Try behind a boat or jet ski first to get the feel for it, if you can. Having the rope to catch and balance yourself with makes things way easier. It’s a great way to ease into foiling as you limit risk and increase success of flying.
Go to a deep water spot with small waves and no one out. Really this is the best option. It’s dangerous to be around people and it can be dangerous to you and the safety of your foil if you go into shallow waters. More water, more room for depth of foil and most likely less aggressive waves of they’re small. Smaller the more flatter the waves, the better.
Front foot needs to be directly over the stringer. This is a little unusual for a surfer because our front foot is usually always off center but in order to stabilize yourself you’ll need both feet directly in the center of the board -over the stringer. This is going to help prevent the board from falling to one side and you falling into the foil -potentially.
Keep your weight centered. No toe or heal weight. It’s not like surfing where you’re rolling onto heals and toes to turn the board. Doing this on the foil will flip the board on its side and have the foil coming up at you. You want to set your line, position your feet correctly and then get up to flying once you do, eliminating any side to side weight shift. Only forward and backward weight shift.
Take it slowly. Don’t try and get up to flying immediately. Get a feel for the lift and the reaction of the foil from the weight shifting. Once you do, you can play around more with getting higher and higher. See first to just fly it above the water consistently before lifting anymore.
SUP foil is the new popularity in watersport. Try it if you want!
