This tutorial builds up to your first flights on a hydrofoil.
Of course, you need to carry the board into deep enough water.
A foil board is easiest to carry near its center of mass.
From the front wing, or close to the mast plate.
When you first get in the water, practice manoeuvring your hydrofoil by hand.
It rotates easiest around the mast, and moves easiest in line with the nose.
Keep your legs away from the wings & mast at all times.
Next, practice bodydragging with the board.
Using the back hand park the kite higher than normal.
Control the foil with your elbow and front hand.
This grip gives good control over the board.
Note, you can easily head upwind like this, due to the force from the hydrofoil.
If you do need to head downwind, tuck the board to one side then power the kite.
After body dragging, the next step is riding with the board on the surface.
This is known as taxiing.
The more you taxi, the safer you will be later on.
Learning to keep the foil down is essential.
If the foil shoots up, it can easily cut into your head, or hook your lines and
make the kite loop.
As soon as you start moving, the large front wing can easily lift your weight.
To prevent this, you must shift your weight forwards towards the nose.
This angles the foil down a little which decreases its lift.
Weight shifting forwards basically helps you to depower the hydrofoil.
Weight shifting backwards, increases the foil’s angle of attack, and
dramatically increases lift.
In short, keep your weight forwards when taxiing.
Let’s run through a waterstart and taxi.
Use your hand and elbow to lever the board and raise the wings to the surface.
Place your front foot very loosely in the strap.
Then lift your toes to stop the wings from sinking again.
To get started, dive the kite but don’t let it get too low.
When the kite pulls, make an extra effort to roll forwards and get fully upright.
Turn your hips and front foot to point the nose towards the kite.
Before you gain any speed, it’s essential to weight-shift forwards on to the front foot.
Lean towards the nose.
Take your front arm off the bar.
Then, if needed, reach out with the front arm to get your weight further forward.
To slow down, steer the kite slowly to 12.
Let’s review that in the other direction.
Don’t dive the kite too low.
Roll forwards and get upright.
Turn the nose to follow the kite.
Don’t try to aim upwind.
Above all else, shift your weight forward onto the front foot and keep the foil down.
Keep the kite slightly higher than normal as you taxi.
Steer slowly to 12 to stop.
If you’re struggling to keep the foil down, you may need to shift your foot position towards
the nose OR shift your mast connection towards the tail.
This will automatically make it easier to keep your weight shifted forwards.
At this stage, it’s easy to make mistakes, simply by applying your normal board skills.
Instinctively, you may want to pressure the back foot.
With a twintip, this is essential.
But, with a hydrofoil, this will incline the wings.
Then as soon as you gain speed, the board will ascend abruptly.
Don’t be afraid to put excessive weight on the front foot.
With the hydrofoil lifting, it really takes a lot to sink the nose.
Another instinct, is to lean back over the rail of the board.
Normally this helps you balance against the force of the kite.
But, on a hydrofoil, this makes the wings engage.
And if your body is not in line with the mast you will loose balance quickly.
On a foil you must stay roughly perpendicular to the deck, so your weight is in line with
the mast and wings.
Keep taxiing until you can ride around comfortably at a moderate speed.
The faster you move the more you will notice the foil trying to lift.
As soon as you feel the board climbing, tilt your torso towards the nose and reach out
with the front arm.
If you can recover from a climbing foil, you have learnt in invaluable skill.
You should also learn how to alter your course while taxiing.
Interesting, you don’t change course by leaning over the rails of the board, like
you might on a twintip.
Changing course while taxiing, is mostly to do with changing the angle of the nose.
Wherever you point the nose, the mast and wings will ensure that you head that way.
You can turn the nose, with a small twist at the hips.
To transition, you can stop and turn the board around by hand.
The next step is micro flights.
This is where you foil on purpose, but then immediately return to the surface.
This is done using small shifts in weight.
You’ll be taxiing with a weighted front foot.
Cautiously, bit by bit, shift some weight to the back foot.
It won’t take much to get the foil climbing.
As you feel lift, start returning your weight onto the front foot.
If you use small enough adjustments, you should be able to climb and touch down smoothly.
But it is easy to over-shift your weight.
If you shift to the back foot too quickly, the wings will shoot up and breach the surface.
If you shift weight to the front foot too quickly, you may submerge the nose.
Another issue to be aware of at this stage is stalling the hydrofoil.
If you are riding too slowly, the foil won’t be able to lift your weight.
It may start to lift, but then stall and drop.
Keep practising these microflights until they’re easy and you can do them consecutively.
You now have the ability to climb or descend with the foil.
From there, it doesn’t take much to ride further on the foil.
Use a small bump on the back foot to climb.
Then slightly shift weight to the front foot, to fly horizontally.
From there you use minute shifts in weight to keep level.
If you start climbing shift to the front foot.
If you start descending shift to the back foot.
It’s around this stage, that you may experience how shockingly efficient and fast a hydrofoil
can be.
Once clear of the surface, most of your drag disappears.
You can now accelerate easily.
And, if your kite is low, this is definitely going to happen.
That’s why I strongly recommended keeping the kite high.
If you do need to slow down, there are 2 things you can do.
Steer the kite up slowly AND descend into a taxi.
Once taxiing there is a big increase in drag.
If you need to bail from the board, it’s important to know that there are safer ways,
and more dangerous ways, to do so.
During a crash you want to get away from your foil.
An effective way to do this, is to send the board down and the kite up.
Steer the kite up rapidly.
Kick down on the front foot.
Then pull in the bar to launch downwind and away from the foil.
The foil can still catch you, but a heavy impact is less likely.
This is certainly much safer than using edging or back foot pressure when out of control.
If you do this the foil can easily hit your lines or yourself.
This example may look safe enough, but if the crash was a few knots faster, the foil
would have risen up much higher.
Riding a hydrofoil can be serene, but there are significant dangers.
The wings and mast are sharp and never far away.
The more protection you wear the better. A helmet is essential, plus a padded suit
or impact vest. It also helps to cover your forearms and shins.
It’s best to avoid waves when learning.
The hydrofoil can generate a lot of force simply from a wave flowing across it.
Medium wind is easiest for learning. Strong wind increases the chance that you
won’t be able to limit your speed. And light wind increases the chance of the
kite dropping and getting stuck in the water. I also recommend you have plenty of kiting
experience with a twintip or directional board. There are many kite skills that will come
in handy, such as downloops, light-wind piloting, stall fixing, and death-loop prevention.
In terms of kite size, I recommend going smaller than normal.
You only need enough power to get your body on top of the board.
And, if anything goes wrong, you will be very grateful for rigging a smaller kite.
The mast size you take is important. The short mast is safest and easiest to taxi
with – it’s very useful at that stage. Once you pass the micro flight stage, however,
it will limit your development. The medium mast is easier and safer than a
long mast to learn with, and you can stick with it as you improve.
You may even stick with it permanently. The long mast is riskier.
It has some benefits, but they don’t matter to you at this stage.
So I don’t recommend getting started with a long mast.
Wing size is just as important.
Smaller wings need more speed before they can lift you.
Larger wings can lift you at low speeds.
This means you can practice at lower speeds, reducing risks.
I would recommend at least 100cm2 of front wing per 10kg of body weight, so that you
can foil at lower speeds.
It’s also important to extend your footstrap so it’s very loose.
You do NOT want to get your foot stuck while learning.
We’ll cover lots more about equipment and set up in this series, as well as more hydrofoiling
fundamentals and tricks. Thanks for watching and safe foiling.