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Foilboarder wannabe
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Foilboarding

Postby Foilboarder wannabe » Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:53 am

Anyone have any designs for foils that work? I have built a couple of boards, and was thinking about having a go at making a foil to fit to the bottom of one of them. Any thoughts gratefully recieved.

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Postby *MARK* » Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:56 pm

Ive been riding the Air Chair for about 10 yrs now. Spent lots of time thru trial and error modifying the original foil. Im not aware of any "plans" that are available anywhere. I would think the easiest and cheapest route would be to buy a used Air Chair or Sky Ski foil. Then only need to cut off the top part that normally slides up into the seat and replace it with a plate to bolt to the board.
Plus I would imagine that although the two wings could be home made using plates of Aluminum, I dont see how you could do the T-bar at home. Thats the vertical strut and horizontal fueselage that the two wings attached to. 3 1/2 foot tall, 2-2 1/2 ft long. Most of them are one piece castings, although Sky ski has begun making billet (?if thats the word) or machined foils. Both processes difficult at home I would think.
I just traded my old Air chair to a guy in Austin for a kite. He is going to be building a board and converting it to a stand up version with snow board boots.
the only exception I know of to no plans being available is the Airhog. Their web page seems to be down or gone. Last link at the bottom at
http://www.foilfreaks.com/HydrofoilLinks.htm
A homemade wooden Hydrofoil.

MARK

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Postby DrM » Thu Aug 12, 2004 3:56 pm

Everytime I see foilboarding I get that kinda cool feeling just like a did when I first kiteboarding. It looks like a total blast.

I saw some Laird Hamilton footage somewhere - perhaps step into liquid - where he says that you "should" be able to use foils to ride swells - don't even need waves.

Combining a foil with a kite looks sooo cool. Bet it takes some time to get it right though.

V. cool.

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Postby Dax » Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:49 pm

DrM wrote:I saw some Laird Hamilton footage somewhere - perhaps step into liquid - where he says that you "should" be able to use foils to ride swells - don't even need waves.
I've seen video of him doing it. You can tell its hard though because of the way his arms are out. Must be crazy trying to balance.

One of these days I'll try out foilboarding on my kites, looks fun.

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Postby chemosavi » Thu Aug 12, 2004 7:07 pm

I introduced Laird to the Trampofoil which he mastered after about 6 tries off the front of his jet boat off Hanalei Beach. The trampofoil needs only a slight amount of wave slope to get going by itself, ie you don't need to jump up and down anymore. Hence his very true prediction that hydrofoils don't need breaking waves and can be used in the open ocean. The trampofoil has a wingspan of 9 feet,; quite a bit bigger than his surfing hydrofoil so perhaps something in between would still work on open waves.

I tried making a dual hydrofoil for kiting but it had limited success and had a tendency to porpoise. It was definitely fast in light winds @10 or 11 knots with a Titan 18.5 but hard to accomodate gusts as you are really locked into the water (no side slipping). True hydrofoils have a very limited range of parameters so supposedly you'd need just the right kite and the right wind for each foil scenario.] other post on same subjectindex.php?page=http://www.kiteforum.com ... tton=forum
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Postby DrM » Thu Aug 12, 2004 7:15 pm

I tried making a dual hydrofoil for kiting but it had limited success and had a tendency to porpoise. It was definitely fast in light winds @10 or 11 knots with a Titan 18.5 but hard to accomodate gusts as you are really locked into the water (no side slipping). True hydrofoils have a very limited range of parameters so supposedly you'd need just the right kite and the right wind for each foil scenario.]
Hadn't thought of that I guess you would be pretty much toast if you couldn't absorb the gusts through the board. So now the next step is to take the airski seat shock and put it engineer it in between the board and the foil :o

Nice pics - thanks

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startup
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Postby startup » Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:03 pm

Chemosavi....

What did you make those foild out of?? I did the original post, but didn't sign in. Most commercial foils seem to be titanium? or chrome plated steel or something?? What were yours made of, and how did it perform??

Cheers
s

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Postby NP Maui » Thu Aug 12, 2004 10:21 pm

Aloha,

Check out Rush Foilboards:

http://www.neilprydemaui.com/itemDetails.php?id=49

Download the video...it's worth the wait!


Best regards, Kevin

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Postby gumball » Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:03 pm

Foilboarding is awesome in light winds as there is very little resistance as long as you can "fly" the foil & control the kite. It's actually easier to ride toeside because heelside it's a real art to not go up wind too much. I introduced Shannon to foilboarding last fall and he landed a backroll at the cable park after a couple sessions, kind of made me sick as I've been riding a foil behind a boat and kite for over two years and never came close to a backroll. Tried a lot and wiped out really hard a lot, but never landed one. The really bad thing about foilboarding with a kite is that it is a total pain in the ass to carry to the beach, get into snowboard boots, get into the bindings in deep enough water where the wing won't hit bottom when you start while waves are crashing over your head and your trying to keep your kite in neutral... Last time I did it I had two mates helping me and it was still tough, but super fun once your up and flying as you can go really fast and build a tremendous amount of apparent wind in your kite.

Probably won't see foils for sale on bestkiteboarding.com though... :D

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Postby chemosavi » Fri Aug 13, 2004 1:14 am

startup wrote:Chemosavi....

What did you make those foild out of?? I did the original post, but didn't sign in. Most commercial foils seem to be titanium? or chrome plated steel or something?? What were yours made of, and how did it perform??

Cheers
s
startup, my foils are made of welded sheet stainless steel filled with foam. My hope for them was that they would be more practical than the air chair type of which gumbal speaks and the difficulties therein. They worked Ok, got up out of the water and as soon as that happened there was an intense burst of speed as the forces of friction were drastically reduced. That was often followed by porpoising and if a gust hit, it was easy to get blown off the board. The wierdest part was the lack of any water noise and no spray at all. (I like spray) Another thing that was unusual was that I could go upwind like a mofo even though they weren't really flying in that mode. After about a two hour session and I got home my hips were killing me due to all the pressure I was exerting to direct the board; something you do with your leg muscles on a regular board. All in all I found I prefered a regular board for plain fun and I haven't used them since that first trial.
I spoke with some of the MIT guys doing this type of thing and they said the air chair type is not really a true hydrofoil. More of an inclined plane creating upward lift (like old fashioned kites) instead of a low/high pressure type of deal which makes them not so sensitive to how fast they move through the water. They were thinking of a moving front foil with a fixed rear foil. I also spoke with Rich Miller who labored intensly over his design for a true hydrofoil windsurfer. Patented it as well. He had come to the conclusion that most folks prefer simplicity and fun over the ability to go really fast. He hasn't really made any money on his foils in spite of all the legal BS he went through. So mostly I just move my foils around the shop now trying to get them out of my way.


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