Hi to the combined knowledge base of Seabreeze wing-foilers

Do any of you bigger guys wear a GPS when winging? With no pumping or steering around waves, at what hull-speed should a 100kg rider start to lift?

I'm a newbie but I was out today on Pittwater in 15 to 20 knots and a 6m wing so I mostly had good power. My GPS showed five 10 second runs at up to 8 knots with a peak speed of 8.8 knots. All of these were done lowriding. The one time I got the board out of the water it was only a height of maybe 10 cm and not for long. The period I was up was not my fastest speed of the day!

The board never really felt like it wanted to climb. The one time I got up on the foils I made a conscious effort to step a few inches further back and give it a bit of a leg pump, but if I tried this without a puff it just seemed like the tail dug in and felt slow.

I guess my feeling is that even with no input from me, if I'm going 7 or 8 knots the foils should already be getting lift. Do any of the bigger guys know what their actual take off speed is?

Thanks
Jethrow

My stats:
Fanatic 6'10" 135L Sky wing
F-one gravity 2200cm on a 65cm mast
6SqM Konrad Wingman wing
97kg's

I started replying but lost my post. So will keep it short.
I agree with Clamsmasha.
I'm lighter 80kgs.
Same problem as you with 4 meter wing. Couldn't get it up. 6 meter wing was a bit better with faster board speed & big foil. I finally got up and going but after pumping either board or foil or both.
7 meter wing I would guess would get me up easier without pumping in about 12 to 15 knots.
At your weight & learning you would need a 7 meter or bigger without pumping. But even then you need to load the foil by letting the nose of your board to rise up.
Pumping the foil is similar to a dolphin swimming. And when you include the pumping of the wing, then its similar to a bird getting lift as it runs forward. So both gives the best chance of getting good flight forward.
Just my view.

The fanatic boards plane really well, so I am not surprised you are getting decent board speed without popping up. You must be getting some assistance from your foil to be getting 8 knots. My experience says you need to shuffle your feet back just a little.

What is the position of your foil? I have found that I needed to have the foil in the forward most position on 5'8" fanatic, some of my piers are midway. Something else for you to consider.

My experience is nearly all the foils above 1800cm2 run around 9 to 12 knots on an upwind tack (a liitle faster on a reach). My AXIS 1150 is a little faster than the 1020, but the width/length of the foils are huge, so pushing them through water above 16 or 17 knots is difficult.

Sounds like you are very close ??

I would expect you should be flying at those speeds. I have a 2000cm wing with a 6'6" board at and 85kg my GPS shows me flying at about 10km/h, but I need lots of wind with my 5m wing to get going that speed first. Stepping back on your board should help your cause as mentioned above.

Wow, how good is the Seabreeze brains trust!

I went out today is similar wind to yesterday with the same gear but from the NE instead of South so a bit more sheltered water. I was getting towards overpowered on the 6M, with solid small whitecaps on flat water, so I was probably on too big a wing. Trying to remember all the hints people have given me I stood in my normal position to work up wind a bit and when I was ready to pull the trigger I stepped back about a foot width, maybe a width and a half more than yesterday with my back foot and a similar amount with the front foot and bore away to a broad reach. Some foot and wing pumping and up she came. Hell yeeeaaahhh!

I had half a dozen controlled flights over the afternoon, where I could climb to height and bring the board back down again. Most flight runs still ended with a fall, but I was ecstatic to say the least! That being said, anyone watching me probably thought my attempts at wing and foil pumping looked like a child having a tantrum in a supermarket.

Thanks for the hints all, next step is to gain some directional control and then I can work on going upwind!

Great news......