent of a single front hook or strapless personally.

I’m not sure I saw your left knee pushed back, unless is was on the initial hitting of the water with the board or later when you hit the water.

Going down wind takes some practice.

And so does falling.

Hope you heal up quickly.

[twig]

As i remember the crash my foot was never caught in the strap, if it was then just very little.
I think that the same would have happened if I was ridning strapless.

And its probably safer to ride strapless in general.

So to not correct when out of balance is maybe the best mindset here.

Now my goal is to ride fast with v straps, but i guess i will ride strapless until i learned more.

[PurdyKiter]

Get rid of that strap that's trapping your foot for this injury. My solution back at your stage was to use only the one front foot NSI Foothook which in your case is only needed for easy waterstarts.
Slingshot and Naish also make these, so shop around for your best option:
https://www.murrays.com/product/nsi-foo ... G8EALw_wcB