Turning the Foil

As you start to get better at pumping, a new reality sets in — you're falling further and further from your dock and you spend a lot more time swimming than pumping! Today we'll work on controlling the foil — first learning to go straight, then learning deliberate turns. Learning to pump and turn at the same time is a challenge and getting the hang of it can take anywhere from 200 to 2000 attempts.

Going Straight

At this point my guess is that going straight is probably one of your biggest challenges — so let's start with that. We turn a hydrofoil the same way as a skateboard — by leaning our weight toward our toe side or heel side. What makes it difficult is that, with everything else that's going on, you don't notice that you're in a turn until it's too late to recover. There's two things you need to do:

• Move your rear foot to correct the turn. There's a moment during the pump where your rear foot is weightless. In that moment you can move it to one side or the other to get more weight in the direction you're trying to lean.
• Act immediately: as soon as you notice the slightest turn, act! Correct the turn by moving your rear foot.

Eventually your body will detect turns sooner and you'll be able to correct with a simple lean, instead of hopping your foot around. But moving your feet around is a very useful skill that you will use often, namely in the next step — deliberate turns.

Making a Deliberate Turn

To understand turns we need to understand spiral dive. When you're in a turn, the outer wingtip is moving faster than the inner wingtip, which means that it will have more lift. The increase in lift rolls the foil deeper into the turn, tightening the turn even more until the turn is so deep that you can't recover. Spiral dive is most pronounced on large-span foils, travelling at low speeds, and is probably your biggest point of frustration at this point in the journey.

But... there is a solution, and once you get used to it, spiral dive will be a non-issue on flat water. The technique is as follows:

1. Initiate the turn with a very slight lean in the direction that you want to go. That's enough to get the turn going, and once it starts going it will get deeper and deeper on it's own.
2. Immediately upon initiating the turn, move your back foot to the outside of the board in anticipation of the force that you'll need to apply to counter the spiral dive.
3. Now you're in a new equilibrium. With your rear foot on the outside of the board you'll be able to hold a constant radius turn.
4. When you want to get out of the turn lean your body out of the turn. Once your wings are level, move your foot back to center.

Take a look at the video below to understand the timing more precisely. You can't really see the subtle lean that initiates the turn, but you can clearly see when the rear foot is moved into position.

Keep Up Your Speed!

Most importantly, keep your speed up in a turn. The faster you are going, the less the foil will progress into a spiral dive. If you feel like you're on the edge of an irrecoverable spiral, pump hard and fast to pick up speed and pull out of the turn!

Making it back to the dock

The video above shows the rough limits of how tight you can turn before you can no longer fight the spiral dive. When you're first learning, don't try to turn that tight! Launch off your dock and make the widest circle you can. If your circle back to the dock takes you a full 30 seconds, that's great — you're back to your dock and ready to try again. Say goodbye to swim practice, and hello to foil practice!