The forecast looked weak, but was supposed to pick up from 3. It didn't, but I got onto the water anyway cos I wanted to push the bottom end of the foil board and see just how low you can go.
Well...
If the weather report is to be believed, it was 3.2 building to 8.2 knots, gusts to 12.4. I think we got a lot more steady wind closer to sunset, as it picked up some and Hiro came to play.
So, pretty freakin' low.
When the 21 would sit at the zenith ok, and I could body drag slowly, that meant I would be up riding :o When the kite would luff and drop back in the window, I could get up on the board but had to work the kite (ho ho ho) to get moving, but usually meant it was tough getting up on a foil. It was the point when the kite wouldn't stall in a loop that it was all on like donkey kong...
Still, there wasn't a white cap in sight and I was going upwind a little more with each tack... Black magic, I tell you! Amazing feeling, gliding over the almost flat water.
So I'm guessing that 5 knots is the easy bottom end, and the apparent wind built up mad; easier riding the apparent wind than over-powered. I dunno if the 21 is necessary, as its slowness was troublesome and I got over-powered at 12 knots (!)--it was almost impossible to keep a constant height foil, power was on and off too much. By the time I packed up, I might have been ok on a TT...maybe.
In the middle of all that, I managed several times to do some total foiling gybes, ride toe-side the whole tack then carve back the other way! Woohoo! Didn't expect to be doing that for a while yet. Tried some jumps, but very half-assed due to fear of luffing the kite and totally crap timing...
Naturally, I had the camera, had it charged, but didn't think it worth putting on the lines. How wrong I was!
Abracadabra, bitches!
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