okay flight school lesson 1 this video
is gonna coach you through mainly taking
off, off the wind and going in a straight
line off the wind and taking off upwind
and going a straight line upwind which
are the two rudimentary components of
flight. I'm gonna be walking you through
these thirty-eight second clips in ultra
slow motion because a lot of stuff goes
on really quickly
essentially the programming for the
technique happens so fast you can see
part of it but not all of it and if
you're missing you know any of the parts
and you're not getting the whole you're
not getting the full picture so breaking
down footage really slowly is critical.
okay so off the wind takeoffs are pretty
much the entry-level on this stuff just
because it seems easier to chase
apparent wind going on a reach curving
into downwind you're able to bear off
a little bit and use that as yet another
way to ease and keep the boat out from
underneath you. it's definitely how I
learned how to foil and it's not
necessarily the most comfortable but
it's the most filled toolbox you're
gonna have available for taking off when
you don't know exactly what's going on
so I'm gonna walk you through the
setup here. off the bat first of all
obviously be going in a straight line so
what I'm doing right now get your feet
into the hiking straps the far hiking
strap is often more comfortable in this
case I'm kind of going for speed so I'm
using the near hiking strap and
droop hiking off the side. what's
essential is don't just sit in the
middle of the boat, I mean you do need to
hike um you need stability and you can't
do that without hiking. you're gonna
need to maintain basically a set hiking
position so you've got stability in play
don't expect to be able to hike to both
flat or really do anything
kinetically with your body that isn't at
the least ancillary. okay so I'm sitting
on the second pad here and I'm beginning
to pump a little bit with the mainsheet
just to build speed, I'm just flying a
hull a little bit which in takeoff is
okay but you will need to get the hull
underneath you ultimately here I'm
starting to take off and you're gonna
see me do a big ease and a bear off
just to stop the boat from healing over
to leeward. and there we go now it's
rolling over a little bit to weather and
that's where you want it because if
you're heeling over to leeward you don't
really have much control you're sort of
at the mercy of the next puff whereas
you're heeled over to weather even
slightly you have the initiative the
boat is sort of automatically rolling
over on top of you so all it takes is
one more pump and you can set your
heel angle, here I'm desperately trying to
get it back level actually I'm gonna
ease and bear off a little bit
easing here, now it's rolling to weather
and there we go we're in flight we're
moving forward and actually we've got
some initiative here I'm starting to
round up and build speed I'm gonna go
for another ease here anything really to
keep the boat level. so when you're
flying in a straight line the trick to a
degree is to be easing and sheeting on
and using and cheating on and just
trying to maintain a straight line once
you're in motion so here we are now
actually up and running
because there are so many things to
unpack in this process I'm gonna go
through this a couple times and I'm just
gonna flag different things that I
haven't mentioned before using this jibe
is a pretty decent preamble for it
duck during jibes by the way, note that
I'm easing off I'm getting myself
situated just trying to steer in a
straight line while I get myself into
hiding straps. I've got the mainsheet
back in my hand I've got the tiller in
position and I'm starting to slide my
feet into the hiking straps, I've got my butt
on pad number two, if you're running a
low rudder lift setting you can get your
butt on the pad number one up forward, if
you're running really high rudder lift
you'll want to get it back on to pad
number three. now note I'm starting to
pump a little bit and ooch a little bit
just to build speed as I get myself
prepped going into the straps, now my
feet are in the straps there, and I'll hike
out I do a little ooch there, and I'll be pumping and easing and pumping and
easing just sort of flapping a wing,
trying to build boat speed here we go
ease a little bit, pumping a little bit,
hiking a little bit, I'm working a little
bit of kinetics just to sort of get a
little extra jerk going forward, and the
other thing that Mike Zani noticed this
if you're rocking the boat a little bit
you're actually breaking the suction
with the water so if the last thing
that's holding you in is actually the
static tension from the water
bouncing the boat around a little bit
will actually break that connection and
get you out of the water. as I'm going
along right here, note that I'm not
hiking half as much because now the
dominant factor in play, I'm not ooching
half as much the dominant factor in play
is just your main sheet in your tiller
and you want to be biased towards using
your main sheet because the tiller is
such a powerful tool, that you really
only want to use it when the main sheet
won't do enough. so if you can't ease
enough to get the boat level as the puff
hits you on a downwinder you need to
bear off, but only you
that is a as a second resort, your first
resort should be a dump main, your second
resort should be to dump main and hike
at the same time, your third should be to
bear off as well.
besides that okay, I'm pulling in a
little bit of main, now I've added a
section on actually making good progress
downwind, as a further addition to just
taking off and getting going in a
straight line. in this segment here now
that I'm up and flying I'm gonna start
to carve it downwind, and I use the word
carve quite advisedly because one
doesn't just aim on a heading in this
boat as with virtually every other
apparent wind driven boat like uh you
know doing the wild thing downwind
catamarans, sailing downwind with an A
sail in skiffs, all of this stuff is
driven by apparent wind and so it's
heavily velocity driven so velocity is
your only friend in making true progress
on the foils downwind, so I've done here
is I've got going relatively quick on
the foils in the first place that I'm
carrying a good amount of apparent wind
and now I'm starting to head downwind
because now I'm able to drive my
apparent wind on the sail down quite
deep, I'm sailing at about 45 degrees to
dead downwind, and the point is that I'm
still operating in a close hauled angle
I'm able to do that for a number of
reasons one of which it's the most
efficient way the sail operates and for
another it's the way the boat remains
balanced because I've still got a lot of
force coming off the main sail working
against the heeling moment of my body
I'm sorry against the righting moment of
my body, the heeling moment of the sail
is the other force in play that keeps me
level. so I'm hiking and the sail because
it's sheeted in so much, is actually
keeping me balanced and I'm able to
control the role of the boat by just
hiking more or easing the sheet and look
at that I'm going very deep and actually
at a pretty high speed you can even see
it in this slow motion version. I'm gonna
go for a jibe here because I'm an idiot
and I'm not gonna pull off the foil job
because I'm not really trying but that's
kind of the upside of this boat as it
comes down so square that you know if
you're not trying to do a foil jibe and
you just botch it it doesn't really bite
you which is giving me a decent amount
of time to practice my foil jibes. okay
going through and obviously as I come
through the jibe I'm gonna try and
retain as much speed as possible but
really I'm gonna have to do a light
takeoff again so I'm gonna have to round
up again and build a little bit of speed
not that much, essentially you get speed
first and then depth don't just try to
foil dead downwind because you can, but
it is super unstable
okay, lesson two.
