opti2k4 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:02 pm
I went with 4'6 board , 75cm mast and 950 spirit carve wing. Since wind is pretty bad close to I went to cable park to learn foiling but it proved to be pretty difficult. I am trying various cable speeds, 18-22km/h, but I am very unstable even without getting board out of the water. Can't say I am progressing at the speed I would like. Once I learn i'll leave this board and replace 75cm mast with 90cm and wing model will be the same just 750.
I am also learning. Just a note of caution about being towed on foil. I have tried being towed behind a friend’s boat and successfully got onto foil on my third attempt (using my kite foil setup). However, when my friend started going a little faster, I couldn’t keep the foil in the water and breached. I quit after that because i got a bit of a scare on my fall. The board hit my left knee giving me a nice bruise and the the foil came WAY too close to my face for comfort.
Lots of people recommend learning by being towed (or via cable) but having had the experience, I think it's kind of risky since you have very little control over the direction of your fall. In my case, the foil came up in front of me and the momentum from the horizontal pull of the tow rope sent me heading right for the foil. Thankfully, the board pointed slightly left and my face missed the foil. You also don’t have direct control over your driver’s speed (I did NOT want my friend to speed up just yet) or in your case the cable speed. If you do not yet have good pitch/roll/yaw control, IMHO being towed on a foil is too risky.
On a kite, assuming your kite control is halfway decent, you can send it up and away from the foil. It buys you a few precious seconds of reaction time, you can redirect your fall, and use your feet to push the foil in a different direction. So far, I have not yet had a close call scare with the foil when practicing with a kite. Not saying it can't happen, but I feel like there's more control over the situation. Just my $0.02.