If you’re having fun then you’re doing it right. Sounds like tough conditions honestly. Make sure you match your foil to the bumps. Short period lake swell generally needs a larger foil. But honestly you look pretty good in those clips


As for pw technique I would say mix it up. It’s ok to redeploy often, one the benefits of a pw really so use it. You can even keep it up as training wheels while you figure out the bumps. When things are clicking go back to challenging yourself again and ride until you fall off foil.


I think it’s an easy trap that we can all fall into trying to ace runs vs just having fun out there. It’s not a paddle up so there is no reason avoid starting with a pw as it’s so easy to do.

When I first started out I never tried the ride til you fall method. There's value in that for sure, and there are other ways to progress. I always thought getting dialed on fully stowing, and then successfully redeploying my parawing every single time was more important to me. This taught me to lock that skill in while also learning to read the bumps for when I should redeploy. I think my longest was 3 hours 55 minutes and 50 miles with no falls. No way would I have had the energy to keep going if I was fighting with restarts at the end of every single one of my runs. Plus, I kinda feel like I normally would fall in the worst locations which means the restart would take even longer. I just did my little 3 mile downwind run, then 3 miles back upwind, over and over again.

As parawings have gotten better and my gear choices have changed I settle in with a different style on different days. Most recently I ride more like a winger. I'm using smaller foils and sessioning on a very tight zone of bumps. I often times go bananas letting my LTX canopy swing wild and free while I challenge my turns for a 60-120 second leg scorcher and then redeploy and repeat. It's like doing a HIIT workout and I definitely get my best turns doing this because I make zero effort to stow. The LTX is like a dance partner that I want to interact with. Other sails are not fun to have out and do best in a full stow. With those, ride til you drop or focusing on longer DW runs is definitely more of the vibe for the day.

All that to say, there's no wrong way to go about this. If you're having fun, then you're having fun.

I say ride until you drop! Don't plan on redeploying. Forcing yourself to foil until you fail is a good way to limit test just how much you can get away with. It will teach you to move strategically, and it's very very good fitness.
Plus you don't have to worry about a neat stow. Just get on a bump, get that parawing in the bag as fast as you can and enjoy the ride.

When you inevitably make a mistake and come off foil, just use the opportunity to have a quick rest, enjoy your surroundings, sort out your parawing and go again.

Riding til exhaustion is fine and good. But you need to also realize where you made the mistake. If you're not analyzing your drop off foil and what you could've done different each time, then you're not getting the benefit of riding til exhaustion.

Sounds to me like you're ready to change foils. If you're getting passed by groundswell that's moving too fast, maybe switch to a faster foil. If you're always pumping and overtaking bumps, then maybe switch to a larger foil. Video's look good to me. Nice riding.

A turn is as good as a pump.

BWalnut said..
When I first started out I never tried the ride til you fall method. There's value in that for sure, and there are other ways to progress. I always thought getting dialed on fully stowing, and then successfully redeploying my parawing every single time was more important to me. This taught me to lock that skill in while also learning to read the bumps for when I should redeploy. I think my longest was 3 hours 55 minutes and 50 miles with no falls. No way would I have had the energy to keep going if I was fighting with restarts at the end of every single one of my runs. Plus, I kinda feel like I normally would fall in the worst locations which means the restart would take even longer. I just did my little 3 mile downwind run, then 3 miles back upwind, over and over again.

As parawings have gotten better and my gear choices have changed I settle in with a different style on different days. Most recently I ride more like a winger. I'm using smaller foils and sessioning on a very tight zone of bumps. I often times go bananas letting my LTX canopy swing wild and free while I challenge my turns for a 60-120 second leg scorcher and then redeploy and repeat. It's like doing a HIIT workout and I definitely get my best turns doing this because I make zero effort to stow. The LTX is like a dance partner that I want to interact with. Other sails are not fun to have out and do best in a full stow. With those, ride til you drop or focusing on longer DW runs is definitely more of the vibe for the day.

All that to say, there's no wrong way to go about this. If you're having fun, then you're having fun.

Nice to hear of different strategies! Such a diversity of different approaches which is cool. I think as autumn and winter come and the conditions get bigger and more gnarly and my tolerance for going ‘offshore’ is reduced it will be my go-to strategy to do shorter laps.

Not that I,m really good at DW, but I do spend a lot of time in such short period wind bumps when we ride on the ""big"" dutch lakes and do DW runs of 6 to 16km. (The markermeer where we do DW runs is 32km long and the first 10K is needed to build up bumps).

tbh I think you do pretty well in the conditions that you got, maybe rely a bit in the low stallspeed.
Overtaken bumps that are slow but steep ussually kills your speed, stalling and or turning and often even go of the back and drop in one the behind you works better as overtaking imo.
So far I,m still better DW with a paddle as with an Para, but working on that :)

I come from SUP downwind and, in my opinion, relying on your parawing usually just means you're not relying on your downwind skills. You already have more than enough ability to keep going well beyond those 8 minutes in the clip. You're not gassed, you're still able to talk, and the conditions look more than good enough for an hour-long run. Just keep going. Do more and longer runs, and focus on improving your reading of the bumps. Eventually you'll reach the point where you never have to stop unless you actually want to. Once you're able to stay on foil continuously for longer periods, your skills improve incredibly fast. And once you've built that foundation, you can always go back to doing shorter runs or laps if that's what you enjoy more. But if your goal is to become a better foiler, I'd spend that time working on your downwind skills. In my experience, nothing teaches you more about foiling than downwinding.

Interesting discussion and great to see this sport and gear reach the general public more.

This might be a little off topic, but as a winger that potentially will want to get into pwinging (I can totally see the appeal) - I feel like it makes more sense for me to get better at waveriding with the wing flagged (and try to minimize going for the handle) and just using the foil.

Am i missing something here?

My longest rides flagged have only been 45s-01:00 long - but to be fair I haven’t been exposing myself much to good wave conditions. Moving to NZ in a few months so that’ll change.


Interested to hear what you guys think.