Searched the forum but was afraid this quite special question may get lost in the big paddle up topic.
I know the 4 videos from Jeremy, Balz and Damien from nearly 4 years ago, but is there anybody else who invested time into getting up this way. The motivation? Last year I was parawing - wakethiefing as often on our lakes and when the wind dropped to zero, I was with some friends on the wrong side of the lake. I borrowed a paddle from a friend just to get up, pumped out to reach a wake that brought me home. Since then I asked myself, what’s next time, when there is no paddle available for the start? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to pop up on the foil anytime when needed, without Paddle?
I started one month ago with the need of 6 paddle strokes, my calculation was, every month one less to arrive at my goal. The calculation went wrong, actually I already had two tries with just 2 paddle strokes. Using an 6’6 iDW-board with a F-one JAM 1600 cm² as monofoil for my 64 kg.
Thank You and yes, expect there are more guys outside.
And yes this is one of the 4 videos I mentioned, apart from those from Jeremy and Balz from 2022, did I missed further?
What the videos have in common, they all seem to use extremely big foils as GO 2800 cm² and Leviathan 2400 cm² to show that this manoeuvre is basicly possible, which is cool, … but then?
What I have in mind is to make a real ability for parawinging in complex low wind / wakethiefing spots out of it. That’s why I keep trying with my smaller 1600 cm² maybe in the future even 1400 cm² (then with a hardboard for sure) to still also match with the low wind waves and wakes we have.
Not sure its worth the energy bars you will need to get going. Gwen is on sabfoil 1750 in those videos and even if you can do it with slightly smaller foils, not sure its worth the energy…?!
I know it’s not the answer you’re looking for but strap a paddle to your back. You should be able to take any adjustable and a bicycle inner tube as a harness.
You should do this for sure, at the worst it will make you extremely good at paddling up in light wind. Very good cross training.
And progression.
How viable it will be as a technique on it’s own, I don’t know.
In wind there are bumps, and they will pretty much entirely dictate how you can paddle (or light wind PW) or in your case pump onto foil and I think you will find bump sensitivity more valuable than a no-paddle-pump skill, but I definitely see value in learning it as a complement to feeling the push of bumps and general skill building.
If you can balance in bumps without paddle or movement from parawing, and get the board moving, and get a good bump, you will definitely be able to get a board onto foil, even a smaller foil than you’re trying. But there are a few Ifs in there
I’ve only ever seen it done with massive foils by top pumpers (like Gwen who is the rider in Damien’s videos) so I would consider it more of a party trick than useful skill.
It seems like the difficulty might decrease with the foil speed relative to the water. I would love to see how many pumps it would take to do the pop up if instead of going from rest, he would paddle as hard as he could as in paddling for a wave, and then standing up on the board and pumping. It might unlock slightly smaller foils!
I remember seeing a video of a french guy prone paddling (no fins, no hand paddles) into windswell and downwinding on a Gong foil, i can’t find the video but I remember the foil was the XS size or something ridiculous like that.
Fully agree with Matt, even if one exercise appears to be a dead end, the combination of actually, (para)winging and (Paddle) pump ups, feels like a very valuable cross training.
What You’re saying, here is the latest party trick from Gwen (thank You for clarifying his name)
(sorry problem to link Gwen YT/short)
But on the same time it shows that the best riders, here likely with the Levithan BB 1350 with 1850 cm², have still some energy reserve to carry another board presenting a big handicap. So not to much doubt he could also go with a smaller foil and a small parawing bag instead.
And when we remember about 6 years ago, paddle ups have also been a sort of party trick, which just a very few riders have been able to do, while today thousands can with more suitable material. So to me not too much imagination necessary that there is the possibility it could go the same way with pump ups.
Paddling up in flat water is still a party trick. Just because a lot of people can do it doesn’t change that.
Paddling up in flat water has very little relevance to paddling up in bumps. You’ll notice none of these guys who can do it try to paddle up in bumps without a paddle. They do it in perfectly flat water.
Well different perspective, for Gwen’s last one I definitely agree with the party trick.
For myself, flat paddle ups always have been and likely pump ups will be:
a great workout and balance training
an occasion to test new foil setups, when there is no wind / waves
and most important: The requirement for wakethiefing, which is nearly 20 % of my total waveriding, last try today, just that the captain was not on full throttle ended the joy to early
I was not sure to link a video, as some of my last post has been flagged as spam by whoever. Maybe it is my English that I missed some of the forum rules? So next try, here are now already two videos, as I wanted to see if I can do it also in full flat conditions:
And about monofoiling I don’t want to start an off-topic in here, as anyway I have written a lot in kiteforum about it during the last 10 years. Just if You want to open a new topic in progression forum for mono foiling I will comment that for sure, or maybe there is already one?
The false positives on flagging is quite high, not to worry.
That is very cool, maybe I’m not close to this technique and what is possible but I am I impressed! And the board! I had the impression they were quite useless for release which this disproves to some extent? Maybe it’s the very slow speed that makes it work
Yes I’ve read your posts there, no worries
Keep going, it would be worth seeing where the limit is and where hard board comes in
yes the slow speeds are quite relevant. Inflatables DW shapes are IMO not that bad in displacement hull speed, but as iDW are by shape less compatible with tear-off edges, they become worse when you reach gliding speed before the foil gives sufficient support. So for my 64 kg and my 1400-1600 cm² pumpfoils the 6’6 it is all fine. But I would not expect to have fun to paddle my 1000 cm² EagleX DW Foil, while it is still easy to be started with a parawing.
As they have been concerns about spending all energy bars to get up, surprisingly on none of the pump ups I had been completely exhausted. There have always been enough in the battery to easily pump at minimum another 30 sec, so enough to catch a wake. I had more a bit stability problems, but this was expectable at low speed on a high chambered monofoil with nothing in the hand to stabilize yourself, but also no real problem. (more in the “training wheels” vs. monofoil topic)
The only and last challenge is to gain those at minimum 90% reliability for wakethiefing, actually at just 30% in the flat and 50% with wave support, but also just a matter of exercises and time to get there.
Also pumped up now with the little external ballast called parawing in the bag. No real difference as expected, only important to stabilize the bag, what I did with two fishing lines just slide in the outer sewing of the bag. As a bag that starts to shake in its own rhythm against your rear is the last thing you need during the pump up.
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