Nice one Firie, looking forward to hearing how it goes next couple of weeks, I reckon you're in for the best wind yet!! Everyone else better get their bums to Beachport. See you again soon!

Well done Bob, great sailing mate, wish i was still there.

Look foreward to it Dezza 

It would have been great to catch up again Geoff, next time somewhere 

Its been great to meet you Bob, nice sailing again today.

Good to see you still had the commonsense to wear some protection Firie 

Being a bit thicker than most, it generally takes a few more hits to the head before I realise I'm doing something wrong and change what I'm doing.

The reality is that with foiling for me although the dismount is a stable trick in my repertoire.

However, they are on the whole very soft dismounts in comparison to a normal windsurfing dismount due to the low speed and very low sail loads, the best way to describe it is like falling of a starting block at the pool (provided you land on the water not the concrete).

The daunting thing is when the foil breaches at speed (20-23knots for me), you're board is 3ft up above the water, you know it's about to happen, when it does you lose all lift the board suddenly drops 3ft, it hits the water, as it does the board slows, you lose the apparent wind which is the greater part of the sail force so you fall backwards.

It's the sail power for me, (Tim the Toolman, if you've got to pump you've rigged to small) which is the intimidating thing, you've got to rig small because as soon as the board leaves the water the sail energy required is greatly reduced.

The beauty about the foiling for me is that I started sailing in 2001, in 2004 I started speed sailing (it's all Hardies fault) from then on it was all brute force and ignorance.

I never bothered to learn proper technique apart from how to rig a bigger sail, point my front foot, close my eyes when things got scarey and eat the occasional shit sandwich (from applying the previous 3 points but mainly not sailing with my eyes open).

With foiling I've been forced to buy a wind meter and learn proper technique, my general sailing has improved greatly in the last 6 months because of this, I've have to learn and understand what small body movements do, How to pump a sail, sailing more upright etc. I have also crashed a hell of a lot in the process.

The beauty about foiling is that EVERYONE no matter how good they are start back at square 2, not quite square 1 as you know the basics of how the sail works, but every thing after that is learning anew.

The first time up on the foil is such an un-natuaral, joyous feeling having the whole board lift up of off water and then float above the water whilst the sail has almost no load (in comparrison to what we normally feel). If you've got a quiet foil, then the world goes quiet, no wind noise, no board slapping on the water, with the foil it feels like you are standing on a very thick air mattress.

6 months on I can now string together Nm runs, I still crash, but that joyous feeling hasn't abated one little bit, if anything it has grown.

I love my speed sailing, I love my wave sailing, I'm absolutely loving foiling

And

I will keep posting about my carnage for the ammusement of others to hopefully bring a smile to their faces and make their days a little bit brighter (a bit like your yarns Fangy).

If we did not have an Elmo we would have to invent some sort of big furry red crash dummy. Your tales not only ammuse us but also convey the joy in discovery of a new form of sailing.