Just watched the recent footage of Mike Pedigo going down hard on a white water hit. Watching someone with Mike’s skill level, still have bad luck, and resulting in serious injury motivated me to be a little more cautious, or at least preventative, when on the water.
Anyone have a recommendation for an impact vest for prone foiling?
Check out the Follow Vid vest. Extremely lightweight and minimal, but it has a full padding layer including the sides. It is very low profile and the padding is not “structured” (some of the foil specific impact vests have harder panels) but I find it is the best balance between protection and freedom of movement that I’ve found.
For surfing, I think the wake vests are probably the best option. Winging and kiting vests are meant to be worn with a harness and don’t have protection below the ribs.
Evo.com has them on sale for $90 right now.
Cheers
Thanks for the recommendation
I have the mystic star vest in bright green for winging way out. It’s pretty slim. I bet it would be good for that.
Anybody want to analyze what went wrong in this clip? Not making fun of the fall, just trying to see how to better complete the turn. As always I’ll fully admit Mike is a way better foiler than I am.
Looks like he tried to do a slash in the pocket. He’s towing though, maybe better served by going out on the shoulder further since he should have plenty of speed to do that. This would’ve allowed him to draw the arc of the turn out more, giving him a better view of what he was coming back to hit.
Then when he goes into the white water, he goes sideways into it. If he had gone more vertical it would’ve kept the foil more perpendicular to the white water and therefore easier to control? Going sideways into the white water also keeps you in the white water for a long time, so it’s super unstable in ways you can’t predict.
Looks like he was halfway between two turns and never fully committed to one of the other and that’s what took him down.
Heal up fast Mike!
Limited sizes available right now but the Sooruz surf vest is perfect for prone. More sizes available in June. Feel free to pm me with any questions. Ignore the link seo language it’s bugging out, this is not a wing vest haha
For that that have experience wearing vests in the surf, do the vest have enough floatation to affect duck diving or staying under the power of the waves?
This has always been a hang up for me.
I wear a Vaikoba PFD when I tow foil which then doubles as an impact vest.
I tried wearing the PFD prone foiling for a couple sessions to make it easier to paddle around on a 27L foilboard. Paddling out to the lineup was easier with the PFD and since it’s not a USGA life vest, duck diving was not a problem, but the waves were only WH with occasional CH sets. However, paddling to catch a wave seemed a little more difficult. The extra drag from the PFD probably slowed down my acceleration while paddling into a wave.
I gave up on wearing the PFD during prone sessions.
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After I broke my ribs surfing I bought the EVO shield, you wear it under your wetsuit with works great for protecting your ribs and molds to your body.