Aaron's Foilboarding Adventures

Aaron's Journey Being the "New Foil-Guy"

April 20th, 2017

Sitting on the sidelines watching everybody else having all the fun is NOT fun. No matter what it’s about. Those goofy guys with their kite foiling boards. Who do they think they are, out there having all of the fun? I’m over it—can’t watch one second longer. I’m diving in now!

Committing to learning something new can be challenging. Plus, no relatively experienced kiteboarder or kitesurfer wants to revisit the days when they were first learning the sport. The upwind, “walk of shame” is hard on the ego—am I right? Plus, there’s the whole allocation of another $1600.00 or so for a board and foil. I mean, what is the wife going to think about this? Ha!

Well, I’m doing it. I have made the commitment to learn how to ride a kite foilboard. The Slingshot Hypermiler 4’8”, with the Hover Glide foil set, will be my weapon of choice. I’ve also opted to start with the Slingshot Flight School mast set (15”, 24” and 30” masts). And even though I’ve been riding surfboards strapless for many years, I’m going to start foilboarding with the Slingshot Surf Straps, at least for my first few sessions. Then maybe I’ll switch to strapless for easier foot placement when changing directions.

And since I’m a total tweaker about taking care of my gear, I’ll be keeping my board and foil in a travel bag. Prolimit makes one called the Kite Foil Board Bag, and I highly recommend it. This bag is made specifically for kite foilboarding and it has some great features. The zipper opens wide, laying the bag open in half for easy loading of your board and foil. A padded divider separates your board from the foil components. And there are dedicated storage options for the front and back wings, along with the mast and fuselage. I’m guessing this bag will be a pretty solid choice for both day-trips and airline travel. They’ll be available on MACkiteboarding.com within a couple of weeks, so keep an eye out if you’re interested.

Given that I’ll be disassembling and reassembling my foilboard each time I use it, I’ve grabbed a good #3 Philips-head screwdriver, along with the Allen keys provided from Slingshot. I’m thinking about keeping a lithium ion mini driver in my car as well. Does that make me lazy?

I have also committed to only bringing my foilboard with me to the beach. My twin-tip, wakestyle board and surfboards are temporarily on lockdown here at the shop. I figure that if I don’t have a “Plan B” option, then I will be forced to either ride my foil or go home. Yup—challenging times indeed. Ha!

So, anyway—this is my story. Beginning tomorrow, I have committed to only riding my kite foilboard for the next month. Wow, that was really difficult for me to say. I’m usually pretty non-committal. I mean, what if we get some good spring swell? Waves will be my only test. Hopefully, I can hang in there.

Thank you for following along, and please standby for future updates from the “New Foil-Guy”.

Thank you, and good winds!

Aaron Johnson