Fin cover - on or off?

To my eternal shame I was packing up after a confusing session where nothing seemed to be working, only to discover... the fin cover was still on!

Please tell me someone else has done this?

Haven't done that but I've gotten very used to clearing weeds off the fin or foil after losing a lot of my early sessions just like that to very draggy weeds.

Done that a few times. But within a few meters of trying to pump up onto a plane I realized a problem. Back in the 90's on the Northshore of Maui got too excited. Primo waves at the small break off the "beach" we launch from in front of the house. Bit of a wind shadow from the house upwind and on a baby point. Bit of a pain getting clear. Felt the vibrations. Thought something was broken. Like the fin box. Nope fin cover. Just removed it and tucked it away. Not the first and not the last time.

Once I find a fin I really like it only touches the water and the fin cover.

I tend to use a naked fin shoved in the ground propping the board up , so that I don't have to bend down so far to screw the mast base in.

Done the fin cover thing. Also have stepped on to the board in 30knts in a nasty shore break then realised I'd forgotten to put on my harness. Dumbass.

Yes I've left the fin cover on too, but I did realise something was wrong 50m into setting off.

I also done worse stuff, a couple of years ago, I forgot to put the fin bolts in, and ended up losing my favourite (and very expensive) slalom fin. And last week, I went to hook in on my first run, and realised my seat harness was in the trailer.

The joys of ageing.....

I have been known to forget my mastfoot. I see many others do too these days and they manage to go out anyway by flapping their rig high above their heads. seems to work best for those with those inflatable style beginner rigs rather than full cam set ups tho.

It's so annoying when you get to the beach and forget to bring the wind.