The humbling and brutal pain of learning to foil

[plummet]

For the experienced foilers, how much hours on the water until you became "confident" to foil alone? How many more hours to ride upwind and downwind with consistency? How many more hours until you were able to tack/jibe/transition?

I was the only foiler. So alone from day one.

I think it took me about 6 months to get past the furious crashing phase. That said, as stated above I had zero datum to start from so had to learn everything including set up of my own custom foil which is wrong for a while and that made it harder. I also am in a wave location with zero flat water. So every session was battling surf , swell and chop.

[bkkite]

For the experienced foilers, how much hours on the water until you became "confident" to foil alone? How many more hours to ride upwind and downwind with consistency? How many more hours until you were able to tack/jibe/transition?

I'm making a follow-up video to talk through some of these things, but here's my exact hours and timeline (I'm about 215lbs / 95kg) .

- July 2019 - First Lesson - 2hours of bucking bronco on a liquid force foil
- Aug 2019 - Wake foil - 30 min of porpoising behind a boat
- Aug 2019 - Jetski Foil - 1hr of getting water boarded by a jetski
- Oct 2019 - Foil session on my own - 1 hour, riding well to the left and ok to the right
- Jan 2020 - 4 foil lessons - 12 hours Got riding in both directions and started working on carving turns - was using some strange unstable small foils
- Feb 2020 - 2 foil session on my own- 2.5 hours Slingshot Hover glide foil with Spake Skate wing - riding confidently in both directions.
- July 2020 - Nov 2020 - did 8 more sessions on my own - 8 hours - still couldn't carve.
- Bought a much bigger wing, got the Infinity 76 / Manta 76
- April 2020 - 4 hours - started carving

So basically it took me around 30 hours to get the point where I can carve heelside to toeside and back, ride confidently in a variety of locations in a lot of different conditions ( chop / swell / gusts / etc). For example yesterday I went out for a few hours, did about 20 miles and really explored the area around me. I really think using strange foils that weren't the right size or good for beginners set me back. Spreading it out also didn't help.

I think it would have taken about half that had i just gone straight for the big wing from the beginning. Also for context, I was riding Core XRs (15m, 12m , 9m, 7m), and they aren't great for foiling. Just moved to a 12m xlite, and a 9m Nexus 2, both make things alot easier, but you can definitely learn on what you have.

[bkkite]

I recently started to learn foiling as in summer there is significantly less wind in our area. My progress was as per below

1st session on my friend Zeeko Blaster mast 40cm and pocket board during first hours I managed first flights, just going up & down (1hr ride)
2nd session on my own bought Zeeko Blaster mast 60cm and Fone pocket V3 145cm - first flights (2hr)
3rd longer flights (2hr)
4th session which was few day ago I can ride whole time without touching water if water is not very chopy/wavy and wind doesn't gust too much (2hr)

All my session except first one was on Soul 15m and 17m lines. It often feels overpowered but more I ride then better I can handle gust

I tried gybe but I don't ride well on my Soul in switch but in 2-3 session I will force myself to do surface gybe as switching direction feels again like learning transition on TT...

I think apart from condition it makes huge difference what gear is used. I can ride 60cm mast and will likely but 80-90cm and in choppy water I'm breaching surface too often and there is less time to react.
Starting with 40cm mast made things extremely easy, same as first day I tried nobile zen split foil with mast 80 or 90cm but It was disaster and waste of time.

I totally agree on the equipment. I had a really rough experience with the Nobile foil. Fortunately the slingshot Hover glide fit on my Nobile board and the big surf wing really made it easier.

I think I probably wasted 6 months trying to ride challenging wings

[plummet]

For the experienced foilers, how much hours on the water until you became "confident" to foil alone? How many more hours to ride upwind and downwind with consistency? How many more hours until you were able to tack/jibe/transition?

I'm making a follow-up video to talk through some of these things, but here's my exact hours and timeline (I'm about 215lbs / 95kg) .

