Foil Boards!

[Horst Sergio]

For light wind, bigger is better so 65kg/40l should be good.

No it's not, at least not always.

Thought the same, so after my first volume board with:
1. Peter-Müller-Shape 143 x 42 x 8 cm and around 30 l
I (62 kg) had a
2. Rebuild by WUXX 135 x 41 x 9 cm with around 35 l

in retrospect: the first board was already the limit according to volume. The higher the volume the easier to get going in light winds, yes, but less important compared to shape details as e.g. sharp edges and others. On the other side sitting on the board for relaunch will be more difficult the bigger the volume is and the relaunch itself will also be more difficult and less effective. The higher the trapez hook is out of the water the bigger is your miss balance between the attack point of kite and body drag in the water and the additionally the drag of the body itself is getting to low for relaunch.

With 62-65 kg I would go for 25 - 30 l

See my old board with already nearly to much volume:

[rightguard]

I want to bring the board question back up... I've been riding an Aguera TTF board, I don't have exact measurements but it's small and thin. I can get up and ride easy enough but jibes are very difficult. I've been trying to touch down when switching feet but it's supper easy to put too much pressure on my front foot and just sink the front end. Don't know if this is all because of low volume or maybe flat shap too.

My question is for people who like smaller boards... can you surface jibe?

Anyone use the Dwarfcrafts or similar board... do they sink immediately when you touch down?

Really want to buy a new board but wonder if it would actually help or if I should just keep trying on mine.

[Starsky]

I use a skim. Certainly not as touch down friendly as many foil boards, but not impossible either. Not a big deal once your foilinf full time but I can surface transition and foot switch on it well enough. if you ditch the nose your swimming, but it bellies down fine is pretty stable on the water and pops back up easy enough.

[Do-it]

40 l sound huge to me.....my nugget is 28is liters. anyone know what the lf kitefish is?

[Kamikuza]

40 l sound huge to me.....my nugget is 28is liters. anyone know what the lf kitefish is?

I've searched online and been unable to find that stat. My Duke is 25L and so I'm guessing the Fish is slightly less. Say, 22L

The old AA was 39.5L, the DC 54" 25L and the new AA is 31.7L as it's thinner...

I'm still conflicted -- I think 25L is heaps but I'm not sure about how little surface area there is...

[MMac22]

My 2 cents - I'm a new foiler this season and weigh 205lbs (92kg). I learned on and have been riding a board with 27l volume. This is plenty of volume for foiling and seems perfectly fine to me. What I found as a new foiler is that you want the board to be long enough and have enough nose rocker to handle the porpoising and nose first touchdowns when learning. I think enough length & nose rocker is more important than volume. My board is 5' long with a surf rocker nose.

[Starsky]

I would agree with that, but add that once you get comfortable, losing swing weight is really nice. Extra length also makes it easier to jump the foil into your lines. Never seems to be a problem with short little boards. That was the main reason I chopped down the surfboard. It looked way cooler with a long pointy nose!

There is a really big difference in agility between these two boards with the skim being much nicer to maneuver. They are almost the same weight, but the foam and fibre board rides like a tanker in comparison.

Another thing I personally really like is a very flat deck. the converted surfboard has a standard surfboard domed deck and it feels less stable when switching from the thiner flatter skim.

[dylan*]

Kite fish is around 18L I believe, you can get the exact numbers on the LF wakeboarding site (since it's the same board). They list more detail there than the kite one.

If you're sinking the nose doing surface gybes you probably just need to go a little faster and use the kite to support your weight more. Even with my giant 40L alien air I can still sink the nose if I go really slow in light wind when the kite can't hold me up.

[evan]

Shape is more impotant than volume, at speeds you are taking off almost all board are in a plane and volume doesn't make any differce anymore. Personally i hate boards with volume when handling in the water, relaunching the kite and waterstarts. A floaty board sits too high in the water, preventing you to see your kite on the water. You also have less grip on the water to keep the lines tensioned in sketchy low winds, a board you can put under water lets you drift less downwind and therefore build more power to get up on the board.

My home build 20mm thick solid pauwlownia race board with less than 10l volume performs the same or better as the other off the shelf raceboards with volume. The razor sharp rails make it even slice through the wavetops upwind instead of bouncing on top like the other boards.
Pictures: http://www.kitehigh.nl/forum/index.php?topic=52694.0

[rightguard]

Evan that is a cool board, wish it was in English. Are you keeping the curve with fiberglass? How thick was the wood?

That would be a fun board to try.