First Day Wing Foiling at Crissy

I've been waiting for the right wind conditions to start my wing foiling season in San Francisco, and finally got the opportunity today. The iwindsurf.com forecast initially had very favorable winds (as reported on Friday), but showed less favorable SW winds on Saturday morning.

I loaded up the Tesla Model Y with all of my gear (having assembled the Foil with the Armstrong 1250cm front wing) earlier in the morning. We started our drive to San Francisco at around 11:00, arriving at Crissy Field at 12:30. The skies were clear (unlike other parts of San Francisco), but the wind was light, and there were no wing foilers out. It was not exactly a favorable sign.

After finding a nice place to park (with a lawn nearby for assembling the foil and wing), we strolled to Chestnut Street for lunch. We stopped by our favorite Cracked & Battered Eatery, but it was quite busy. We asked to be put on the waiting list and were told that the wait time would be 20-30 minutes. I was hoping it would be faster (but it wasn't). At some point, I was starting to get impatient, as I was worried about missing out on wing foiling (if the promised wind came up). At some point, we decided to try another restaurant, but I thought it might take too long. We returned to Cracked & Battered, and we were happy to learn that we were next to be seated.

After sitting down outside (on barstools), we ordered the following items:

• Boris: chicken & waffle, coffee
• Inna: 3 pieces of chicken, 2 eggs over easy, coffee

The chicken was amazing, and the waffle was also fantastic. Inna generously gave me an extra piece of chicken, as I was extra hungry.

After lunch, I walked back to Crissy Field, while Inna waited for my message. If the wind was unfavorable, I would return to Chestnut Street, and we would continue exploring San Francisco together.

When I arrived at Crissy, I saw a few wing foilers on the water doing well, and felt the wing picking up. I decided to rig up and messaged Inna.

I rigged the following gear:

• Duotone 5.0m SLS wing
• Armstrong 1250cm front foil
• Naish Hover LE Carbon Ultra 95-liter
• Dakine harness
• GoPro Hero 11 Black Mini cam

I had a wonderful one-hour session, blasting along. The wind was up and down, quite gusty, and the flooding tide was strong. I had a fantastic opening day of the season, though I felt a bit rusty.