Foil Drive got me downwinding on a 54l board in no time and its awesome. But ultimately I want to DW SUP unassisted. Are people using their FD to learn to DW SUP? Or is there an argument to learn unassisted from the start? I haven’t found much FD DW SUP content/advice out there aside from FD sponsored media.
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it’s been an interesting topic of discussion with some friend lately learning SUP DW vs parawing DW, seems like there’s pros and cons to each method. FD and parawing you’re getting out and learning to read the bumps faster with the pro/con depending how you look at it of having a crutch to lean on when you need power. On the SUP side of the debate not having the ability to power up or motor out of trouble will be a slower learning curve for sure, but you’re forced to learn how to foil in the efficient zones and will promote better technique. If you’re using an FD or parwing only to get up and then not touching it until you come down that’s a different thing and they’re on similar levels. My opinion, it’s all downwinding some journeys may be easier than others, if you’re goal is SUP dw then just get out there and SUP, you’ll need to learn and practice balance, paddle ups and timing anyway. I’m partial to the full SUP struggle, i think yes more challenging to learn but you will learn more and minimize the risks of dead batteries, mechanical failure and inconsitent gusty wind. with a paddle or FD for that, if the wind dies you can still paddle up.
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I’ll add my opinion is from someone who learned SUP dw the hard way, started with a prone background and have never touched a wing or FD before, not for any particular reason just haven’t got there yet. I can’t say how much harder or easier my journey is but when you start cracking the code the hard way it feels really good. ride everything
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I definitely agree. Im so glad I didnt start on a fd. Lots of sitting around but everytime I paddle and attempt to catch a wave analog I really learn alot about the fundamentals of the board, foil, wave. On a fd I would have glazed over all that stuff. I have seen some sup fd guys tho. It does seem to make a tad bit more sense for them since they are already up on their feet.
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This is just a technique to speed up the learning process. you get more reps. with the straight up paddle route conditions need to line up and you need to have a shuttle. so you are just not going to get the opportunities as often as with FD or parawing.
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FD Sup works. Ku talks about it on latest progression project for a moment, but I’ve heard him talk about it more in detail. If your goal is SUP DW, the FD is a tool which will help you get up and going so you can learn to read the bumps. The key will be not falling back to using it when you come down. Ride until failure without grabbing the trigger. Sit down and thinka bout what went wrong and what you could’ve done different. Stand up and motor up again.
There are 2 parts to SUP DW. The paddle up and reading bumps. So it takes you time to learn each part. Learning to paddle properly with good technique and not blowing your shoulder out or injuring your back is super boring and it does take awhile. However, a paddle is probably the best form of foil assist there is. So it’s a worthwhile skill to learn.
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Some interesting discussion with Gwen on the different modes of DW (mostly parawing) here:
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If you already know how to read bumps and can keep yourself going, I actually think that the drag from the FD is going to slow your learning curve on the unassisted SUP. Can you Ace the run you want to do if you’re using FD? If so then I think just go learn how to use your SUP/Paddle.
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Thanks for all the interesting comments and debate. I have some old school dw sup race experience and more recently an obsession with wing foiling upwind and flagging back down. But now the FD has basically eliminated the how-do-i-get-on-foil part and i love the unobstructed vision without a wing. All this has helped reading the bumps. I will definitely keep downwinding with prone FD but I guess there is no way around learning the unassisted dw sup paddle-ups. Parawing would be a good alternative but I am really intent on making the paddle up work.
Must say for me the paddle ups are anything but boring as sugested below, it’s the ultimate challenge and skill to master, once you have it everything else feels like cheating and it will give you confidence in any situation as long as you don’t break your paddle 
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Underrated FD value is motoring upwind in onshore conditions or otherwise tricky angles. 2km upwind in 10min, 2km downwind in ?. You can do this in straight onshore wind, which is good value if you’re a beginner and impossible to DW in.
To get predictable 10km of actual riding downwind in with only 50min of “shuttle” is extremely valuable.
To think of the many many hours spend hiking, shuttling and paddling to get in 10km of actual time on foil. Possibly the first 30-50km of riding downwind was mostly not on foil. Most early SUP runs are just paddling up and failing to stay on foil. Incredibly time-consuming when you factor in shuttle logistics.
Staying on foil in messy ocean is extremely hard, paddling up is extremely hard. To remove the paddle up is definitely easy mode, and will make the paddle up much easier when you do get to it.
This is the most important thing. Never motor. The same issue is why so many wingers can’t pump or read bumps, they just grab the wing whenever they get to speeds near 20km/h and never learn the low end.
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I’ve been setting the lock mode to a couple of seconds…keeps me from cheating myself with the trigger when I’m focusing on improving.
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A lot of good advice already here. I personally think it completely depends on YOU.
If you’re a person who is mentally capable of powering through the struggle, you will learn faster and better by just going out there with a paddle and living the struggle until you get it. It won’t be fun, and it will be frustratingly slow at first, but once you get it, you’ll be on your way and having fun. It may take about a dozen sessions before you have any fun at all.
Conversely, if you want to have fun on the way to learning, go out there with your foildrive and it will absolutely allow you to get downwinding right away and have fun runs. Use the foildrive as a tool that you ween yourself off of by using it less and less over time until you can pop up with minimal assist.
Lastly, if your personality is fleeting, I suggest you don’t use the foildrive. You may quickly decide that there is no point learning to SUP and abandon the project. It does seem a lot more fun to foildrive downwind on a small board rather than paddle up a long board. Not only that you won’t have to have any “shocker” runs, which we all have even after getting good at it. I downwind SUP foil for the challenge, and I think if I ever did use the foildrive I would get spoiled and find there is no real point to paddling up a SUP.
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The SUP dw journey is not for the weak 
another consideration for FD is the safety risk level of the run. One of my “Every Day” dw runs is an 8 mile that puts you around 2-3 or more miles from shore in every direction for the majority of the run and you have to clear a naval weapons base. not saying everything every dw run is that dramatic but in the event of a dead battery or mechanical failure could potentially become catastrophic. In the winter when the wind is cranking temps get well below freezing and I’ve heard from a few people how the foil drives start to act up in those conditions. So for a situation like that I wouldn’t recommend a foil drive for anyone. In the event of a foil issue or broken paddle at least with SUP youre 7-8ft board becomes a prone paddle board to get you back to shore.
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My harbour downwind run is only 4-5km and the naval base at starting point doesn’t have missiles only navy divers training (I hope!). But yeah the dead battery / whatever issue occurring does play on my mind and then having to paddle up to 2 km to shore on a board not great for paddling. The big bull shark I have seen out there would be a great motivator though……
Then again I am looking at that SUP downwind mountain and know it’s a hard one to climb. Easy to pull the throttle trigger……
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I think this is super valid.
FD can be a great tool for learning to read the bumps, but once you learn to read you are way better off without it.
I had maybe ten 5 mile DW runs in with my FD and prone board, so getting a decent feel for bump reading. Getting more and more battery life left with each attempt.
Did my first PW DW recently on a fat door board, no FD, and was amazed at how much better it felt without the pod and FD underneath. Definitely got my longest runs on foil to date, touchdowns can be recovered from, it’s great.
I will be switching out all those FD DW conditions for PW now. Once up on foil, if you can read bumps, it’s way better without FD.
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