This post is a specific focus on what it takes to be seen by a helicopter.

This is the “if the shit has hit the fan”, then a helicopter is your last resort. Here is how to be seen.

I’ve got a very long running and pretty well established post on safety here (including an excellent video from Hydro Gav).

Being seen

If you’re just one person on a board in the ocean, your job is to be the loudest, weirdest thing in the water from the perspective of a helicopter camera.

This is because in the worst case, a helicopter is really your last hope. How quickly you can be found is pretty much everything.

Here are some ideas:

• Have something that tells them where you are

  • What: A PLB or EPIRB on your person, and ideally a VHF with distress button so you can tell them when you see them.

  • Why: Cameras only help once the helicopter is in your area. Beacons shrink the search box from “somewhere out there”.

• Wear crazy bright stuff

  • What: Fluoro pink/orange/yellow PFD, helmet, hat, stickers.

  • Why: From the air, the ocean is a moving grey/blue mess. Bright blocks of colour are what catch the eye and stand out in the video feed.

• Add shiny, reflective bits

  • What: SOLAS Reflective tape on your PFD, paddle, and board.

  • Why: When the helicopter uses a searchlight or the sun hits you at the right angle, those patches flash like a mirror and grab attention instantly (see why, pretty interesting)

• Carry a light

  • What: A tiny PLB strobe, or a simple waterproof torch.

  • Why: At night or in low light, the cameras and night-vision systems are basically hunting for light sources. A single blinking strobe is incredibly obvious in an otherwise dark sea.

• Make a big messy colour around you

  • What: Water dye marker, smoke, or flares if you have them.

  • Why: A small person and board is very hard to spot between waves. A bright green patch of water or an orange smoke plume is much larger and easier to see and track from height.

• Make yourself a big, irregular shape

  • What: Keep paddle/arms up, stay with your gear. Splash the water when you see them.

  • Why: You need to stand out.

If you remember one idea, make it this:

Helicopters don’t “see you”, they see contrast.
Make yourself bright, reflective, flashing, electronically locatable, and as big a shape as you can.

Please forward or share with your local crew 🤙

More:

There was lots of useful feedback on the post, so I’ve added them to this v2.

Before we begin, this is what it looks like to go fast:

kaii.thompson

A post shared by @kaii.thompson

This has most of the elements - high on mast, tap pumps, attacking when it counts. Racing onto that big bump which will go for miles.

Ok, so, here are some things I missed in the first post or thought worth adding.

1 - Stay high on the mast

Super obvious, thanks MattchuPichu:

I think being high on the mast is super important with [race foils], Its a totally different feel and ride if your on the bottom 25% of the mast, move those feet back and stay high

The point here is that a faster racier foil will be much more sensitive to the drag of the mast, so you need to learn to stay high:

kdmaui

A post shared by @kdmaui

2 - Tap pumps and stack yourself

Along with staying high, you need to figure out tap pumps. These are the essence of accelerating, and accelerating is the essence of attacking forward. Look again at the above clip, and more below of the top Hawaiian racers:

acl_cinema

A post shared by @acl_cinema

Notice how stacked they are, their pumps are tappy bursts, and both legs bend equally. Here is some more.

Note, if you are standing too far forward, then it doesn’t work.

3 - Wait for the bumps while going over big swell

The trick IMO is to see the wind bumps that are moving almost straight downwind, these will get crossed by the stronger onshore swell and look like the disappear, but if you’re high on your mast and trust that it will re-appear, you can go right over the big swell with almost no effort and continue to follow the secondary bump.

I think this is possibly one of the most important thing for intermediates to tune into for technical ocean riding. When things get confused, it’s almost better to ignore what you are seeing, and just focus on what you were feeling. If you were on a bump, and you suddenly can’t see it, the energy is still there and you can glide it for way longer than your eyes are telling you.

This was something that I got better at, and the glide of a fast foil helps.

4 - The bumps go backwards

I think another important point to understand is that due to the circulation in bumps wave energy travels at half the speed of the actual wave, i.e. the energy is always getting left behind. That is why when you observe a set you see peak energy in the first wave which breaks but then the energy is left behind which causes the bump behind to jack and break and so on.

This often means when you're on a breaking wave you will have a big flat in front and all the goodness is behind you so you either need to use that burst of speed to glide to another set or drop back to the better groomers forming behind.

This is quite hard to understand, but it basically means that bumps will “appear”. Watch this video and look at the clear bumps when they appear, then go back and try spot the pre-cursor to the bump appearing. It isn’t like they come purely from behind, and not really going backwards either. I feel like they emerge from below.

Watching the video, spotting the bump, and then going back to before it appears is a nice way to see if you are able to spot them yet.

5 - Don’t leave it too late

Something from Glenn that I noted ages ago, in essence, going fast makes things easier

• Speed gives you options - deciding to make a change when you're decelerating is too late and makes transitioning to next bump harder

• If a 'corridor lines up go with it but pull off with speed. If no corridor turn in the'pocket'.

• Avoid going straight down - when learning, you're likely to be over foiled, going

straight you're likely to hit max speed and either blow up or immediately hit a down

welling and nose dive.

* Exception of going straight is racing (possibly under foiled) or small conditions - up and overs.

Comments:

please leave them below 🤙

Intro

Going fast looks like it should be as simple as more pumping.

However, if you try to point it straight and pump away, you’ll quickly run up the back of a bump and realise there is much more to it.

You’ll hear that foil racing is now mostly a pump racing game. To the beginner, that sounds like you could just pump your way through it. Turns out, nothing is further from the truth.

Three points of discovery, if you’ve never tried:

1. you can’t pump very effectively in bumps compared to flat or waves

2. your average splits are slower than you would expect

3. you fall more often than you realise

This blog throws together some ideas about dealing with all of these. It’s super long, and should be seen as the beginning of the idea, not the final thing1.

Please share your thoughts! Comment in the forum, or in the comments below, or message on instagram. Screenshot the section and tell me what you think!

As for who this is likely to be useful for:

1. beginner DW is getting onto foil

2. intermediate DW is staying on foil

3. advanced DW is optimising for speed ← this is who this is for

(for good conditions)

Setting the scene

This blog post runs through an attempt at verbalising the learning process based on a popular run I’ve done a run in Cape Town a few times this year (25-30?).

(The full Cape Town overview here)

I discovered I was pretty slow, and I fell a LOT!

In the end, with some motivation, I put together a mostly clean run at a reasonable pace, and got a time I was happy with. But being reasonably pumping fit, I had expected to just go max cardio and pump through it, but it turns out that doing that isn’t at all as easy as I had expected.

Interesting how the times drop into a trend showing Pro, Advanced, Intermediate buckets, 2

For context, Milnerton is a very windy bay run that starts quite flat, and ends in a crazy reverb section with a nearly breaking wave into a narrow channel. The middle section is similar to what I’m used to and would consider a normal downwind run (bumps building with some regularity), but the start is quite flat, and the end is tricky, which gave me a lot to think about.

It is also super windy, 25-35 knots are expected, so with that much energy, I had thought that consistent high speeds would be easy, but the challenge was always keeping a flow through multiple sections, with huge variance in each.

Adapting the approach through each section was challenging.

I found the run challenging to go fast, but more importantly, there was the leaderboard which made comparison very easy. 3

But, most importantly, I think it’s just a case of having a leaderboard, and struggling my way up it. Humbling!

This was tricky at the start, but once I figured out the trim, the flat start and middle section were easy. It was the technical finish that caught me out. China Walls style reverb, with breaking waves and a 2m gap in the seaweed as a target. Really techy!4

This post contains some of the things that I thought about along the way.

1 - Time on foil

If you can stay on foil, that will almost always be faster than riding a smaller foil with the risk of falling.

That said, to ride a bigger foil, you must never fall. 5

I think the clearest example is comparing two riders over 10km, one falling and one not.

• Purple - 2:30 splits - intermediate speed (25 km/h)

• Red - 3:00 splits - beginner speed (20 km/h)

The purple faster pace has 2 falls with 3min recovery each (pretty slow6).

This shows you have important it is not to fall, especially if it is tricky to get going again.
This was the issue that I struggled the most with.

I seem to make mistakes pretty consistently on whatever foil I ride, so tend to favour a faster foil. Slow foils cannot go fast (generally speaking).7

Key distinction is that for fast foils, you can be more aggressive, and for slow foils you need to be relaxed. Doing the reverse is quite tricky, but good practice.

In summary, I think that a faster foil is a gamble. If you get it right, you’ll fly. You set yourself up for a world of pain if you don’t. Footnote describes the time I got it wrong:8

2 - Diamonds, walls, flats, and traps

As a beginner, it will feel like bumps are just random wobbles.

As an intermediate, you’ll notice distinct sets with loads of energy.

I feel like at advanced level, there are 4 situations to note: Diamonds, Sets, Flats and Traps.

Diamonds 💎

Nathan van Vuuren is incredibly fast and smooth! I don’t think there are many more intuitive riders on the planet.

Something I understood from a brief chat with Nathan, is that in order to fast, you should:

• Always be going forward,

• Think of the bumps as kind of diamond shape when viewed from above (white caps are the peaks of the diamonds),

• You can go around the diamonds, and this way you can really build up momentum by keeping your speed up.

• You should never need to cut back. The unlock is keeping the momentum forward (editor: unless you make a big mistake, then a cutback might be your last hope)

Look for the diamonds, once you see them, then you’ll see the gaps to jump.

It may feel like everywhere is just walls, but there are lots of diamonds, and they are moving and intersecting. You have to try and hit the gaps. At the start I made a lot of mistakes, but I think it starts to become intuitive, and you start to feel it (maybe I’m not feeling it..)

Sets 🚆

Sets come from behind, these are the big walls.

Sets are for going straight and fast, and catching your breath.

Because they come fast and from behind, they can catch you out.

