Just some thoughts after two fun days shaking off the rust of summer bookending on Stephen's first time windfoiling reports.

In two days, covered conditions from +30 gusts to as low as 8-9 (no whitecaps) with the same rig: 125 l. freeride board, 1100cm2 wing and 4.7 sail. When I started windfoiling, I had much less range than normal kit. It's definitely the opposite now.

In big gusts, going hard upwind or downwind is our friend. In the biggest gusts, upwind is still probably the best escape route but I found I could bleed a surprising amount of power by going offwind, like way offwind and sometimes pretty much flagging the sail which was fine because that meant I could play on the swell. Staying on a reach in a big gust is a lot harder and unless one is going for speed, working upwind allowed me to ride swell back down or have room to bear off and stay flying in a hard lull.

Foil jibing is the path to Nirvana as it saves an incredible amount of energy rather than hitting the water and having to accelerate back off. It's great to see people hitting them or working on them. The board I was riding is not early getting off the water like my bigger board - but by staying on the wing, it really didn't matter as I could glide through jibes in substantially less wind than I could even think about getting off the water. If I messed up a jibe or jibed in a deep lull and couldn't make it, it would take a good, solid gust to get going again.

As winds lessen, it really pays attention to keep an eye upwind and spot, as they say in America's Cup broadcasts, "where the pressure is." When the wind lightened yesterday, I worked hard to stay in the pressure and jibe if I was running out of it. I was able to foil ridiculously further than I had any right to be.

Unless you are totally overpowered, jibe in the gusts not the lulls. The pressure in the rig really goes away as the board carves downwind. That extra power of the gust is what gives the energy to glide through to the other side. Exiting the jibe still going off the wind made it possible to not only be more consistent but make a few super light air jibes. I'm also finding it interesting how much I can control ride height in the glide phase by subtle weight shifts and not depending on the rig. Spotting the exit is imperative though or it's easy to lose track of where your exit is or how high/low you are.

I'm glad everyone had a great and safe time. Hope we are all on the water again soon!