- July 2019 - First Lesson - 2hours of bucking bronco on a liquid force foil
- Aug 2019 - Wake foil - 30 min of porpoising behind a boat
- Aug 2019 - Jetski Foil - 1hr of getting water boarded by a jetski
- Oct 2019 - Foil session on my own - 1 hour, riding well to the left and ok to the right
- Jan 2020 - 4 foil lessons - 12 hours Got riding in both directions and started working on carving turns - was using some strange unstable small foils
- Feb 2020 - 2 foil session on my own- 2.5 hours Slingshot Hover glide foil with Spake Skate wing - riding confidently in both directions.
- July 2020 - Nov 2020 - did 8 more sessions on my own - 8 hours - still couldn't carve.
- Bought a much bigger wing, got the Infinity 76 / Manta 76
- April 2020 - 4 hours - started carving

So basically it took me around 30 hours to get the point where I can carve heelside to toeside and back, ride confidently in a variety of locations in a lot of different conditions ( chop / swell / gusts / etc). For example yesterday I went out for a few hours, did about 20 miles and really explored the area around me. I really think using strange foils that weren't the right size or good for beginners set me back. Spreading it out also didn't help.

I think it would have taken about half that had i just gone straight for the big wing from the beginning. Also for context, I was riding Core XRs (15m, 12m , 9m, 7m), and they aren't great for foiling. Just moved to a 12m xlite, and a 9m Nexus 2, both make things alot easier, but you can definitely learn on what you have.

Also you have a lot of time between drinks. That means you regressed back and had to relearn for a portion of the session. My suggestion would be to go donkey deep, hard and fast for as many sessions as close together as practical. That way it beds in the muscle memory.

[bkkite]

For the experienced foilers, how much hours on the water until you became "confident" to foil alone? How many more hours to ride upwind and downwind with consistency? How many more hours until you were able to tack/jibe/transition?

I'm making a follow-up video to talk through some of these things, but here's my exact hours and timeline (I'm about 215lbs / 95kg) .

- July 2019 - First Lesson - 2hours of bucking bronco on a liquid force foil
- Aug 2019 - Wake foil - 30 min of porpoising behind a boat
- Aug 2019 - Jetski Foil - 1hr of getting water boarded by a jetski
- Oct 2019 - Foil session on my own - 1 hour, riding well to the left and ok to the right
- Jan 2020 - 4 foil lessons - 12 hours Got riding in both directions and started working on carving turns - was using some strange unstable small foils
- Feb 2020 - 2 foil session on my own- 2.5 hours Slingshot Hover glide foil with Spake Skate wing - riding confidently in both directions.
- July 2020 - Nov 2020 - did 8 more sessions on my own - 8 hours - still couldn't carve.
- Bought a much bigger wing, got the Infinity 76 / Manta 76
- April 2020 - 4 hours - started carving

So basically it took me around 30 hours to get the point where I can carve heelside to toeside and back, ride confidently in a variety of locations in a lot of different conditions ( chop / swell / gusts / etc). For example yesterday I went out for a few hours, did about 20 miles and really explored the area around me. I really think using strange foils that weren't the right size or good for beginners set me back. Spreading it out also didn't help.

I think it would have taken about half that had i just gone straight for the big wing from the beginning. Also for context, I was riding Core XRs (15m, 12m , 9m, 7m), and they aren't great for foiling. Just moved to a 12m xlite, and a 9m Nexus 2, both make things alot easier, but you can definitely learn on what you have.

Also you have a lot of time between drinks. That means you regressed back and had to relearn for a portion of the session. My suggestion would be to go donkey deep, hard and fast for as many sessions as close together as practical. That way it beds in the muscle memory.

Yep, totally agree... but I was having good twin tip sessions, so I just pushed back learning to foil

[Flyboy]

It's hard to compare the process of learning to foil with "modern" foils compared to the "old days" (not very long ago) using small wings. I am assuming learning on a larger (1000 cm2 plus) wing makes quite a big difference, allowing smoother, lower speed water starts, more stable rides & easier progress on transitions.

[bkkite]

It's hard to compare the process of learning to foil with "modern" foils compared to the "old days" (not very long ago) using small wings. I am assuming learning on a larger (1000 cm2 plus) wing makes quite a big difference, allowing smoother, lower speed water starts, more stable rides & easier progress on transitions.

Yeah, I just didn't realize how huge of a difference it was. Especially for heavier guys, I'm 95kg. Even a year into my learning experience, I would get on a smaller less stable wing, and I'd have a lot of difficulty riding, it felt like I was regressing and it was super depressing.

The Slingshot Infinity 76 is 1534 cm2... it comes up on foil nice and slow, and has a ton of lateral stability. When I'm on this thing, I can almost go down a kite size.

https://www.thekiteboarder.com/2020/04/ ... finity-76/