They almost feel like before they get steep, they emerge from below you. When you get that feeling, you better be accelerating to get onto the front of it! (If you ever feel something coming under, you and you aren’t sure of your speed, cut back to safety 😅).

In this clip, I feel like you get examples of big sets that you can ride, a set that emerges, as well as a diamond shape out to the right that could have been a gap.

armstrongfoils

A post shared by @armstrongfoils

Flats ✅

Flats are where there isn’t a clear pattern, and if you are going fast, you can accelerate, and pump hard to cover some distance until you see something come.

On a fast foil, this feels the closest to pumping on flat water. You can use this as a chance to just use cardio to get up to speed.

Traps ⛔

Traps are the tricky part. Some flats look like you can pump through them, but you hit something that traps you. I haven’t figured out what the feeling is before a trap, but it is where I get stuck. I think this has to do with reverb and confused water.

A trap is something where

1. there isn’t an obvious bump to cut back to,

2. you aren’t going fast enough to accelerate out of by pumping,

3. pumping risks stalling.

Traps also happen when you stay on a set of bumps too long, without moving onto new energy. I think it may be the “wake” of a nice set of bumps.

Watch in this clip how the stacked bumps transform into a dead zone.

The set turned into a very clear dead zone trap. Carrying the speed out of the set and across into another set is the essence of going fast as far as I can tell!9

So we have some terminology, let’s keep going.

3 - Momentum

The best way to go faster is to try and carry momentum as much as possible, rather than aiming for bursts of high speed.10

Ideally you’d avoid losing that momentum, but remember a gap or keyhole will open up, so it’s usually, better to be patient and sit high on the bump to conserve energy, and to attack when you see the gap.

Once you start getting momentum, your relative speed increases and you can take smaller and smaller gaps.

Once you’re up to speed, you can start hitting gaps and building a rhythm.

This is where pumping comes in, as an addition on top of smooth lines, rather than instead of.

Hugh mentions it in the Foil Project podcast, how getting momentum in bigger ocean conditions isn’t easy, and the fastest guys seem pick on-ramps onto big ocean groundswell, which then allowed them to ride faster and faster.

In this race clip there is a good mix of bumps and groundswell, watch how there are a few moments of attacking bumps or cutting back

As we understand from Edo, the best way to go fast is to ride a crazy fast foil and just attack for two hours.

However, it is critical not to go straight over a wall. Remember momentum.

Going over requires significant effort, this is because the energy in the water molecules when you are on the back of the bump are going down, meaning you need more speed, more energy, more lift. Compare this to cruising on the front of the bump with loads of lift.

Below exaggerated image, green is cruising, molecules are pushing up, red is attacking to try and skip the bump, but is working very hard as the molecules are pulling down11.

Anyway, what this means is that going fast means going around bumps, and going straight up and over should be avoided as far as possible (I think).

If you do run up the back of a big bump, it is a highly risky place to be, as there isn’t much room for error. You can pull back, but at some stage it will be too late.

The trick is having a good read on where a gap will open, and your speed relative to how quickly that gap will close.

If you are moving very fast and have crazy momentum, you can try smashing over them.

4 - Pumping, paddles, trim

As I said in the intro, pumping feels like the answer, and in a big way it is, but with some critical points.

Pump technique

Downwind pump technique seems to matter more than flat water or prone.

I think this is due to how close together the bumps can get, and the reverb from interacting bumps.

When pumping downwind, you need to pump at the right moment.

• When you are on the front face or top of a bump, or chop, your pumping energy will drive forward, and accelerate you.

• If you pump on the back face, pumping might cause your foil to stall.

How this feels is very distinct:

• Pumping at the right moment will feel like the foil is solid, and accelerates.

• Pumping at the wrong moment feels like it is dropping out from below you.

You also need the right trim. If your weight is too far forward, you’ll push the nose down rather than drive the foil forward.

There are times when quick short pumps work best and times when deeper pumps are necessary.

Paddle pumping

This is a nice safety fallback, and also a great way to get the most out of skipping a bump. If you go for a gap, paddle pumping gives you a boost, but also puts your weight forward so that you don’t stall if you hit the back of a bump.

Personally, I can’t imagine downwind foiling in technical messy bumps without a paddle. The benefits of a well-timed paddle seem to save me from dropping off foil more often than not.

Trim

I’ve documented my explorations into trim. In short, I think it is crucial:

dwfoil_com

A post shared by @dwfoil_com

Look at the way James Casey pumps in the video below as my favourite example.

Narrow stance, perfectly stacked over the foil, board movement is minimal.

If you are on a high aspect foil, move your front foot back, your back foot back. Figure out shimming. You need to be stacked over your foil.

5 - Mistakes

There are two types of mistakes

1. Try to jump a bump or take a gap and don’t make it and fall off the back and stall

2. Get lost going slow in a trap, a dead end with no energy and can’t pump out

Point 1 is probably a better mistake to make because you deliberately attack a bump, whereas 2 is just due to lack of momentum and a mistake “happening to you” rather than something you were aware was risky.

I find that Point1 happens when I’m going too hard, and point 2 happens when I’m not paying attention or not going hard enough.

When in doubt, cut back hard, this gives you some lift, and means you’re moving away from where you are which is often a good idea. It also means you are moving faster towards the bumps, so if you’re still on foil, you could probably glide onto one. 12

6 - Other people

The temptation when you see someone ahead of you is to start taking risks to pass them. This is almost always (in my experience) going to lead to making a mistake.

Smooth is fast.

When someone is ahead of you, falling is absolutely the worst way to pass them. Avoid the temptation to see red, and just focus on smooth, clean lines.

The same can be said when someone passes you. Stay cool bro. Just stay cool. Figure out the line and stay cool.

That said, this post is about going fast, not necessarily racing. Racing in my limited experience has entailed a flat lagoon in France, so I can’t really comment, but when your heart is pumping on the start line, remember to stay cool.

7 - Navigation

Something I realised with the Milnerton run is that the slower foils seemed to take much straighter lines, the faster foils seemed to go wider to get into more energy.

Finding the optimal line is quite hard to get right, but something that is worth checking. 5% shorter route means you can ride a 5% easier foil.

Having some sense for where you are is pretty useful, but the faster the foil, the less chance you have for taking transits and spotting landmarks.

8 - Summary

Going fast is more than just cardio and pumping: it requires careful reading of conditions and a foil you are comfortable on

• big foils can be easier to manage but limit top speed

• smaller foils can unlock higher performance, but greater risk of stalling or falling

On faster foils, forward momentum is crucial for going between bumps (“diamonds”) and avoiding dead zones (“traps”). You supplement this with pumping, rather than purely rely on it.

Mistakes typically happen in two ways:

• attacking a bump that’s too big and stalling, or

• drifting into a dead zone without enough speed to escape

Paddle-pumping and cutting back aggressively are useful skills to avoid dropping.

Staying on foil is faster than risking multiple falls with a smaller foil.13

Why go fast

It’s hard, but most usefully, it is a great way to figure out how the ocean works. The faster I go, the easier it is to go very slow.

It is also fun, and not simple.

If it was pure cardio, I’d probably do better as I have reasonably high fitness, but as most things in life, there is an easy way and a hard way.

As Edo says: “Kane goes faster, and with less effort than anyone!” 14

But most usefully, small foils are undoubtedly more fun to ride, and getting used to going fast and slow on them feels like a worthwhile process.15

FOOTNOTES

9

Here is a work in progress sequence diagram. The sequence goes from top to bottom, but the bumps are moving “up” the page.

We assume the middle bumps that the person is riding are standing still, and the bumps on the right and left are moving past. Initially there is a gap, but it closes, and then eventually opens. In reality, it’s all happening fast and less clear, but it must be there because sometimes you can get through!

Not sure how to add traps to the image, but basically the same as the last but can’t pump.

11

I also have a theory that the energy is also not down, but also backwards, meaning you need to point your foil DOWN in order to avoid stalling. See below, where the water energy is moving clockwise around the circle, so the force is actually moving down and backwards…

12

Excellent video from Gwen for beginner/intermediates, laying out how not to fall.

13

Some more summary, for reference

15

APPENDIX

In this sequence below, Josh cuts back and the other guy goes straight. In that 6 seconds he has lost enough distance to lose touch entirely.

Very useful clip:

More small bump racing

Basics, useful insight on sets

simboogy

A post shared by @simboogy

Dave west on sizing of foils

dave_west_foils

A post shared by @dave_west_foils

end appendix

🫡🥲

So,

Summer is here for the N-Hemi, which in the UK means it goes flat, in Hawaii and Southern France it gets windy.

Downwind is pretty firmly on foil people’s minds. Each and every foil brand has released some kind of downwind or downwind-style board, most of the foil companies are working on related gear. If 2023 was the year of the downwind race, 2024 might be shaping up to be the year of the downwind saturation?

What matters though, is that people are frothing to get out there and figure things out. Have a look at the list of races for 2024 (some complete, some unconfirmed).

Racing does seem to mostly end up being held as no-wind pump races. The M2O deep water channel crossing being the exception, and rare to have that much in between.

Even more interesting than racing is seeing downwind popping up in increasingly unexpected spots. Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Idaho! Any one of these places could turn into some new centre of gravity for the progression. Or at least show you the extreme reach.

I’m excited to see where things go, but in the meantime it is summer, for me this means light winds, long days and occasionally small clean bumps.

