Is it possible to boost with a foil and land and ride away smoothly, or is just a case of tea-bagging? Freestyle?

There are times when those videos seem fake when you are trying.
But on the rare occasion I've foiled away from a jump, it's been a fluke, but feels like diving the foil to get speed over the wing and lift.
However this is very similar to when my Spitfire ventilates and catches lift before touching down.

What for?

RAL INN said..

jamesperth said..
Of course. If your time your downloop correctly you don't even get the board wet.

Can i I do it ? Hell no. I make a huge splash and get wet. But I've seen Ollie Bridge and his cohorts do it a number of times.

When I said foil away I meant landing without a board touch.
But the normal at moment is the board slapping down but riding away.
i have not changed anything from std jump landing technique but the lighter wind and smaller kite adds some wierd bits.
At this point it feels fun and somewhat of a challenge, but as I'm now moving towards a more aggressive kite send and pop, the next challenge is control of body rotation.

Ive never really done a foilboard boost and not had a board touch although I have jagged it a few times doing backrolls... which felt way cool. Boost without board touch would be a goal to aim for but would certainly open the door to twisted ankles and worse.

I have managed a couple of foiling landings and both were smooth and in control. I suspect like anything it's a matter of practice until your body learns how to do it.

In the meantime, touchdown landings are pretty nice and not that hard to do. Even parachute landings to water start are pretty good when you're zooming around on a 5m kite and everybody else is slogging around with 12m and TT or surfboard.

Possibly the nicest part is the sound the foil makes when you load up and boost off a wave. The sound ramps up as you accelerate then you get a very satisfying "swooooop!!!!!!" as the foil cuts loose.

As to why would you? Why not? Jumping is far easier than most of the other foil moves (tacking, 360, flying foot swaps). It still requires a fair amount of technique to get it right. It's fairly forgiving of errors. Even a bum splash landing is good and there's huge scope for improvement.

It's just fun, and there's a degree of surrealism in the fact that you're jumping with a ginormous foil hanging off your board. Almost every part of foiling has a "did that just happen" moment. It's a bit like when we started kiting and people would stop to see what this impossible thing was.

In comparison to other things people do with kites and boards: Handlepass? Rolls and spins? Board offs? Why would you want to do any of that stuff?

Here's a video of some foil freestyle I just found: