I can only answer to my experience.
It was probably after 12 sessions before I actually started having fun.
Yes it can be a pain getting the gear to the water but you will learn techniques that make it better.
I am sorry that we have not came down to CH and sailed with you. It is much more fun to do this sport with others ( and safer too).
I will try to do better.

The wipeouts will decrease pretty quickly. They started decreasing by the 12 session as well.
Dont get me wrong I still take a swim but it usually is because of boat wake or strong winds like yesterday.

I may be wrong but I feel like I progressed much faster with foiling than windsurfing. I can sail more days and for longer. ( 4+ hr. sessions are becoming common ).
(Yesterday was honkin and I still played 2hrs of tennis later)

I find myself going way out of my normal fetches because I can get back upwind without much trouble.

Less gear.
I am pretty much a two sail one board sailor now so not too many decisions to make.
( although yesterday I could have used something a little smaller but those days are rare)
Also...no more dragging a longboard out in those low wind days

Usually I come in with a big smile on my face and more often than not, I am not sore or injured.

I appreciate you sharing you frustrations openly. Maybe I should be the last person to respond since I'm foiling cheerleader #1. But we've all had those days where you get your butt kicked hard or just knocked a big ding in your board and you wonder what your CC statement would have looked like without foiling.

Edit: snipped a bunch of blah, blah. The other guys answered a lot better.

I crashed and burned a bunch the first six months. The next generation of guys cut the learning curve down a whole lot. Easier gear, better knowledge base. Is it worth it? Outside of OBX, can't remember the last time I was on a fin. I still like fins (it's not an anti thing but I can do so much more on a foil. Two boards, four sails (three that rig on 370s) for 6-30

If there's something in particular that seems to be stumping you, let us know.

Short answer, Once I learned to relax a bit in the air it became more fun.

moredownhaul wrote:

Short answer, Once I learned to relax a bit in the air it became more fun.

.......... le sigh. The master of brevity strikes once again.

nitro wrote:

...Man, its hard for me to relax knowing that a spectacular face plant could happen any second!

Wait, that's NOT the point?

My two cents which will be directly contradicted by Langdon. Front straps, yes. Back straps, no. Harness, as you learn to feel comfortable in it. Full disclosure: You will get yanked over a few times. But you will get more consistent mast base pressure and steadier flights as you sheet in and out. At first it will feel odd and you'll have trouble getting the hook to stay in as you'll be so upright. Some people even move to one size smaller because of this. You may also nudge the lines forward for a bit as you'll be putting less pressure on the sail than normal sailing (that low drag thing). My lines are back to regular length and placement and with big sails I hang hard down on the harness to keep the board down.

Front straps: loosish. You want your foot to come out easily. Don't jam your foot all the way in nor do you want them tight around the toes. The risk is when you fall forward on to the sail and the board wants doesn't want to flip over while your foot is stuck in it. Like wave sailing, you want to make sure your foot can come out. Always, always hold on to the boom as that's the one thing that keeps you and the foil on opposite sides of the board. If you decide to go strapless, make absolute sure that your front foot is the same place it would be with straps. If it's any more forward, you'll struggle to get it to fly and by the time you yank the board up, it'll want to go to the moon.

There's no height requirement when foiling. Flying six inches high and skipping off the chop is fully acceptable. Ignore all the magazine/instagram shots of someone foiling three feet off the water. Do move to the long mast as soon as you can. This is all to help prevent ventilations where most of the "fun" happens. As Windlord once said: fly at the height you don't mind falling from. As your confidence grows, you'll fly a bit higher.

FML - another one of my epistles. Alan will say all this with a nod of the head like my wife's uncle bidding at a livestock auction.

I agree with almost everything Webguy said.

Front straps yes.
Call Britt at NB and ask him about Slingshot Surf footstraps instead of regular footstraps.
I really like mine and I have two extra you can use if you need to try before you buy.

I have not had my foot get hung up ot twisted yet

Harness not yet.

It does not take much for the I76 to fly so you should not be feeling a lot of sail pressure when you are in flight.

I would agree with Webguy on the harness later on but not yet . Get a half dozen more sessions then add the harness if you wish.

I definitely agree on the low level flight ( you and I discussed this at Hatteras) if you are above the wave tops that is good enough.

I agree on the long mast...reduces the occurances of the gurgling sound which then reduces the big splashes

Edit
I would recommend getting a cammed sail.
I was against this at first but on low wind days it sure makes it easier

I’m just using front straps and harness off and on.

+1 for cam sails, power is more constant.
Although I did use a 20yr old Retro 5.5 Sunday that felt pretty stable.

I think "when does it become fun?" is the wrong question. I have written an essay explaining why we do foilsport.

“FUN” is not the goal of windsport, and most particularly not the goal of foilsport. The goal is much higher, and costs a lot more. Fun is really too easy. Anybody can have fun eating chocolate cake, or watching reruns of “The Big Bang Theory.” Not everybody can do foilsport. It is in doing it for its challenge that we do it – fun is not any part in it. Think of it this way – when they asked Sir Edmund Hilary why he climbed Mount Everest, he didn’t say “because it is FUN”, no he said “because it is THERE.” He knew FUN comes and goes, but the mountain will always be THERE. If President Kennedy said “We chose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is FUN” we would have never gotten there. We would have quit the first time something that was not fun happened. Captain Ahab never said to the white whale “From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned whale when I kill thee it will be so effing FUN.” We do foilsport because it is THERE, not because it is fun.

