Thats a really nice clip. I find the challenge when trying to take a hard angle like this (actually nowhere close to this, but hard angle relative to my skill which is a small fraction of his), is that the wave energy is running with the foil, so you lose a lot of lift going into the turn. When I pivot and come back down the wave I get the energy coming over the foil again and a sudden burst of lift. Basically, attempting this type of maneuver at my low skill level, its challenging to keep controlled height make it look smooth like he does given the lift in the foil changes pretty suddenly through the turn (if that makes any sense). I actually have a video of me attempting something similar and getting bucked on the drop, but its almost too embarrassing to share.
Re: the Gordon Harrison clip - that guy knows his foil. Unreal glide and awareness.
he went straight for at least 15s which is the limit of my attention span
wiggles for days
yes this is why the backhand turns are so hard, it’s basically impossible to deal with the energy boost on backhand as your body can’t adjust / absorb in the same way… which is why you have two options.
what you describe where you get too much speed and get a boost
I had a look, definitely rips. The same or similar style as Oskar in my opinion, hard setup and unload. I watched this clip which I think makes my point, foilers actively avoid doing backhand turns, they will not hit backhand sections much. The clip opens with a left and an OK turn, but that’s it. The one good left he has a perfect lip section but feinted away from it instead of whacking it with something:
3ft9 board, 80cm mast, 140xs tail(fuse length is important), fone sk8 750, i weigh 212lbs. My mast is as far back in the tracks as possible. This makes pumping hard, but carving much much easier, as the front foot pressure keeps the wing from gaining height during turns, and fighting the water movement upwards on the wave itself.
Remember you need a semi-steep section to do this.
Takeoff and look down the line, ride the line up to the top portion of the wave. LOOK with your head back to where you just took off. Keep your weight entirely on your front foot at all times. Lean and press HARD like you are falling against a wall, towards where you just took off….the back of your board will eventually slide and follow your cutback using the drive of the foil/speed of the foil.
Another way is if you are going fast you use the foils speed instead. you need bottom turn and then once at top just lean back like before but don’t sink the front wing as much, keep 80% weight on front foot and you’ll fly back around.
for reference, the longer version of the above clip Tom clip. I think this is the longest unedited backhand foil footage of a sponsored rider on the internet, and the timestamp is possibly first back to back backhand wave I’ve seen (were they didn’t just use the backhand wave to get to another forehand wave)
I love this one. Back hand is actually my preferred turn/wave.( regular stance and love lefts.)
I think making the hard bottom turn and unweighting the foil at the top to whip it around is so fun. Then basically just a rock over into a frontside to setup another hard backside.
