Feeling like I’m stuck in another plateau on my dw journey and curious any tips / tricks from anyone who has experienced what I’m going through. For background, I’m About 7 months, a few hundred hours and a few hundred miles into my Dw journey. I’ve been mostly on short period bay runs maxing out at 3-4 second periods and having this issue in the bay too but not nearly as bad. Our New Jersey wind is now trending south for the season and bay runs are shut down, ocean runs are on. The longer the period and the lighter the wind the more problems I seem to have, obviously these conditions are more challenging and I’m putting in ridiculous hours so it will come around at some point.
Did about 20miles on the code 860r yesterday in roughly 3-4ft @ 5-6 seconds in the ocean, wind averaging about 15mph. Our bumps do bend toward the beach so a lot of my time is looking over my shoulder when I peel out and reconnect heel side. I have no issues paddling up, those conditions I had to wait longer for a good steep bump but once one comes I’m up and out. It seems like no matter what I do, I keep getting lost. I can lock into bumps and follow them for a while, but when they start to outrun me and I need to peel off for another, if there isn’t a good bump close by I feel like I’m getting lost in a desert searching until I run out of gas and come down. When the bumps are good I average usually anywhere from 5-10 minutes before either wiping out or making a mistake and coming down.
I can’t seem to figure out what I’m doing wrong, bump goes out from under me and I peel out and pump across the tops where I can gain a little boost until either a good one comes through or more often than not I run out of gas and come down. I just can’t seem to find that energy that everyone is capitalizing on with these lighter conditions and the energy that is readily available is moving so fast that it’s hard to peel out and connect into without using my paddle and gassing out. I’m exerting a ton of unnecessary energy and coming down too much. If the wind picks up in the 20mph+ range I have steep bumps and no problems, what gives?
I hate suggesting it, but try a 770r, or a smaller tail to add speed. Maybe you just need to use a faster foil for the ocean. The bumps move faster out there and if you are fine paddling up, then you can move to a smaller foil most likely.
And on the other hand. Try a larger foil. You either need to use only the fast swell, or only the wind chop and ignore the swell. Those conditions sound like you can’t do both.
Yeah that’s something I had thought about but knowing it’s possible to do it on larger foils seems like putting a bandaid on the problem, the 860 is so fast it can more than handle conditions like those. In short period light conditions I’m going to spend more time on the 1300s working it out and practicing peeling out and reconnecting as much as possible
The glide isn’t so much the issue, generally unless I’m turning hard or going critically fast my feet stay pretty tight together for efficiency, but your description of traps nailed it on the head. I tend to get caught in those zones that I can’t make sense of and seem to be inevitably losing momentum or going uphill through them. Those times to pump and go forward like your diagram tend to turn into traps for me quite a bit too
So I’m no expert, but I can typically stay up “as long as I want” now on out local runs between 4-10 miles. I’ve always been on more of a HA surf foil whereas all the guys here are on the Code R’s, so my technique is pretty different. I’m always cutting out, and just traversing offshore-ward.
My breakthroughs have came from 2 main things:
If I’m working hard, I’m doing it wrong. There’s PLENTY of energy out in days like you’re describing so anytime I’m straining, that’s a quick indication that I’m forcing it instead of taking what’s given. IMHO unless you’re trying to go as fast as possible, DWing should not be a pumpfest.
When I peel off, I’m almost pumping upwind (really crosswind) to get to the next bump as quickly as possible. If my pump feels squishy, I’m going with the flow too much and need to veer more upwind until I get that solid pump feel. This has helped so much as another bump is always there, so I try to close the distance by going towards it.
The other main thing that’s helped a lot is mast height. On a thick SUP it can feel like you’re high and you’re on the lower third. I always get high as possible when I know I’m getting out of good power and have to pump. And I typically only pump up to stay high and glide, not pump for drive.
Yeah I think the only true intermediate to advanced unlock is not getting trapped (on a race foil that is). I think this is one of the more subtle things that will take repetition and drills to improve on.
I think the solution is momentum and very efficienct pumping. My suspicion is that once you are slowing down and thinking you may be trapped, it is probably too late. The stronger the conditions and the more overfoiled you are, the less of an issue this is.
Fwiw, I never had an issue getting trapped when I was riding surf foils, it only became apparent when I started riding AR > 14 foils where I couldn’t pump out of traps.