Matt

People downwinding

Kai Lenny hits 30mph, which is pretty amazingly fast. Kai is by far the most famous person to be actively interested in downwind. I wonder what his sponsors think of this strange side hobby.

kai_lenny

A post shared by @kai_lenny

Speaking of pro surfers. This is a great clip of Ezekiel Lau paddling prone. The first few tries he paddles super hard, but doesn’t get going. On the bump that he gets up on, he barely paddles, and even better, he hardly pumps at all. Clearly deciding when to go is more important than how hard you go.

voyager_foiler

A post shared by @voyager_foiler

Upwind in a train, downwind in the sea, best kinda foiling! I think that there will be some natural pull towards destinations with hassle free logistics. I’ve got a list going here.

sam_esteve

A post shared by @sam_esteve

Huge send in NorCal.

weighall

A post shared by @weighall

Huge send in SoCal

bu_foil

A post shared by @bu_foil

This clip from Jack Ho is epic (skip to 4min for the run). Catching chip-ins on the prone board is the best, pity it is so hard to find good setups. Small boards and no-falls is super fun.

Huge send in France (though there is a lot of boat logistics going on here😅)

Another one from France - flatwater pumping out into the zone. My money is on someone that speaks fluent French taking a few wins this year in Hawaii.

tom_const

A post shared by @tom_const

New time on foil record 👏 According to Matt Costa it is easier to do this in Hawaii (3hrs on foil that is). There is a long discussion around how different water temperature and salinity affect the lift of a foil (viscosity is the thing, not density, fyi)

gage_the_waterman

A post shared by @gage_the_waterman

Gear

Kalama and KT have released new boards, which look epic. Add these to the Armstrong DWP and you have some very high performance boards for big ocean conditions.

• Kalama 8'12 x 16 - 102L 

• KT 8'0 x 19 - 105 L

• Armstrong 8'11 x 17 1/4” - 108L

In the more mainstream mid market, both Duotone and North have launched DW products - this is significant because both of these are big players with deep pockets and investors to please, and they generally follow the crowd, or indicate that there is a large market (they aren’t here to play games so to speak). It might just be that there is sufficient demand from the wingers.

Still not sure about an inflatable downwind board… but I’m sure it works for some. Takoon released one too (incredibly cheap $650?), alongside Gong. Starboard has a version which bolts through the deck, which honestly seems like a reasonable idea.

On the efoil front, I’m sure most people are probably bored of hearing about foil drive, related etiquette issues (which I think is very important), and the predictable banning.

On a more interesting front, I present my solution, which I don’t think would be classed as a PWC? Basically a winch that gets you on foil beyond the backline and then you pump in to catch a wave.

A PWC is described as this in Santa Cruz (where efoiling has been banned, among most places)

MPWC is any vessel less than 20 feet in length designed to be operated by standing, sitting, or kneeling on, astride, or behind the vessel and is propelled by machinery, a water pump or drive. MPWCs can include Jet Skis®, wet bikes, surf jets, eFoils, air boats, and hovercrafts.

On the whole I endorse efoil for learning to downwind but I think it’s pretty lame to use in the surf where you could otherwise foil, or even worse, could just surf.

racing

An outlaw style race happened in California this weekend which seemed to have good conditions. I like the idea of social gatherings with a competitive element 😉. Maybe it was my time downhill skating back in the day, but a good meetup + unsanctioned bragging rights at the end is pretty fun.

foil.me.harder

A post shared by @foil.me.harder

Doing unofficial racing is mostly illegal, and becomes more illegal as it gets better attended, publicised and formalised (there is real personal liability attached to doing this). I think the way to run these would be to keep them invite only, informal and offline. #sponsorfreesince2023

@oahufoil has been doing a few of these “get togethers”.

long.armed.ape

A post shared by @long.armed.ape

At a more organised level, the “DW Triple Crown” of races is happening in July. James Casey says pretty much all there is to be said at this point about this in the video below, but essentially they’ve put all the Hawaii races back to back, and crowning a winner of the 3 as a mini series. Pretty much the crown of the Downwind world.

As a reminder, here are the points from last year (the points I awarded unofficially).

Two races in Spain recently, first the wing-foil crew added a demo race to their roster:

spainwingfoiltour

A post shared by @spainwingfoiltour

Then the Barcelona stop of a more formal SUP tour ran a foil race as an add-on, across two days. Interesting to see the interest from Wing and SUP, both interested in grabbing this new discipline and adding it to their roster.

In any case, Clement (mentioned as a beast above) won on a Starboard foil. Here is some more info on the foil he probably used. Here is a writeup of the race.

starboardfoils

A post shared by @starboardfoils

And here is a review of the Barcelona race from Romu, with some insights on logistics.

And another format - Sydney crew ran a “Strava style” race, where you recorded runs at a set location and the fastest submitted run won.

sydneyfoilclub

A post shared by @sydneyfoilclub

learning

Gwen and Damo with some humble tips, this was great:

And then a few tips across the following videos:

1. smaller tails sometimes worth a look

2. keep paddling once on foil

3. learn to brace with the sup paddle when paddling

4. learn to link without pumping

5. learn to shim your tails for optimum trim

jeff_rowley

A post shared by @jeff_rowley

808wavesniper

A post shared by @808wavesniper

paddlewithriggs

A post shared by @paddlewithriggs

lafoiler

A post shared by @lafoiler

hand kites

folding wing - Integrate a SUP paddle, make it smaller and lighter and we may be onto something.

gavade_session

A post shared by @gavade_session

Another sighting of the mythical kite:

ken_adgate

A post shared by @ken_adgate

Here is a video of a commercially available version, and some details on the design.

And another version:

radiculo

A post shared by @radiculo

And if one wing wasn’t irritating enough, how about two…

kookfoil

A post shared by @kookfoil

leftovers

“the wing is not in my way” 😅

Lol, though to be honest if the conditions are marginal I’ll do a reconnaissance with the wing

wingingmeme

A post shared by @wingingmeme

Efoilers

thequalifiedcaptain

A post shared by @thequalifiedcaptain

On the train back from London, two people were arguing over money. The argument in favour: “I spend money on what I want.” Honestly, not much to argue with there. I try and keep in mind that foiling and especially downwind is equally an adventure and a grind, and that the moment is the joy. Gaining mastery, or even competence, probably also means you’ve cleared that beginner fun zone where anything is possible, and each session could be a breakthrough. Sure, an e-foil could accelerate you through the process, but then what.

In wondering about foiling, it seems only natural to wonder about how big it could all get. I have long thought that foiling will be cyclical in its growth. I could imagine foiling crossing the gap from niche, fringe and a bit awkward into something more mainstream. What I do find interesting, and maybe telling, is that Downwind foiling is the only foiling that is interesting to anyone from a non-windsport background - surfers in particular.

It isn’t even that likely that foiling will go mainstream, but two things are essential for that case: Cool people (of which there are currently almost none, sorry fellow dad crew), and kids (of which there are even fewer). This is starting to change. With pro surfers starting to crossover, and wing kids ditching the wings to have fun and break the rules, it could get interesting.

Anyway, here is a recap of the things that you may have missed since the last foam hit. Please subscribe if you want to get this in your email 🤙

Matt

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People doing downwind

This clip got the UK downwind scene fired up. The first true offshore send (captured on drone). I was doubtful of the viability of this day, with a Big West swell, and a strong 30-40kn Northerly forecast for this stretch of coast, making for probably too technical conditions for the average punter. Needless to say, Guy Bridge raised the bar, and captured an epic clip. Epic!

I spent so much time mind-surfing the clip that I decided to draw on it. Cool to see the wind and ground swell converging.

Down in Aus - I love this clip of foiling from a sailing boat. Definitely bucket list material.

kaii.thompson

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Tenerife seems to be emerging as a downwind hub for Euro-foilers, with pretty much consistent footage emerging as people head down to make the most of it. It is a famous windsurf destination, as is Maui and Cape Town - not hard to make the connection.

Please have a look at absolutely the smoothest flat water start I’ve ever seen. See the story for details on how you can glide up without breaking a sweat. I copied and summarised these tips below, thanks Dan J!

1. Paddle ups are about breaking water tension and getting air between the board and the surface of the water. That's what I was aiming to do. Get air between the board and the surface of the water.

2. Use your legs. Imagine a skateboard ollie but not as critical. LEGS!!! So important. I found the paddle should be secondary.

3. Wait for swell to give you a push and get some momentum, get the next one, HIGH CADENCE worked for me not big and powerful slow cadence. Turn left or right when the opportunity arrives. NEVER RUN UP THE ONE ONFRONT

4. When you feel you're starting to come up, Remember those legs. and pump when the foil is underwater. Even though you aren't up by pumping it's releasing the water pressure, reducing drag and helps to increase speed

5. Keep paddling after you think you're up, because your still not at speed. That's why a slightly longer paddle helps.

6. If you are up and going, find the high point on the nearest bump.

7. Once up get legs closer together. Even the slightest shuffle will do different things. Tiny movements will change verything.

8. Stay high on the mast. Less friction. Stand up tall if you can with our weight over your feet. Don't swing your body out over the edge of the board

9. Drift, don't paddle before the paddle up. Save you energy. Don't paddle downwind just feel the ocean. If you get tired sit down and watch the bumps

Excellent recap of a huge South of France send that I had missed - Julien Salles foils a 200-km SUP foil run in the Mediterranean (boat assisted, but still). I sailed from Marseille to Porquerolles once in a 20kn following wind. It was incredibly beautiful and felt very exposed. Would love to return and do this on foil one day.

Learning

An excellent video on what gear to consider. I like that Gwen says that you don’t need to worry about specific features, just focus on lots of length, big on volume and just get what is available locally.

Some great tips and insights below - especially the point that while smaller foils are much easier to ride, if you cannot get them up onto foil then they are useless, and so you need to ride much bigger foils than you would ideally like to ride. I’ve used my progression 140 in good Cape Town conditions, but on average I ride bigger foils than I would otherwise want to ride.

This clip was pretty cool - James Casey coaching in real time. Funny how something as slow as a realtime coaching session makes for pretty good viewing. Very interesting to see the small mistakes and minor corrections.

This video below explains the SUP stroke. Useful stuff. Once you’ve watched that, have a look at Glenn’s corrections for the foil, great combo to watch and then read.

