I’m working on a theory of going fast, not because I am particularly fast, but because I haven’t seen another guide and want to start creating a vocabulary around how to go fast. I did have a breakthrough speed wise, and thought about what was involved.
There is a lot in there, please feel free to comment directly if you have something to add, either there or here.
AI Summary below
Going fast is more than just cardio and pumping: it requires careful reading of conditions and a foil setup you are comfortable on .
big foils can be easier to manage but limit top speed
smaller foils can unlock higher performance, but greater risk of stalling or falling, and falls will hugely slow your overall times
On faster foils, pumping and forward momentum are crucial for going between bumps (“diamonds”) and avoiding dead zones (“traps”).
Mistakes typically happen in two ways: attacking a bump that’s too big and stalling, or drifting into a dead zone without enough speed to escape.
Paddle-pumping and cutting back aggressively are useful skills.
Staying on foil is faster than risking multiple falls with a smaller foil.
Exactly, and this proved to be MUCH harder than I anticipated. When you’re cruising, dropping off foil or having the odd fall doesn’t really register, but turns out it happens way more than is useful if you try and go fast.
Why are you trying to go fast? When people first started “downwinding” the point was “it’s so pure and free and I’m so connected to the waves and it’s the purest form of foiling…” Then all of the sudden there were “downwind races” which I didn’t understand at the time and still don’t.
If you want to go FAST you need more power, from a wing or kite or something that will give you more forward drive than the waves will. Waves just get in the way if you’re actually trying to go fast. If you want to ride waves unencumbered by extra gear, just ride and don’t worry about speed.
I think the most useful thing you say is maintaining high average speeds which is obviously the fastest way from point A to point B. This is true in most every type of racing.
The point is to not fall off foil. If you can’t do this, then riding speed really doesn’t matter at all.
Try going fast sometime, connecting the dots aka efficiently putting together a fast avg speed km is a really fun game to play right along side cranking turns. etc. etc. etc.
this isn’t a clear comment at all, but appreciate the contribution!
people race literally anything that moves, very few exceptions
In good faith, I’m guessing you aren’t aware at all of what the content of the blog post was describing,but here is a video that demonstrates a downwind race (intuitively not wing/kite powered, for now!)
Yes, it’s crazy difficult, requires intense concentration, high skill level, perfect foil control. Going fast is the result, but not necessarily the objective
When people talk about DW speed they seem to be talking about the time to go 1 km as per a GPS track (correct me if I’m mistaken).
This seems a little bit pointless to me as you aren’t measuring VMG, just velocity. Someone doing big looping S turns will be racking up 1.5 km of GPS track per 1 km of VMG.
I know it’s just way easier to do it that way but shouldn’t people be focused on speed from point A to point B and not speed over the course you took to get from A to B?
Yes, you are correct, which is why you have a race, and a leaderboard. I had something to the effect of your point in the blog, but seems like it was lost in the edit.
The “I can do 2min splits” is a bit arbitrary, I do mention something to this effect here but more about currents than VMG
It’s only hypocritical if you thought it was a monolith initially.
I find that downwind paddle foil with a “racing” mindset vs a “stay on foil- and have max fun” to not be that different. Overtaking on a nuclear day, developing that spidey sense for where the energy is, and all of the tactics (carves/surfing/pumping) to stay up have so much overlap —- that I dont think that much joy is traded-off to cruise vs race when conditions are good.