I think you will not be able to go fast on a surf foil, but you’ll possibly have more fun
This is super helpful “failsafe” when you’re not sure what to do.
Lots of good points here thanks guys. Particularly I think making note to cut harder upwind when peeling out to close that gap may be a big benefit. Those traps really come out of nowhere and by the time I start loosing that momentum it’s definitely already too late. I think a more upwind pump angle in some of those situations when possible could start helping piece it together. I’m going to start riding some bigger foils again so that I’m forced to peal out and navigate these situations more frequently and with better low end to hopefully succeed
Hey man, I ride pretty much the same conditions down here in FL quite a lot, and split time between the 860/770 about 80% of the time. 1075 when things are truly shit.
In ocean conditions with the primary cross onshore swell mixed with wind bumps, it can be tempting to think the only energy is on the onshore swells.
The trick IMO is to see the wind bumps that are moving almost straight downwind, these will get crossed by the stronger onshore swell and look like the disappear, but if you’re high on your mast and trust that it will re-appear, you can go right over the big swell with almost no effort and continue to follow the secondary bump. Once you can do this, I believe it gets a lot easier to maintain your speed in between the bigger more obvious bumps.
That being said the overall approach for mixed directions you describe, ride the more powerful onshore swell slightly in to gain the most speed, staying high here is important. As you’re speed comes up you can start to “fade” more offshore and kind of wrap around the face and ride more parallel to shore, almost like you are riding the face of a wave. At some point this will run out and the swell will pass you, that’s when you stay high and give some good pumps as @Matt describes well in no mans land, this is where I try to find those 2ndary wind bumps moving straight downwind. Basically stay with these as long as you can maintain speed, or another one of those onshore faster swell presents itself as an opportunity to get your speed back up.
In moments of pure panic, @mgudwin is spot on to cut harder than you think you need to so the energy gets to you quicker. I ride with him all the time so can vouch he know’s what he’s talking about even if we ride very differently haha.
Regarding suggestion of 770R, I definitely disagree based on the issue you are describing. If you struggle to maintain speed in between the ocean swells the smaller wings will only punish your technique. However, I do think once you have the technique down, a smaller wing can be easier, as long as you do everything right.
Hope this helps!
*Last thing about the R’s I think being high on the mast is super important with them, Its a totally different feel and ride if your on the bottom 25% of the mast, move those feet back and stay high!
Also I’ll add that most of my experience is on the unifoil evolutions. After recently switching to code the 860 is the only high aspect wing that I have, I wanted to have something in the toolbox for when it’s really moving and I’m constantly overfoiled. In the past riding larger foils like the evo175 and 205, I’ve found myself working harder at times when I can’t keep up with the bumps than I would say on the 155. In hindsight I think i just wasn’t properly capitalizing on efficiency. I have a few S series foils from code, 1300, 1130 and 980 so those I will be trying out as well comparing in different conditions on multi run days to see if I have a higher success rate. Sometimes it just feels like the swell is moving too fast for them
So more or less in situations when the bump disappears trust what the foil is telling you over what you’re seeing, if the energy’s already there it should come back. This feels like a mental block that I have in times where I feel like I’m going to run into an uphill. I’m gonna have to really study some dw videos and pay close attention to the lines and moves guys are taking
Shameless plug, these are my beginner tips you’re probably well past, but someone else may find it useful, or you may see something here you didn’t notice before:
I definitely have changed my tactics since this though, may want to try and make another video. I don’t pump paddle anymore really, and if I’m straining, I just come off foil and regroup.
I was also on the Uni Evos, although now I only ride a 7’x100L dragonfly and 790 Atlas and try to surf my brains out DW.
I think is THE most important thing (I think this was in the original blog post, will need to add!) When things get confused, it’s almost better to ignore what you are seeing, and just focus on what you were feeling. If you were on a bump, and you suddenly can’t see it, the energy is still there and you can glide it for way longer than your eyes are telling you. This was something that I got better at, and the glide of a fast oil helps.
This is also so incredibly critical. The mast as a % of drag on a 770 (in my case 750) is much higher. Being low on the mast vs being high is probably double the effective drag.
Sometimes I get so caught up cutting in one direction, often getting lost and over pumping but then I turn around and head the other way where I often find the energy was right there behind me.