Hopefully that will encourage all who are struggling as much as it does me. (PS It's hard to have fun when you are gasping for air after pumping for 5 minutes trying to get above the water. I'm waiting for when that part gets better.)

Footstrap comparison... SS surf straps vs Dakine

I had the same concern about hurting my ankles / bones in my feet.

I can roll my foot in the Slingshot strap if necessary and I can fall forward in the strap and still pull my foot out even with booties on. Although some booties ( Superfreaks ) want to hang a little more.

The padding on the SS is much thicker and softer.
than the Dakine.
You can still lift the windward rail against the padding but it has enough give to allow you to escape.
I have been ejected when plowing into a wave face and I know my foot was shoved way in at the time of impact and still was fine.

Randy wrote:

I think "when does it become fun?" is the wrong question. I have written an essay explaining why we do foilsport. ....

When I got my foil, I asked Chris Radkowski, the F4 guy, “so how do you do it?” He just said “oh you’re gonna get wet a lot”. Sho nuf, I might gave crashed more than everybody else here combined, but I was pretty well hooked the first time it went quiet. I reckoned this was the perfect thing for my aging joints but quickly discovered it was SO dynamic, managing the ride height, that it’s way more tiring than a dialed in short board session. Still, it’s all I want to do... I don’t even have a longboard right now. Hell hath frozen over.

Learning to hang glide was the same- ten second flight on the training hill, ten minute trudge back up the hill, then ten minutes to rest and contemplate what is about to happen... rinse and repeat dozens of times. But you are freaking FLYING!! and it’s SO worth it. (It’s a lot easier to learn nowadays).

Gotta crawl before you walk. But it will click pretty soon and once you get it, you got it.

I also think it depends a lot on your expectations and how you define "having fun". (I know, Webguy will be saying "look at who is saying that..." guilty as charged!). And I suspect that, being proficient at windsurfing -which I am not, thus "suspect"- could raise the bar and actually work against one.

Case in point: I have been skiing advanced to expert slopes for over 20 yrs and have also been a pretty good x-country skier. 17 yrs ago, when my son was just learning to ski at age 4, I thought "this would be a good opportunity to learn telemark skiing - won't get bored skiing with him in green slopes and I will gain a new skill/sport along with him". Well, fast forward a year from then and my son was already having fun on advanced slopes with my wife and friends and I am stuck in blue slopes, falling a lot more times than any of them. Long story short, it didn't take long for me to ditch the telemark ski gear that I invested in and back to regular downhill skiing for "real fun".

I got into foiling 9 months after ever getting on a windsurf board -which coincidentally was 9 months ago. I was never proficient at windsurfing - quite far from it actually- and am not proficient at foiling either; still looking for that "relaxed a bit in the air" state. Still, for whatever reason, my expectations didn't match my progress -still doesn't- and I almost got to the same point with foiling a couple months ago - except that I didn't have any other wind sport to fall back into, so trying to stick with it after a short break and much soul searching as well as talking through with webguy.

What's my point (if I have one?)? IMHO, this: If an experienced windsurfer gets into foiling expecting to be comfortably having long flights high above water in a few sessions, stop falling every hr or so, start jibes in the air and such, defining "having fun" to start once that state is reached - I think that could be a challenge for most and it could be tempting to ditch the foil and go back to windsurfing.

For me, going to windsurfing is not going to produce any different result; so it's either stick with foiling or ditch the entire investment in windsurfing, which I am too deep in now!

My input here is likely to be irrelevant, given that my perspective on the sport of windsurfing is rather out of line with conventional wisdom, but one word in Hamdi's post really stood out for me as being very insightful. That word - expectations.

With no one to advise on or recommend it, besides Andy Brandt, I decided to try longboard foiling. My reasoning was pretty simple. I very much enjoy shortboard and longboard windsurfing, and so far at least, I have no inclination to add a third discipline with all that entails, or to give up one or both to become a "windfoiler".

The kit I am using is heavy and a general pain logistically. Total board, foil, and rig weight probably around 60 lb, and I can't just pick it up and pop in and out of the water and come in with a dry sail as is my wont. That said, I have done about 8 sessions and had a lot of fun from day one. I have not found it to be terribly difficult or frustrating. This is in large part due to that expectations factor. Simply put, when I'm not "flying" (last time I'ill use that word}, I'm not bumming. If I had a motto, it would be maybe " I've sailed 'fast' and I've sailed 'slow' and it's all good." Not that this is critical to my pleasure, but even when the board is not completely free from the water, it goes faster than it would otherwise. I can cruise upwind and down in any wind condition, and foil up as conditions arise.

I'm also using an SS 76 wing, with a 24' mast which I know is a limiting factor, but it's working well for me so far. When I'm on the foil I'm highly focused on control beyond any other considerations. Thus far I've only had 2 breech crashes and every time I go out, I feel like my control is improving. I sailed Sunday in some very challenging conditions and my main thought afterwards was how much easier it would be in a more constant wind condition. Alas,"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride" as my mother would say.

Anyway, as I said, probably irrelevant, but there it is. Fair winds.

cp wrote:

My input here is likely to be irrelevant,....

Very relevant and well put.

webguy wrote:

cp wrote:

My input here is likely to be irrelevant,....

Very relevant and well put.

I am also so glad to hear that you're enjoying longboard foiling and the gear.is working out for you.