Today had first session on my LF happy foil and SS alien air board at Squamish. By the end of the day I was able to ride upwind. Downwind was way harder and scary. One problem I had is that kite wanted to fall down and I had to fly it up which generates even more power. I had 8m Naish pivot. Never had that problem on tt or surfboard. Is it because I was too overpowered or pivot doesn't drift good enough.
If you ride right at the kite with any board, there's always the challenge of keeping tension in the lines so it doesn't backstall. This is made worse foiling because riders tend to have smaller kites than you might use with TT. The wave style kites will drift better backwards, more high aspect kites you need to keep actively flying, either sining, figure 8s, or a lot of people loop their kites while riding downwind.
This may be more difficult on a foil, as once you lose line tension, you no longer have the bar to lean against ... so you find yourself standing a platform 2 feet up, attempting to balance it while looping a kite ... the juggling unicycle rider.
With more practice, you'll find the happy medium point, where you are keeping the kite active enough, but without so much power that it is pulling you off your feet. It is a bit like wave riding with a kite, you have to plan ahead for where to turn the kite so that it is going the way it needs to be with the right amount, but 3-5 seconds before you need it.
Btw, when I read "downwind is scary" I thought you may have been talking about thing you will soon learn: being overpowered, gaining speed, and out of control acceleration. That's a fun learning moment too.
Scary to go downwind, because as you said: it's accelerates uncontrollable. Every time I did a touchdown I crashed. Will try to go strapless next time. Was using front strap last time. I hope it's not going to be too much struggle for water starts.
Day 4 - filling better going downwind. Lower wind up to gusts 20kn and flat water makes huge difference, while learning. Today had no problem keeping kite high. It's really was useful tip. Bar out, kite high when need more power, just bring bar in. Had great day, really enjoy it.
Unfortunately decided to put front strap back. Decided to learn riding downwind and toe side first.
Still has problem riding toe side. Did couple touchdown jibes, one full foiling heal to toe transition.
Having a front strap is fine, especially while learning. Unless you're into fancy footwork, strapless foiling is half pointless IMHO.
Toeside riding: really opens up a lot of fun, as carving swells downwind requires effortless heelside/toeside turns back and forth. I find toeside riding is actually more comfortable in some situations, such as riding out through waves/swells. My initial foil rides were behind a boat, so toeside riding came immediately, versus riding goofy (right foot forward; as water starting wrong foot forward behind boat is a challenge). And then because toeside riding was so easy for me, I didn't invest the time to learn to ride goofy for quite a while -- so there's a word of warning, take the time to get comfortable riding with your non-dominant foot forward while still in learning stage, as once you're a competent rider it's harder to go back later.
Went to Hood River and had 2 good foiling sessions. Toe side riding getting better. Was able to do few foiling jibes, may be half stap helped. Lots of transitions. One of the day I was using 5m, it was so light mostly no bar pressure, comparing to the same 8m Pivot . The other thing that I found is that pumping a foil helps a lot to get higher speed, fill the foil better and it's very cool filling, also it produces similar sound as I go downwind.
Last week on Aug 10 , when Ozone had demo day. I hit my foil multiple times. It wasn't ground (was high tide) and I didn't see any debris on top of the water. I even lost balance twice and fell off the board. Happen at least 5 times. I even had to come back, to check the foil, because I had a feeling of loosing wing. Is it fish or just submerged logs?
Yes, today was obvious it was fish. More fish than last week. It was jumping and I saw few in a water. More higher upwind on a border between cold/river and warm/blue water.
One windsurfing friend even catapulted and damaged a board.