Chapter 5: Gear Has Arrived!

Ah, I still remember the day I unboxed my first prone foil board. So stoked.

Alright, so you've got your board and foil - all ready for your first big day in the water.

Just like any new gear-intensive hobby, I'm a firm believer in a good checklist for the first month or so.

1. Board

2. Front Wing

3. Fuselage

4. Stabilizer

5. Mast

6. Hardware

7. Tool for hardware

8. Leash

9. Helmet (strongly recommend for first few months)

Once you've confirmed you have everything above, I recommend first taking your prone board and doing one (or both) of the following:

1. Put your prone board on your bed with a pillow under the tail to make it face downward slightly. Practice your pop up 20 times. Slowly.

2. Put your prone board on a yoga mat and draw the outline of it into the mat with a marker. Practice your pop up on the yoga mat. 18 months in I still practice on my yoga mat before paddling out. Not only does it reinforce the muscle memory but doing it also is a great body check - helping you identify areas you might feel tighter than usual so you can stretch them out before getting in the water.

While doing this, I highly recommend watching this video or something similar to walk you through the difference of popping up on a normal surfboard vs. foil board:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ-OF-ZkF5w

Assuming you have a shorter board (something under 5'0), it might feel weird laying on the board with your nose in line with the nose of your board. Get used to this.

Ok cool - you've practiced your pop up or at least drawn your boards outline into a mat. Now it's time to assemble the board!

Don't skip this step - the goal is to make sure all your gear works and confirm that your tool and hardware wont have any issues. Nothing sucks more than driving to the beach only to realize your stabilizer or fuselage bolts require a slightly different tool than your mast. Trust me - I've been there.

Also - get organized! It also sucks driving to the beach only to realize you left one of your bolts at home - or lost it all together. I have a small plastic container to organize my shims, bolts, tools, etc. I also carry an extra set of bolts at all times. If you plan on going somewhere more remote, I 100% recommend getting back-up hardware. It only takes one bolt getting lost in the sand to kill your whole trip.

Alright, board was assembled successfully? Great.

Tools and hardware organized? Awesome.

Time to head to the water! If you have never ridden a shortboard before I highly recommend taking your setup to an area with no waves first (or maybe a break with small waves at high tide). The goal is to just paddle around for ~20 minutes and figure out the balance of your board / build some initial muscle memory.