upwind takeoffs, this is similar but
you're going to be working the stability
relationship between yourself and the
sail, by way of sheeting a lot more
essentially it makes sense you're going
upwind, you've got the most lateral force
on the sails so you really need to
leverage weather heal as much as
possible, in order to keep an edge in. I
call it an edge because it's a similar
dynamic to going fast on skis.
essentially if you're just standing
upright on the skis they slither around,
but if you get an edge in you're
basically in control, you've got a firm
rail to ride on. when they go for a
tack here actually, foiling roll tack. if
you notice I'm just getting my body
across pretty quickly and speeding
through and I'm just cashing in on all
that velocity to get through the tack
really quickly and maintain flow on the
foils on the other tack. now you have a
sense that that's the trick to pulling
off foil tacks as well just getting across
really quickly, same sort of thing
anyways setting myself up in the hiking
straps, I'm hiking like mad to pull off
an upwind take off just because I'm
gonna be starved for stability. I am
bearing off slightly just to get yet
more velocity and pop up as quickly as
possible, but I'm still actually on a
slightly upwind heading. I'm pumping a
lot again just for the sake of velocity
and you'll notice I'm allowing myself to
heal to leeward just a little just to
disconnect the hulls, I'm touching I'm
touching and now I ease and I do
something called a roll pop here where I
ease and sheet back on, just enough so
that the boat comes up, and then rolls
over on
off of me and as its doing that, I then
sheet back in and that arrests the role
but locks in my heel angle to weather.
now I'm leveled off, I've done that
basically a couple times, I've sawed back
and forth but now I'm actually on a
pretty set heel angle about 6 degrees
heeled over to weather, and I'm starting
to carve upwind, and essentially whenever
I feel like I'm getting rolled over to
leeward at all
I just ease a little bit, and whenever I
feel like I'm rolling over to windward
too much I just sheet in a little bit.
and you'll notice a really refined game
I'm just maintaining my hiking angle I'm
barely steering at all, as with the other
clip I'm gonna go through this a couple
times just to make clear some of the
other nuances that are going on here.
you'll note that while I'm in a set
hike angle here I've actually rolled my
torso back to get you to take off as
quickly as possible, I'm actually almost
on to pad 3 just while I'm trying to
take off. and the reason why I want to do
this is to trim the whole boat bow up
and sort of force it to pop up more
than naturally. so I'm pumping, I'm easing
I'm rolling my body back and bam I'm
already up. and now I'm gonna start to
normalize my body position once I made a
consistent flight, because while that's
really useful for taking off in the
first place, it is actually gonna
screw up your level flight a little bit
and in general the boat foils upwind
slower than it foils downwind so you
want your body positioning to be a
little bit further forward or you're
gonna stall usually when I head onto an
upwind, if I'm just rounding up from a
downwind to an upwind I actually ooch my
body forward and that does makes all the
difference. again observe here just look
at the leech of the sail, the trimming
back and forth that is virtually
everything. this clip here purely by dint
of being a closer camera angle unpacks a
lot of the hand work that goes into just
playing the mainsheet a little bit you
notice that I just did a bicep pump
there and that works, but sometimes need
to hand over hand look at how my tiller
hand occasionally comes into play I've
just taken it up there, and that
enables me to reach for it again, and yet
the tillers barely moving that's one of
the more refined things to learn here
see I've got it locked in the tiller, I
can go for another reach and Yoink and
it goes.
these gloves I was wearing on that day
weren't awesome they were kind of slippy
so a lot of the time I had to do some
sort of bizarre stuff with my hands, but
in general you want a hand over hand
through the tiller.
so cavitation is a
pretty rare event in this case, it was
driven primarily by really cold water,
this is a couple degrees Celsius
um and the water seems to be more
inclined to cavitate in cold water. it's
been a known event in the moth class for
a long time, and while it's not very
common, this clip itself
showcases the way to deal with it
particularly well, the UFO as opposed to
being inclined to cavitate on the rudder
whereupon it will spin out instead is
more inclined to cavitate on the main
foil, where it'll simply bear off, so what
we're gonna see here is a great big
burst of white water on the main foil,
where it overloads and burns out, yep
there it is we're already starting to
cavitate, and immediately when you see
that happening you'll feel yourself sort
of start to dismount, bear off and steer
into the skid, and that will reattach
flow onto the main foil, undo the
cavitation and boom there we go again. so
you see that white line in the water
there that's the extent of the
cavitation event, all I did was bare off
into it and just essentially get the
flow reattached and kill off the bubble
on the foil. now I'm back to
reestablishing my weather heel, I've
gotta ease, I've got a hike, rolling to
weather, rolling to weather, and I'm
already starting it, there we go, just
play the sheet and keep myself at the
very least, dead level, if not heeled over
to weather a little bit, and there we go.
now I'm just cooking, now I've got all
the control because the boats leaned
over on top of me, and that's that.
