Kitefoiling at Sealine

It has been 3 weeks since my last session on the foilboard. I wish I could go for a practice daily but I’ve found out there are occasionally other things in life too!I was afraid such a long break from the action would seriously hamper my efforts of learning to foil properly.. but that turned out to be unfounded!

So I went out to Sealine this time, armed with a paraglider, a kite and a foilboard in the truck. Wind forecast was easterly somewhere between 7-9 knots for the afternoon. Funny enough the actual at Sealine when I left home was still northwesterly at around 12 knots. But the wind has an interesting way of changing into a nice seabreeze almost daily anywhere between 10 am and 1 pm. And that is exactly what happened today. By the time I arrived it was pumping at a crazy 8 knots nicely onshore. My friends Chris and Sarah came out for the day as well and together we found a nice spot that looked paraglideable and was still directly on the coastline.. Time to get set up and hit the water!
At first I dolphined around for a good 10 minutes probably. My last session had been on a regular board where I needed lots of pressure on the back foot. Time to make a big adjustment and think forward foot only and go for it. That really paid off, i foiled my longest stretches without even touching down or crashing today! (Except for once or twice where a little waved caught me off gaurd maybe..)

Turning into wind and starting to lean and balance back more is becoming easier. Going upwind is no problem whatsoever. Going downwind is what needs a lot of work! So I try to point the foil downwind and have the kite besides me instead of directly in front. This is not easy. It is hard to work out where the kite should sit to have a steady downwind direction and speed. I can send the kite up and down and get back downwind that way but there should be more elegant ways to do this! Or is that something reserved only for the top race competitors in the kitefoil scene I see on Youtube?

Anyways I managed a more upwind and a more downwind angle than ever kiting on the water before, so in the end I can say I did make some progress today! I can still have hopes of eventually being able to go all over the place, gybing and tacking away and flying high above the water..!!
Oh! I have finally managed to upload my first video episode of my Kitefoil Adventure to Youtube. You can check it out here!