Coaching

The list keeps growing!

1. Coach Casey - Aus

2. Dark Arts of Downwind - UK

3. Voyager Foiler Retreats - Hawaii

4. Surf Ears - Tenerife

5. Ocean Paddle Camp - Tarifa

6. La Ventana:

gabriella_da_bella

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Racing

NSW Foil Club have a cool concept - Record your tracking data and the fastest times get a prize. Simple and easy 👍

nswfoilclub

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Spain Wing Foil Tour is running a promo race in April. Great to see the competitive stoke spreading.

spainwingfoiltour

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Some race recaps - Aus, Ze Race, Oahu, Florida.

The interesting thing about all of these races is that they all happened in relatively light wind for the region.

Aus: Can you pump a downwind board 10km in crossed up reverb bumps with no wind? I know I can’t!

Ouahu: “Marginal” conditions for this race… Looks epic!

nickkapule

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Ze Race: Gwenn recaps his first big ocean race, from someone who has only done inshore downwinds, and how much of a challenge the offshore conditions were. Finishing the race seems like a challenge in itself.

Florida crew:

This first clip is not downwind, but rather the prone surf racing… which looks super sketchy, super fun and I really don’t know what to make of it!

They have a big downwind crew there too:

Gear

10’ x 23” x 5” @ 153 liters

Paddles

Interesting insight on Paddle size - after everyone went large, now it seems like the general idea is going smaller. The other reason might be strained shoulders!

Big = power, makes it easy to get a big foil going

Small = higher cadence, appropriate for a smaller foil

Boards

The emerging dynamic might be the displacement hull vs planing hull. With the Amos Bullet vs Armstrong Downwind Performance being prime examples of each. It is probably fair to call all downwind boards “semi-displacement” anyway, but there is something of a split in the design approach here. Oskar breaks it down below in the intro video to the Armstrong board. These Armstrong DW boards are the highest ratio length to width production boards on the market that I’ve seen.

In the below video, we get some insights on what the rest of the racers are riding, and some details about what works and doesn’t work for them.

• James 84kg, 105L, 7’6x17 (25%) - planing

• Oskar 73kg, 98L (old was 85L) - planing

• Zane 77kg 105L - displacement

• Josh 77kg 108L (doesn’t want to go under 105L) - displacement

Based on the chats about volume relative to weight, I came up with a guide. Let me know what you think in the comments. Follow the numbers 1-4 to find the right board for you. With the pros plotted, and Dave West who I entirely agree with - GO LONG!

Kites

Whatever happened to all the kites and parachutes? This was interesting and maybe sensible, removing the need for such a long board. Also a nice safety backup to make a better angle downwind, or even upwind? Watching Sam for some more details. In the meantime the deflate downwinder seems like a decent compromise.

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ps don’t hurt yourself for the sake of novelty likes 🫣

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ps - New Barracuda dims

ps - James Casey flogging on the rocks! Unreal! Glad you’re OK James!

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Cape Town Summary:

Weather

Cape Town is very windy in December to March. It is also my hometown, so this blog is not from fresh eyes. I moved to the UK for work and so have spent many UK winters escaping the January cold to Cape Town over the years. Until I started foiling, these trips were always frustrated by the wind.

Cape Town is very windy. The South Easter is the local wind, and it blows most afternoons through the summer. It increases in force through the afternoon settling at around 25-35kn. It will do this for about a week, before taking a break for a few days. In short, there is more than enough wind (the direction switches in the winter months and is generally more stormy).

Because of the wind, many wind sports companies have bases in Cape Town, or have R&D teams based there. On my trip, more than a few people were riding prototypes. Lots of photoshoots, and lots of travelling pros passing through.

The weather is also very warm, 25-35° Celsius. The water is a cold 12-15° Celsius. The currency is weak. It is a very popular tourist destination. Easy flights from the EU, on roughly the same timezone. As a destination, it is evidently popular with euro-kiters, who come in droves, flocks, airplanes full.

Through the summer the surf is small. The South Easter is localised and so does not create much long range groundswell.

Main Attraction: Table Bay (link)

The downwind action happens in Table Bay, the iconic bay, with the South Easter blowing roughly SSE. See interactive map here.

This is the only spot I managed to downwind, and currently the epicentre of foiling in SA. There is a shuttle, there are lots of local and international foilers, and a great wing and prone foil spots around Big Bay that make it an epic foil destination. There is also a Downwind Dash race (runs on some Wednesdays) that has a wing and foil division.

Starting in calm conditions at Lagoon Beach (some water quality issues, so don't hang around). It is an easy bay run for the first 5km, after which you start to encounter a bit more swell from the West. If these conditions are too tricky, you can head in at Kite Beach or Dolphin Beach (look out for the KFC) for a 7km run. Otherwise continue on to Big Bay through the "Bermuda Triangle" where things get tricky with refraction and more swell for a 10km run.

This clip shows the landing of the shorter run at Kite Beach in pretty typical conditions for that part of the run, where the side-on swell starts to feature.

See below for a video showcasing the start and end of the longer 10km Lagoon Beach to Big Bay run.

It is also possible to run this reverse of this in a NW wind, but much trickier.

The Downwind Dash race runs often enough in the summer. A typical Downwind Dash ~11km race finish below:

author

Nathan van Vuuren-N8V on Instagram: “So stoked to be getting some good downwind runs already this year, especially with such a rad group of foilers! Been loving the vibes out there during the runs, and in love with the feel and sheer speed of the new Glide-R 110 proto setup🤤 Looking forward to more wind now!💯 🎥 DOWNWIND DASH HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS WEEK 👌🏁 @james_jimbo_leigh
@tylerflanagan
@victorhays
@peterjelvig Using. SPG Glide-R 110 Proto
Pegasus V2 7ft2 x 17. 5 @swatch
@canonrsa
@buellsurf_sa .
. @Signaturefamily @signaturefoils #signaturefoils @signatureperformancegear
@Association_wing_riders
#wingfoiling #wingfoil #wingsurfing #wingsurferjournal #wingfoildaily @wing.surf @wingfoilcom #foilsurfing #foiling @foilhub @foiltheworld @foilfeed #foilboarding #loyaltothefoil #performancefoils #supfoiling @foilingmagazine”

January 27, 2024

I rode a progression 140 and a 95L SPG Pegasus and was a bit underfoiled for my 70kg and current low skill level. This is an ideal place to dial gear as you could manage a few short runs.

A single stat, from the 2nd January to the 25th January while I was paying attention, the shuttle ran 12 days. Usually in bursts of a few days at a time. Locals reckon about 10-13 shuttled runs per month is typical through the windy months.

Other spots

Millers Run (link)

Millers Point to Fish Hoek, on the False Bay side, is currently popular with wingers. Millers is a beast and often compared to Maliko in Maui. This is an open ocean technical run, also popular with surfskis and big toothy fish. Warmer water, and bit more seaweed.

You are committed to a longer run, so you want to be sure you know your game. Challenging for most, and some of the better locals don’t like the fish there 🦈.

There is a shorter variation too, Froggy Farm to Glencairn.

@mickfoil is definitely pioneering this run, sending it in a variety of conditions.

Langebaan (link)

Heading North of Cape Town, is Langebaan. Home to the Langebaan Downwind Dash, a long running but intermittent downwind race.

Langebaan is a beginner downwind heaven. The easiest run is from the Yachtclub to Sandra’s parking, ~2.2km and requires strong SE and incoming tide. Standing waves, easy to catch and read and short enough to not stress you out if you are not getting on foil.

You can extend to Mykonos 7km but past Sandra’s the bumps go very weak and then slowly build up as you go towards Club Mykonos again - you exit via the harbour.

In theory one could foil from Cape Town to Langebaan (100km), as the coast runs along a SE orientation and so does the wind. In practice I don't know!

Winter / NW Wind spots

1. There is also a Reverse Millers Run which works in the NW winter wind and becomes something of a bay run.

2. Brandvlei is an inland dam that has some local wind effects that cause the NW to howl! Not officially a downwind spot as there is little evidence of anyone sending it, but certainly something to have a look at if the wind goes even light NW.

Locals

Some of the locals include @nathanvanvuuren and @peterjelvig, who are now on at least their 7th season downwind foiling based on the below picture. Pretty epic!

@mickfoil is from Durban, but is absolutely DW focussed based on socials, with lots of videos of various spots.

(Thanks to Mick and Peter for some feedback on this article!)

There are two Cape Town based companies, Signature Foils and AK Durable Supply Co. Both make excellent downwind foils and boards, and are committed, rider owned companies that have been driving the downwind progression. Signature built a downwind foil board in 2017!

Summary

Weather

Howling South Easter with relatively flat surf through the months of December, January, February.

Locals

• peterjelvig and nathanvanvuuren in Cape Town, mickfoil from Durban

• Cape Town companies Signature Foils and AK Durable Supply Co.

Safety

• Use the NSRI SafeTrx app at all times.

• Be aware of wind being stronger than forecast, and water at times colder than expected.

Shuttles

• Millers shuttle

• Big Bay - speak to Adrian

Runs

• Shore/bay runs in Cape Town

• Millers run for the experts

Useful links

• Live Wind - Wind2Speed

• Table Bay daily update - Sunset Surf

Check out Cape Town and the rest of the destinations listed on travel.dwfoil.com

Racing

Ze Race in Guadeloupe just happened, some clips below and the podium. Local ripper Melvyn Mouret taking first place.

1. 🥇@melvynmouret (@armstrongfoils)

2. 🥈@simongalamez (@fonefoil)

3. 🥉@romualdmamadou (@armstrongfoils)

Amazing race with perfect conditions this year. The level in SUP Foil is constantly progressing, it's so good for this magical sport 🤩

Not really too much about what it was like. 37km in relatively light wind, 90-120min time on foil. Clip below gives an idea.

