I was excited to register for the Sail Canada foil instructor course. After getting good coaching tips from Dasher in Bonaire and Andy Brandt in Hatteras I wanted to get my Canadian Credentials.
The course was early in the week before the Sail GP event in Halifax. On the Saturday and Sunday there were also WASZP and Nacra foiling demos in Halifax. Jennifer and I signed up for those. In the run up to the very popular event I was asked to actually help with the weekend wing foil demonstrations on the boardwalk of Halifax harbour! Here are some notes and photos.
Halifax Sail GP Inspire Event Day 1
A great start to my first Sail GP / WeCanFoil / Inspire GP event at the Halifax Harbour! I arrived at 9am and started inflating wings for our 10am demo sessions. These were taking place right in front of the Halifax “Wave” statue.
The SailGP Inspire program and WeCanFoil organized two days of demos of wing foil, windfoil, WASPZ and Nacras to get the general public interested in foil sports. With 5/10 of the Olympic sailing events now being foil sailing events - and with Sail GP having its premier Canadian event in Halifax, interest was high in these smaller foil sailing craft.
I met my instructor Jeff Brock and we got the gear ready for our day. At 10am students Greg and Ryan arrived and both had some surfing/windsurfing/skiing experience. So we did a 1/2 hour of on land discussion about foil boards, how they work, foot positioning basics etc. North foiling has kindly loaned WeCANFoil a set of North wings, boards and foils to help build interest in this amazing sport.
After the land training, we took three wings out to the point we were joined by a late session attendee Ali who is part of the SailGP group. Ali was a little green to water sports and was putting on wetsuit for the first time. We did our wing handling exercises in the light breeze on the grass by the boardwalk. As we had just one RIB (rigid inflatable boat) we had Jeff take the 3 students out into the harbour with one wingfoil rig.
I got on 136L North foil board with a 2100 foil and yellow North 6m wing and we headed out into Halifax Harbour. The two students were now on the boards getting knee sailing and eventually standing up. Greg did a lot better when he stopped looking at his feet and looked at the horizon. He was able to sail under his own power over towards the Dartmouth side. He was quite good sailing back-and-forth, but there wasn’t enough wind for anyone to get foiling. That included Levi the local who was on 100L foil board with a 5m and wasn’t able to quite get going in the marginal wind conditions. There were Waszps and Nacras sailing around us getting up on their foils regularly.
Eventually we got the call that it was 11:45 and to bring the students back. I hopped back on the 136l board and 6m wing and managed to catch a gust and actually got foiling for my first time ever in Halifax Harbour! I did fall once during my efforts to get back and that water is indeed quite cold but and salty. It was a challenge fighting the tide to get back to the dock to get ready for our next session.
The second session at 1pm didn’t have any students so I wound up just chatting with the public and talking about foiling. It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon with huge crowds enjoying going past "the wave" and the SailGP demo site.
Meanwhile my wife Jennifer had a good session out on the water in the morning on the Nacras and also tried to wasps in the afternoon.
By 2:30 some of the 3 PM group showed up and weren’t quite sure whether they wanted to go out as it looked like the wind dropped off a lot. They were all former windsurfers and even a windfoiler who had never tried wing foiling. I convinced them all to stay for the 3 o’clock lesson which wasn’t too hard as some of them already had their wetsuits on.
We did a quick land lesson about the board and foil on the grass and took the wings out past the curious crowds. We did some wing handling skills on the pier and quickly got the group out onto the water.
I was sailing one of the wingfoil rigs out into the harbour and managed to get up on the foil and did five sweet jibes in a row right in front of the Halifax Shoreline! The drone and media boat were out and got some shots of me.
We had great success with all of the former windsurfers being able to taxi back-and-forth confidently. One or two of them got very close to lifting off with the foil. One actually thought he did get the lift off and then promptly wiped out. All four on the ride back, said that they were planning on buying wings. Especially easy as one of the gentleman, (Paul, John, Andrew?) already had a Fanatic Sky windfoil board. I told him that would be a perfect board for starting wing foiling.
We packed up the gear and had a great deep brief with the SailGP/weekend foil/foil for all group. Everyone is looking forward to a great second day here in Halifax.
WeCanFoil Halifax Demo Day 2
A highlight of day 2 was being thanked for inspiring a newbie to sailing to go out on the water! I talked to a woman yesterday who was curious about wingfoiling and I suggested she try to get a demo out on the NACRA sailboat. It felt so good to have her stop me on the way back “Hey you are the guy that recommended that I try the Nakra yesterday? I just had such a good time!” She wound up being featured in the WeCanFoil reels and posts.
We also had people from our second session looking to buy gear after trying to tow foil. Ryan had so much fun he came back in the boat for a second session!
Another highlight was a phone call I received while teaching wing foiling in Halifax, Harbour. My 98 year old mother phoned me while I was on the boat in the harbour. She arrived in Halifax Harbour in 1951. I was able to shoot a picture of me in front of Pier 21 - where she and my father arrived for their new life in Canada. Who would have ever would’ve thought that they just crossed the Atlantic and 73 years later their son would be teaching watersports in that same water!
The timing of the sessions starting at 10, 12:30 and 3pm was perfect. It gave each group 1 hours for on the land then 1 hour for on the water learning.
We got all of the participants prepared with some onland training, some wing handling skills and then out on the water. There wasn’t enough wind for any participant to get up on the foil throughout the event, but every single one of them came back saying I understand the sport and I want to try it again in higher wind. Most even said they will likely be buying my own gear in the next year.
What an awesome event to promote wing foiling to the Canadian public. With one exception, we didn’t have any complete newbie sailors though. In fact pretty much everyone that had registered had been either a dingy sailor or a windsurfer or a kiteboarder in the past
They were all very grateful to be able to try new sport of wing foiling. My co-coach Jeff Brock was awesome. But due to a sprain he wasn’t tempted to get on the water. Instead he was an excellent boat driver and very calm coach. We went up and down wind, collecting our stray cats who would inevitably float down wind and need to be brought up for another run. Those upwind runs gave us a great time for a de-brief with each of them as we were going back up wind.
I’ll have to say that the NORTH wings we were provided with were terrifically stable when going up wind, and the boards saw minimal wear and tear even though they were pulled in and out of the boat at a bunch of times.
Jennifer’s day was a special women’s foiling clinic with some of the SailGP sailors. Her experience on the NACRA was even better than the day before. Another session on the Waszp confirmed how talented the people who can sail them are!
That night Jen and I went for a walk past the citadel for some Donair and then cocktails and oysters at the reading poet pub.
Tomorrow is the first of our two day foil instructors clinic. What a great couple of days in Halifax introducing people to the great sport of Wingfoiling. Amazing what WeCANFoil is accomplishing.
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