Check out the rest of the scheduled events at events.dwfoil.com, the ones below have confirmed dates.

This Sunday, 4th Feb, two races! Sydneyfoilclub:

author

Sydney Foil Club on Instagram: “ITS GO TIME!!! This Sunday the 4th of Feb at longreef boat ramp 1pm . We all know how long it takes to get crew ready so let’s get down early have a chat , inspect what our competitors are riding and aim for a 330 start at Avalon . Big thanks to our sponsors , @kaohileash @followbrand.co @unifoil all prizes are going to crew that aren’t sponsored and having the most fun ! Now let’s race !!”

January 30, 2024

Oahufoil is running a cool local series, I would love to see more of this!

author

Foil Race on Instagram: “IT IS ON. SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4. Everyone with a foil can participate. Multiple starting locations. Something for everyone. Prizes for all starters.”

January 29, 2024

Big sends

This is the clip I show surfers when I want to get them amped on downwind. Epic!

Andrew Redhead sends a neat 105km West Aus run. Discussed on the Foil Project podcast

author

Andrew Readhead on Instagram: “105km. This run has been on the bucket list for some time now. Incredible experience 🫶 ………………. Board 7’6x 16 85litres @codefoils 770R med fuse 150tail 75 mast wouldn’t have made the distance without @lfsupply hat 😂@voyager_foiler @codefoils @foilhub @foiltheworld”

January 26, 2024

Coaching / Instructional

There are now 3 coaching clinics running that I’m aware of:

If you’re in Aus or regularly visit tropical island locations, Coach Casey is your guy.

If you’re stuck on the soggy isle then UK based Dark Arts of Downwind aka How to deal with terrible UK conditions is probably your go. 6mm wetsuits with gloves etc. Delightful! (I’m doing it in a few weeks time, early Feb).

If you’re really lucky and somehow able to get to Hawaii then check Voyager Foiler Retreats (fancy! including meals etc).

Here is a clip from Coach Casey showing a good bit of progression for someone early in the journey:

Nice tutorial from Josh Ku for Unifoil. Especially useful part on reading bumps at 15:30

Something from Lift, a nice addition to the Unifoil clip above.

Electric foils

Flitelab* just released the jet foil, which I’m sure is causing a lot of recent Foil Drive buyers some desperate anxiety. Here is the first soothing balm that has been released, I’m sure lots to follow. Can you say pod dips? Anyway the comments section of Adam’s video where he explains how it works raised a fact check eyebrow, but na na no worries mate.

In all seriousness, the jet drive might be safer? Downside is that you need to buy the entire board. I present my solution:

My take is that you need to be a very proficient prone foiler for the jet to be viable.

In other battery related, an interesting video from foilonly on the upwind part of the Foil Drive:

The issue is the upwind part; it's just super hard and almost impossible to go against that strong wind. The water is choppy, and the bumps are steep, making it hard to keep the propeller underwater.

More recently the Foil Drive ambassadors seem to have been instructed to released a video demonstrating the battery life, which generally run counter to the above quote.

The last observation for e-foil is the Generic Foiling discussion where they aggressively agree that it is very easy, very fun, and completely irritating to watch in equal measure “wave-stealing bellends”. With all the good riders banging on, it does remind me that I’ve never seen someone rip on a foil drive who didn’t already rip. Old buyers, beware!

People doing downwinding

Oda, below, is a pro windsurfer who didn’t take long to crack a good few downwind runs in Brazil. Now in Cape Town. Seems the windsurf to foil pipeline is pretty strong!

Jon Mann with consistently great advice. This point below hits something I’ve discovered recently. If you’re getting up on bumps, try not pump! Aim to flow, peel 🍌, and spot the next bit of energy. Downwind is flow, not cardio 🧘‍♀️.

Unless your conditions are garbage, then you need to pump like a mad thing 🕴️

Prone downwinds are the best thing ever when they go right, but usually they go super wrong, or at least that has been my experience. Still one of the more fun ways to downwind, mixing between the swell and the bumps. This clip captures the best and the worst of it with a cool tune to go along:

Another observation from foilonly comparing DW on ocean vs lakes, with a video of the lakes.

The first main difference is the speed. Riding the lake feels like slow-motion ocean downwind. The bumps follow the same physics but it's a scaled-down version.

🏞️Lake: takeoff and go straight
🌊Ocean: takeoff and cut

Dave West sharing his video of him down at the Aus Hood river. (some more clips on the map here). Looks fun. Scouring google maps for UK equivalent as we speak (I think Jack, below might have the closest thing so far)

Jack Galloway has been documenting the Solent, an estuary on the UK’s South Coast. The Solent is interesting for a few reasons, but it is essentially an incredibly tidal, relatively sheltered, very complex bay run. I wonder about the possibility of a race there, the only shortcoming is the ferry! Map here.

author

Jack Galloway on Instagram: “18km downwind run in the Solent. Hurst Castle to Lepe. That was a full on, type 2 fun EPIC. Not ideal conditions. I’m broken. Definitely questioning my life choices after the 3/4 point :/ 11.3km on foil. 61% of distance on foil. Only 26% of time on foil 😂🤪🤦‍♂️ That run has massive potential though! Riding the new HA1180, which is insane. @armstrongfoils”

January 26, 2024

Found this pic from 2018 while spending some time in Cape Town. Cool to think that they are on their 7th or 8th season on the foil downwind agenda. I’ll be sharing a guide to Cape Town next week.

Thats it for this Foam Hit!

Recap - M20

This race certainly delivered on the promise to be interesting. An incredibly dynamic race both from a tactics and gear perspective.

The start was flat, with maybe 10 minutes of pumping required. Many top riders getting stuck for 30min or more in the flats. The end was upwind, with a few swells wrapping the point into the finish line.

James Casey came from behind to take the win narrowly pipping Oskar Johansson in a prone paddle battle.

Edoardo Tanas was underfoiled for the start (see below orange board) and had a cardio blow up and had to take a rest. He managed to get to the wind line eventually and recovered a massive amount of ground to place third. Pretty incredible.

Kai Lenny took fourth and Andrew Gibbons fifth.

James gives his take:

The bunch mid race, live tracking keeping everyone safe and visible.

Reef dodging on the last bend before the upwind slog to the finish. Great clip:

author

Kaulele Hawai’i on Instagram: “Legends of the foil. Some of the top riders through Kawaihoa. 32 miles across Kaiwi , Molokai to Oʻahu”

August 18, 2023

FOIL DIVISION RESULTS 🏁 (link)

Female
🥇 Olivia Piana @oliviapiana
🥈 Annie Reickert @annie__starr
🥉 Andrea Moller @andreamollermaui

Male
🥇 James Casey james__casey - their reflections
🥈 Oskar Johansson @oskar_foil - their reflections
🥉 Edoardo Tanas @whoedo

Other reflections worth reading:Kane (Allure?) Gabriella de Bella, Sup Tomo

I will focus on pumping endurance and overall fitness design and preparation for racing!

Some great videos

• Start video, and end video

• Armie frothing so much he doesn’t mention Americas Cup once in 10min

• Edo describes his experience, lots of detail

• Voyager Foiler Crew reminisce, long form chat about being overamped and underfoiled

• Overview video of the race

• Josh Ku with an hour of detail if you’re planning on joining next year

Recap - Open de France Downwind Foil

This is arguably the most important event of the year,. The only foil exclusive large scale downwind event, which ran over three days:

Stats:

1. 60 athletes, 12 different countries

2. 15-km, 20-km and 12-km over 3 days

3. 2 x bay runs, 1 x ocean

Foiling Magazine review from Jon Mann:

Overall the event was a resounding success. The organisers did a fantastic job to put on a great event that not only ensured rider safety but posed a good challenge for the riders of the 3 day period.

Day 1:
I went for the AXIS ART Pro 1201 combined with my 7’7” Appletree Skipper and the late arrival of the wind meant that the race director chose a slightly shorter course (16km).
…
The run was tough with a lot of pumping in the small bumps, but that didn’t stop it from being fun, sharing bumps with so many new faces. From the get go the contenders made themselves known, sprinting off the start with a close race eventually taken by the “dark horse” Etienne Fleur from Tahiti followed by Oskar Johansson and Matteo Ell.

Day 2:

With the good forecast the race director also decided to extend the run further up the bay to make the run around 20 km. This put the start close to shore paddling out at Roscanvel, with a short fetch and almost flat start.
…
The remaining 18k was extremely fun with decent and steep bumps thanks to the current and I myself forgot about racing. Competitors opted for two different lines. Down the middle where the bumps were bigger and a bit faster, or down the right where the bumps were smaller and easier to ‘up and over’. Upon converging I think there wasn’t much in it, but it also really came down to foil size and selection. Strung out weeds added a challenge and proved crucial for the top 5 ranking with a number of guys having to stop for weed including the eventually first placed Oskar who was closely followed by Etienne and once again Matteo in 3rd.

Day 3:

With a light forecast, and a small 2m swell left over from the previous days the race director opted for an ocean run to add a technical element to the racing. The wind was anywhere between 10-15 knots with the swell in the mix. Checking the bumps up from the ‘Cap de la Chèvre’ the field was split. Some opting for fast foils to keep up with the faster ocean swells and some choosing for the bigger foils in order to ensure getting onto foil as the priority. (I opted for the AXIS ART Pro 1201 being less experienced in Ocean runs). To get to the start of this run, we piled into 10 boats with all our gear and drove about 14km upwind out to sea, taking in the scenery, chatting with new friends and enjoying the last day of racing. Unlike the previous days which had been rainy, the icing on the cake was blue skies and sunshine so everyone was in good spirits as we got to the start line. As before the contenders got away at the drop of the flag, but much to my relief, a lot of the field struggled at the start. Once I got going the field was so spread out that I didn’t even feel like I was in a race, moving between the ocean swell and the wind bumps. I just soaked in the surroundings on what was the end of a fantastic week in Brittany with 3 days of awesome racing.

Results

(Official Press Release)

Women

🥇Olivia Piana

🥈Amandine Chazot

Men

🥇 Etienne Fleure

🥈 Oskar Johansson - reflections

🥉 Jack Ho

Foil Championships

Oskar has a taken it with a 4 point lead over James. Congrats to everyone who put in the time, effort, money etc into getting to all of the races, it has been very entertaining to experience!

After looking more closely at the numbers, I realised that it was effectively a dead heat between James and Oskar, and so for posterity I’ve just pinned it as a draw, given them both a crown and next year I’ll have a more robust system. You can read all about it in the footnotes1

If you’re interested in seeing how it came together, spreadsheet here.2

Constructors I ran off top 5 only as it is too much of a pain to find out who rode what and even fourth and fifth is tricky. My impressions:

• Lift - Very good showing in Hawaii where they are the default choice.

• Armstrong - Top rider and double-dipping at the French race took it for them.

• Code - Excellent debut, pretty incredible to launch a foil and take it straight to the top.

• Axis - Interestingly, since the race Andrew Gibbons and top female rider Gabriella Bella have both signed up to the team.

• SPG - One race, huge points. Clearly a dark horse for next year.

• Fanatic - Spencer fam definitely could push these into the top 5 if they weren’t winging.

• Phantom - I wonder if Kai will continue to race with them, he rode Axis for M20 but still uses them for doing flips.

• F-One - Talented Jack a strong contender for next year.

• KDFOILS - Definitely one to watch, Kate is absolutely one to watch for developing incredible foils, uniquely short feedback loop because of his talent on the foil

Nearly all of the brands above have released their race prototypes to the public, Axis even released their mega-mast even after saying they wouldn’t.

Looking to 2024

1. More interesting races: James and I agree, foil racing should do its best to stay fun to keep it interesting. See my proposal:

   

   If you have anything to add or any thoughts, comment below or DM

2. Those to watch: Andrew Gibbons - you can feel the intensity, the intent. Clearly one to watch. The other person to watch is Etienne Fleure who gave Oskar a real reason to keep at it for 2024. Etienne only competed in a single event and almost won all three days straight in varied conditions, Oskar getting him only on day 2 by a few seconds.

Foam Hits

• Hood river looks like a good time, absolutely massive bumps.3

• Jonn Mann’s blog is good.

• If you’re downwinding in windy spots, realise that you may stray into a pretty established line up - below example of what not to do and almost getting a fin in the face. If in doubt, turn away early and obviously, not at the last minute.

  foilonly

  

  A post shared by @foilonly

• This is rad. Though my current feels are that paddling up onto bumps isn’t as hard as I expected, and I only see this catching on if it can also go upwind.

kyzarmati

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Anyone new to F-one coming from Armstrong now having severe whiplash? Adam ripping the shit out of these waves is really just amazing, and the camera work catches the detail in slow motion. Cool to see.

Map contributions

• Garda 2024, I’ll be there in June. Outlaw time trial race? Check out a clip from Michi Schweiger below

michisilence

A post shared by @michisilence

M2O - Preview

James Casey chats with Kai Lenny, running through the history of downwind foiling, then some recaps of the M2M and discuss the M2O.

Around 18min in, they discuss the tactics and the open question of what the strategy should be considering the 1 mile upwind pump section at the end, and how the pump played into the previous races. Kai discusses his relationship with Phantom, AFS, Kane etc around 30min and again at 49min - Kane’s foil felt ridiculously good!

Condition discussion at 40min. See some more tactical considerations here, swell, currents, flat water, gear. Far more variables than any of the other races!

This is an excellent primer to the race. Interesting!

Gerry Lopez (a surf legend) describes in the video below his experience paddling the M2O. Whatever craft, it is clearly an undertaking!

Here is clip of Kai running the downwind on the foil in 2018 with a few other competitors, after not being allowed in 2016 having just discovered the possibility of foiling downwind.

The Axis crew spotted sanding their foils for maximum glide. Will we see Axis with their first 1st place this weekend?

I’m sure most of the racers are glad to see some wind forecast, a 50km pump race would suit only a very few of the competition.

Cutting right is definitely still going to be on the cards! Have a look at this map to see the winds around the islands, including the pretty incredible wind eddy behind the main island.

See the University of Hawaii forecasting models as the updates come in for race day.

Gorge - Recap

The Gorge race went down in light conditions, and was an endurance pump race but with tactical elements around gear selection leading to a very competitive finish.

1 Gage Schoenherr 00:40:52

2 Finn Spencer 00:41:08

3 Ben Tardrew 00:42:00

4 Raiarii Fadier 00:42:21

5 Mateo Ell 00:42:48

Race winner Gage describes the event (slightly reduced for brevity, thanks Gage)

The conditions before the race were less than ideal for the gorge and the wind was up and down from 10-30KTS making it very difficult to choose the right foil. I ended up sizing up from what I was planning on riding …

At the start I got a perfect little bump and was right onto foil, Jack and Finn were to my left and right and I was able to take the lead a mile into the race. From there I just tried to keep my head down and maintain a good pace without blowing up the legs. I was able to work up a 30-45 sec gap in the middle which allowed me to rest a bit before the long flatwater pump into the finish

… it was a super demanding race with very little actual downwinding and a lot of pumping.

Gage was on an Armstrong 1125, Kane rode a bigger Gofoil and I guess the gamble didn’t pay off. Ben used a Code 860 R.

Here is a drone clip of the conditions, which to be honest look better than I expected!

Kalia Aguera’s second day downwinding, maybe we should all move to the Gorge for the summer, feels like anywhere else is just a battle!

Paddle Imua - Recap

It looks to have been a classic sprint race, Josh Ku captures the vibe. Results are as follows, with not much between them.

1 James Casey 28:03:00

2 Andrew Gibbons 28:25:00

3 Kai Lenny 28:43:00

4 Jeffrey Spencer 29:14:00

5 Oskar Johansson 29:32:00

Here is a rumour of how it went down:

James and Kai got up super quick. Andrew took a bit to get up. But then took an outside line and was reeling them in. Had the race gone on longer Andrew would've been overtaking them.

None of the foilers knew that you had to do the beach run up and through the gate. So James came through and was sitting in the water and everyone yelling at him to run and his heart rate spiked and he runs in. Could've been 20 seconds faster maybe if he hadn't stopped and started hanging out.
Now the reason that he was chilling in the water at the end. Edo tried to enter day of. But the event was so popular they hit their permit limit of 300 entries. So Edo couldn't officially get in. He ran the race course with everyone anyway and beat everyone. He came into the finish first, but didn't want to run up and through the finish gate because he wasn't officially entered. So when James came in officially 1st and saw Edo just sitting there, he was ready to just hang out there thinking the race was done.

Andrew on Lift, James on Code, Edo on small ART Pro. Kai on a larger Phantom than what he did M2M on. That's all I've dug up

Thanks to our roving reporters!

See the clip below for some cool footage from the race.

GBROC - Recap

It seems like the race went down in super marginal conditions, with 3hrs for the winner of the longer race. Tough conditions, but interesting to see that it is still viable and faster than most of the other categories. 45 km with little to no wind nor swell!

GBROC Results and Recap

Mini G Results and Recap

Foil Championships

Two more races, more points! Lift maintains the lead. Kane ahead but with 55 or more points for first place at M2O it is still wide open! As usual, no comments section on the list, but some commentary follows.

We got a request to do a Board Constructors Championship too which I’ll try add. Slightly trickier as a few people will have changed boards. I imagine a tight battle between KT and Kalama?

I’ve had a look at the pace (minutes per km) for the winners of each race, and the grouping is pretty interesting, note these would include the time off foil at the start, and the ends which often were flat water, so the average open water paces must be even faster!

1. M2M - 0:02:18

2. Kamalo - 0:02:18

3. Wetfeet - 0:02:19

4. Paddle Imua 0:02:33

5. Gorge - 0:03:10

Last time I asked for votes on M2O, I wonder if perhaps Edo was short-changed considering he is well within reach of the overall win, and seems to have let logistics get in the way of winning the Imua?

Light wind racing

Nearly all of the races this year have had seconds or at most minutes between the top 3. This indicates very healthy competition. I like the fact that the Gorge race in light winds was as competitive as the strong breeze days, but the results brought out some new names.

It would be cool to incorporate pump endurance as one aspect of the racing. James and Kai discuss SUP flat water racing in their chat, and the idea of making the course specifically challenging or tactical to choose the equipment stay on foil.

Having just watched the Tour de France I thought, maybe incorporating teams? Imagine a sprint finish with team lead outs for their sprinter who is on a faster foil. There are a bunch of interesting tactics - Drafting, Crosswinds, Sprint trains, Time cuts etc. Allez Allez Allez

Foiling could be an entirely new style of ocean racing. Imagine Grand Tour style team multi-day stage racing.

Foam Hits

Downwind logistics

Logistics is the biggest hassle of downwind, if you can’t find a train, what about Lake Garda in Italy where the wind switches 180 degrees every day in the summer. Can someone say Eurotour?

Finally there is a place where you can leave from one location, do a downwinder, wait for the wind to switch, and downwind paddle back to your original launching point. This is not a dream, Lake Garda, Italy has ideal conditions to accomplish this round-trip downwinder.

Hand paddles, parachutes, anything but a SUP paddle

If your foil chat group is like mine, besides logistics around coordinating sessions, the other primary topic of conversation is various novelty downwind popup techniques. I think these creative solutions are super interesting, and I hope to see more of them!

Hand paddles: Jordan shows how it’s done on the hand paddles. My most recent downwind run in 15 knots included a few attempts with the hand paddles, and I will say that they are easier than I expected to get the board going, and probably about as tricky as I expected to pop up. If you take the time to get the popup right, then I think it is totally viable for most. Interestingly I could quite easily get the board up to foil speed, more easily than the SUP for a big 1300 downwind foil

Parachute: A parachute, shown by Cynthia, it seems to have no directional pull. I see this as a way to reduce the need to pump once up on foil more than anything, as I would imagine in nuking conditions you wouldn’t struggle to get on foil, and because the pull is straight downwind, the power reduces the faster you go, as well as being less stable.

Kite: A kite as demonstrated by Sam has directional pull, meaning you can ride at an angle to the wind, reducing the issue of accelerating into the kite like with the parachute. Another benefit is that you can ride upwind with this.

Sail: I bought a used dinghy spinnaker for $10 and tried it twice on downwind runs. Primary issue at this stage is that it is both huge, unstable and has no directional pull. It pulls like a train though, and maybe if I use the paddle as a mast I can get it to work. Marginal at best.

Wing: Winging has all the benefits of the the above, but you’re left holding a big old wing:

Foiling Voyagers

Maybe not exactly what you’d expect on a foiling blog, but doing 600 mile upwind / downwind sends on a 50 foot offshore foiling yacht is pretty wild. Pushing 40 knots on the downwind section and barely sleeping for 4 days straight is quite a task. I sailed the Fastnet race in 2019 as a terrified crew and I can say that the downwind leg was exhilarating but the slog to get there was among the worst experiences I’ve ever had. Sea sick for 2 days upwind.

M2M addition

A wing recap of the M2M, with some cool footage of the start and commentary.

Board aspect ratios

I put together a list of downwind boards to simplify comparison. A theory: to simplify things I propose considering volume and then length to width ratio, ie aspect ratio.

I think most interestingly, the more recently released boards have gone longer and narrower. Weirdly, most brands are highest AR on their biggest boards.

Beyond this there is endless nuance in terms of appropriate board for conditions (nice guide from F-one), suitability for brands, track centrality etc but that is impossible to meaningfully aggregate. If you’d like to filter it, make a copy (File>Make a Copy) and apply the filters, and if you’d like to contribute, make a copy and add yours and send it to me!

Map contributions

If you have any cool runs to share, please contribute to the map. Or let us know of your crew and I’ll add them to the list (I’ll start a list). The map lives at map.dwfoil.com

I’ve been scouting out EU spots for a summer euro-tour trip next year (with some races?), so the map is coming along nicely for Europe.

I would like to supplement that with a few trade wind spots in the tropics. Did you know that the wind funnels between Bali and Java due to the trades accelerating between the mountains. Maybe a dwfoil retreat on the cards.

What did you think of this issue?

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Questions for the comments section:

What are you working on in your DW journey?

Any advice on the latest breakthrough you’ve had?

In trying to keep up on the actual water, after seeing the various kites, hand paddles, parachutes and other novel ways of getting a foil going, I’ve found an old sail… let us see where that goes. Necessary as I keep pinging my shoulder overdoing it with the SUP paddle.

In growth news, we now have 105 subscribers and 2k views, it seems like there are a few people interested in anything to do with foiling, even this. Welcome everyone, and thanks!

Events, races etc

Recap - Molokai Holokai (M2M)

An impressive 88 foil entries, an even split between SUP and wing. It looked like an epic race, with a very close finish, top 3 within about 1-2 minutes of each other and coming down to the wire. This video has an incredible drone sequence of the start, recommend if you skip everything else, have a look at this clip from 7 minutes in.

SUP Open

I’ll do a top 5, some big names!

1. Kane De Wilde - 1:39:44 - KDMaui

2. Andrew Gibbons - 1:40:22 - Lift

3. Edoardo Tanas - 1:41:01 - Axis

4. James Casey - 1:43:41 - Code

5. Kai Lenny - 1:43:54 - Phantom

Debrief from James Casey below - who along with Kai Lenny took the straighter “SUP” line, which is the straightest line to avoid the current, but concedes that the deeper route into the channel with bigger bumps was faster. Inside was relatively flat and they were doing up and overs along the coast. Kai on possibly too small a foil.

Glassy bumps and cross wind into the finish leading to James passing Kai across the line and Kane beating Andrew. Finishing tactics lost Kai two positions according to James. Josh Ku describes the course here.

Check a very vibey video from Josh Ku, and another good one from Dylan.

SUP Women

Great to see 5 women competing and a very competitive finish, under 2 minutes between 1st and 3rd.

1. Annie Reickert - 2:02:02 - Lift

2. Olivia Piana - 2:02:11 - Axis

3. Gabriella Bella - 2:04:38 - GoFoil

Wing

The wing was less competitive with a very big gap to third. It seems Zane Schweitzer was under-foiled and struggled along the last stretch to finish 30 minutes behind 1st place. Great ride-along commentary from Giampaolo Cammarota, who reckons it was kinda light conditions. Is this Finn Spencer in the first clip of this video? Explains the lead. Serious power to weight ratio.

1. Finn Spencer - 1:14:44

2. Anderson Gallagher - 1:16:38

3. Livio Menelau - 1:33:15

Stats

Some random stats from the full results. The finishing of the top 25% of SUP Foil was pretty close, with a few groups forming.

Median age for SUP was 34, wing was 46. Judging from the below, the younger riders performed slightly better

Foil Championships

Round two completed and so now we can calculate some points. Lift with a lead. Kane ahead and Andrew well within reach!

The formula is as follows: Points for top 5 x Distance x number of entrants.

As you’ll note, there is no comments section on the standings list, as in life (there is commentary, however).

As you can see the number of entrants and the race distance impacts the weighting significantly. Impressive is that if we did a constructors championship for tails, Kane’s Marlin would probably already have won, even Kai Lenny was riding one. Kane rode his own foil on the M2O which I’ll describe as KDFoils until I get better info!

I’d like to do this for more events, more riders (maybe top 10) and more categories (wing, women) but honestly it is too time consuming to extend. 2024 will go big.

Rad People

On the back of the M2M, here are some completely unfounded and entirely irrelevant emoji based observations for the rest of the races.

Andrew Gibbon. Kane De Wild 👌

Dave Kalama, James Casey, Josh Ku, Olivia Piana 🤙

Oskar Johansson, Kai Lenny, Tomoyasu Murabayashi 🤔

Preview - The Rest of July

The Gorge Challenge has 25 entrants listed as starting this weekend on the US mainland. Supposedly quite a bit of travelling to get there and then back to Hawaii for the M2O. Kane is apparently heading over.

Great Barrier Reef Ocean Challenge in Australia joins DW month in July. Reported to have 15+ foilers racing in the Mini-G, 5 taking on the GBROC. James Casey was the only one to do the GBROC last year. Seems like a professionally organised event, lots of support craft and infrastructure. More details in the Casey Catchup.

Paddle Imua and then M2O to round out July. 43 entrants to the SUP Foil category of the M20, and a longer distance so more points available.

Foam Hits

When I named this section, I didn’t expect to see an actual frontside ollie on a downwind setup. kpfoils busts the first I’ve seen.

Another recap of the WetFeet Voyager race, this one showing the start.

A dangerous looking pair of sunglasses encounter an even more dangerous looking shark off Oahu. I didn’t know these prone senders had sharks to deal with.

Josh Ku surfing his new surf-rescue craft down the famous Maliko run. Classic style.

Wing or SUP

In the early days of this page I will try to cover both as much as possible, at least until some direction appears. I’ve surfed my entire life, and also kited back in the day and sailed offshore a lot, even recently learned to windsurf, I must be honest and say that while I’m slowly getting into wingding aka wang aka wind wing, I’m generally more interested in the wingless-downwind, primarily because I find the wing turns the bumps into moguls instead of the actual source of energy, but that is most likely because I can’t wing that well.

Bay runs

James makes an interesting point on bay runs, the favourite starting point for beginners. Obviously, but maybe not that obviously, if the wind dies, the bumps die instantly. Having never found any suitable bays on the North coast of Cornwall I’ve not managed any bay runs anyway, but I’m sure the bay-blessed among you may find this interesting.

Map contributions

• Greece - 3 fun looking runs from Dimitris Komninos around Athens. Having spent a bit of time sailing around Greece I am glad to hear there are some downwind routes being scouted. An abundance of islands, ferries, summer wind as well as being an incredibly appealing place to visit makes this a compelling stop on the Euro-tour in my mind.

• Australia - Some details on what must be one of the main Aussie downwind runs - Perth. Works most days in summer. Clean wind bumps with minimal groundswell. Stay inside the shark buoys. Greece first then 🦈

What did you think of this issue?

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ps - I found out how to ride switch

Events, races etc

Voyager X Wet Feet - Recap

Over 100 people entered, slightly more SUP than wing. It looked like an epic race, with a very close finish, top 3 in both categories within about 1 second of each other and coming down to wire.

SUP

1. Kane De Wilde - 26:42 (Lift 90?)

2. Andrew Gibbons - 26:53 (Lift 110 HA)

3. Mala'e McElheny - 28:17 (Lift 110 HA)

Wing

1. Brian Tricarico - 27:45 (Gofoil)

2. Derek Hamasaki - 28:00

3. Eli Maioho - 28:34 (Gofoil)

   Full results

James Casey chats with Andrew Gibbon below. Andrew placed 2nd in SUP. They discuss board length, smaller foils, and how the race went. Andrew is doing 2 to 3 downwind runs PER DAY and then hitting the gym 6 days per week. Serious shit!

Andrew describes some of the big hitters from Hawaii and the secret senders. The race recap starts here. They had a big East groundswell and then a fresh South groundswell on the day, 25-35 mph wind, double overhead on the sets. Andrew has been doing SUP downwind for about 1 year, great progress!

Blue Planet Show chats through the race from a wing perspective. Lots of interesting stuff about the relative speed, Wing has to sail zig-zag lines while the SUP crew can pin it straight downwind. Highlights from the video: Kane hits a fish and still wins, advice is don’t use polarised sunglasses, also someone broke a paddle in the surf final stretch.

Looks like the wing foil and SUP foils were about the same speed to the finish, with a challenging finish in some decent surf and a few people missing the finish line. Apparently there was a prone format at the Voyager X Wet Feet? You could submit runs and the fastest time wins.

Paddle Imua - Preview

Another race added to the list, this time Paddle Imua on the 23rd of July, running the famous Maliko run on the North shore of Maui. Checkout the location here. As a regular human, this race looks hugely appealing. See some 2017 downwind foiling drone footage below.

For interest, here is their safety gear list:

• Leashes mandatory

• PFD, Whistle, VHF/Cell recommended

Gear and People

Editor’s note - we will try keep this unbiased and impartial. No one on the dwfoil.com team has any brand affiliation and will remain impartial (do try your luck though)

Lift dominated the Voyager X Wet Feet, Lift 110 HA X has been the choice for most according to Andrew Gibbon. Kane was on a 90.

Code foils will be one to watch, with James Casey having the best mix of experience foiling, downwind racing, pro athlete-ing in the mix (save for maybe Kai?).

Speaking of Kai, will Mr Lenny dominate on a Phantom foil? Looks possibly like they make the fastest foil on the market. Memory carbon?

Starboard has a single piece foil which should prove competitive in the wing races with Zane pushing them around. Maybe give Robert Stehlik a run on his Mikes Lab! Expect a flurry of competitively priced gear from Starboard this year. I saw a pre-release Starboard downwind board on the beach and it looked and felt great (light!).

Axis will have the unreleased smaller ART PROs for their team, Olivia Piana and Perth!

Josh Ku looked like he had a faster Unifoil prototype in one of his videos.

Oskar Johansson on Armstrong is probably a good dark horse for M2O points. He could pump the whole way if it goes flat.

James and Josh talk strategy here.

DWFOIL.COM Manufacturers Championships

There are a bunch of other brands, and an incredibly stacked lineup of competitors this year. I’ll be compiling a list of the results by foil brand, and at the end of the year announce a winner.

There will be points for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and each race will have a weighting - distance and number of entrants. M2O will probably need to be weighted double. If you’re an actuary please message me.

Foam Hits

World record foil

Olivia Piana completes the challenge, cruising with dolphins, avoiding orcas, backwash, boat fuel issues, riding into dusk. 20km/h for 14 hours. Incredible! How about the endless summer nights of the North Sea as a venue to better it? Imagine daylight is the primary constraint now.

Clips

More Downwind from Hawaii, Voyager Foiler making a compelling case for Maliko run

UK Downwind Race?

The UK is blessed with lots of wind and not much surf (sorry), the only issue is the lack of reliable and consistent wind. @gogfoiler has had a great idea to do a race. Critical is finding a spot that can take advantage of the prevailing Westerlies, deal with the South West blows, and not have too much ground swell which is usually at a crap angle. Bonus points if we can find a run that simplifies logistics with a train running along the coast! (e.g. in Marseille, thanks Olivia for the idea). If you are based in the UK and keen to know more, join the UK Downwind facebook group.

SUP vs Hand Paddles

How about this clip of knee paddles. I’ve fully committed to SUP but when I see clips like that it makes it clear that on a big slow foil, anything is possible. Incredible how despite the miss-steps, they were still able to get up. I’ve already felt the value of safety strokes while up on foil, and I would guess that is worth the hassle alone.

Map contributions

• A very appealing 10km run in North Wales, UK, reliable in typical UK winds, not much swell to contend with. Thanks @gogfoiler!

• Two runs in Tampa, Florida, thanks for sharing John Nguyen.

• Share your spots here

What did you think of this issue?

Prefer less links? Less instagram? More pictures? Feedback below please!

🌊🌊🌊 blowing 25 knots

🌊🌊 blowing 15 knots

🌊 blowing 5 knots

Questions for the audience:

1. What are you working on in your DW journey?

2. Should DW races run on a set date or have a waiting period?

3. What do you think of a prone shore-run race with self tracking via GPS watch?

Let us know in the comments or on Threads app

The Va’a is the most ancient boat in the world, used by the Polynesians to explore the islands of the Pacific

These are pretty capable of sending it in serious conditions, and from what I understand a fair few of the big names in foiling have come from a background of paddling these traditional craft.

The Hawaiian trade winds are the reason for all of the attention at this time of year, seemingly less predictable in recent years:

Where for years they came specifically out of the North East they are now adjusting to coming from a more Easterly direction and instead of buffeting the islands for perhaps 300 days a year they are now only providing about 220 days of wind. The velocity of the winds when they arrive are not changing and they seem to stay steady at between 5 and 20 MPH throughout the year with the possible exception of September and October when they will generally decline somewhat in wind speeds. As these winds funnel through canyons and valleys on the islands they can also have increased wind speeds and these areas of the islands often have constant winds at much higher velocities.

In general, Maui is the centre of attention, and has been for as long as people have been racing downwind.

Maui is the King of DW for the Hawaiian islands. Maui has more consistent wind then any other island, it's downwind runs are world class, …it's easy to hook up with guys or groups going because there's always someone doing it, downwind shuttles, etc. Maui has two awesome runs, if one isn't running, another always will

Check out the map for an indication of how the wind directions apply to the specific routes, and have a look at the list of events here, including a new one in Australia.

Progression Project and James Casey both have new podcasts specifically about the upcoming races, check them out for more info. Exciting to hear that according to James, pace is now generally measured in min/km and speed in km/h.

Race results

Kane de Wilde (@kdmaui) took first in the Voyager X Wetfeet Hawaii Downwind Challenge. Hosted by @voyager_foiler on Oahu, it looked pretty wild conditions, and challenged some experienced riders. See below post from Kane for some behind the scenes.

Kane de Wilde

Kane de Wilde on Instagram: “MAHALO OAHU
That’s a wrap for another amazing trip to Oahu! Every time I have foiled Oahu, I have been blown away by the passion, hospitality, and aloha of the community. Thank you @voyager_foiler @wetfeet_hawaii for setting up this downwind race. Your guys efforts to bring the everyone together are invaluable in keeping this sport healthy and exciting. Super stoked to take 🥇 in open SUP Foil with such tough competition and an exciting race! @nickkapule and @long.armed.ape fought super hard and any of us could’ve taken the win. To share the trip and SUP win with @gabriella_da_bella was the cherry on top! Definitely coming back soon for some more epic waves and productive training! 🤙🏼”

June 27, 2023

And here is a video clip of the event.

Full results screenshot from instagram stories. The event looked like a great warmup for the season. It seems like Lift foils dominated the race. Full results on the Wetfeet website.

Other news

1. @oliviapiana is paddling 275 km downwind to break the distance record, it seems like she has done it, or at least 250km based on her IG.

2. The downwind map is making a cautious but steady start, check it out at map.dwfoil.com

   1. @gogfoiler in the Menai strait in Wales, UK contributed an interesting looking but technical looking bay run

   2. @Maretasurf in Puerto Columbia contributed a super fun looking (and warm!) easy coastal run.

   3. If you’d like to contribute a run, checkout the google form and send the details. I’ll follow up soon with a post describing the full details.

   

3. I’ve created an instagram account for this page, primarily for me to see what is going on in the world of DW foiling. Ideally this newsletter will mean you don’t need instagram to keep up, and you can get a digest of content without the need to be bombarded by instagram reels (what is up with reels? 99% of them are just reposts of other’s reels. Can you “block” them once you’ve seen them?) I’ve got mixed feelings, IG is a pretty effective way to get people to share content from the moment, and allows true “crowdcasting” in that there was no media crew for the Voyager race, and yet it was covered effectively, and entirely by phone content. The downside is that unless you were on instagram that week, you will struggle to find many details as most of the reels have expired and it all is gated by Instagram. And nothing can embed IG clips so you need to watch them there.

Hopefully all of this is interesting, please leave feedback below if there is anything you’d like to suggest.

What did you think of this issue?

🌊🌊🌊 blowing 25 knots

🌊🌊 blowing 15 knots

🌊 blowing 5 knots

ps - if you’re feeling like you need a new DW challenge, why not try riding switch

Details of all the listed races can be found here.

Voyager X Wetfeet Hawaii Downwind Challenge

@voyager_foiler is hosting a downwind race on Oahu this weekend, it looks epic and exactly the kind of thing we like to see. Initiative + stoke = a good time! Course details here.

Molokai Holokai

The Maui to Molokai aka M2M. Somewhat unaware of any details of this race since it looks like it last ran in 2018, but it looks epic. Credit to Zane and Kai and the legends doing this in 2018, dragging those big foils across the channel.

SIC Gorge Challenge 2023

The Gorge is pretty well known to have some of the best bumps in the world due to the “wind over tide” effect of the wind blowing up the river, stacking bumps. Happening just before the M20, will there be a big entry list or are the more serious racers saving their legs and $ for the weekend following? Either way it is an interesting one.

M2O

Molokai to Oahu is pretty much the top deal, checkout Simeon and Casey discuss the details. This will be the premier event of the season, and with the exact outline of the course still to be finalised (or recently finalised?), this is sure to be an interesting battle of familiar names.

Open de France Downwind Foil

Last run in 2021, later this year we have the running of this race in Brittany, France. The French downwind scene is as strong as anywhere (outside of Hawaii), and promises to be an interesting race.

Details of all the listed races can be found here.

Downwind foiling is pretty new, information is hard to find, and what makes it amazing is the people frothing to get out there.

This website aims to provide a few pointers to help people find runs, local crews, events and whatever else seems necessary to get people stoked.

We will pull together insights from the community, gear insights, event recaps, reviews. Whatever floats the boat.

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