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Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby downunder » Tue Oct 04, 2016 7:57 am

Hey Horst,

if I knew before I was in Bad Ischl for a couple of days, would go kiting with you :)

Nice riding!

D.

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Horst Sergio » Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:49 pm

rightguard wrote:Hey Horst really like that wood and red board. Is that hand made? Is it wider at the tip, what are the dimensions? Would you change anything else?

I've been wondering if a board like this would work. Just wide enough for my back foot to fit on the board, a little wider at the front to add some volume, good amount of rocker to keep from nose diving, short as possible, with racing type stance on the straps.
Hi rightguard,

yes it is handmade by the shaper Willi from http://www.wuux-surfboards.com/?lang=de
He comes from shaping river surfboards, so used to build stable constructions, but has also many years of experience with kiteboards and since 2015 some with foilboards.

For the shape I prepared 2-3D data. It is 135 x 41 x 9 cm with about 35-40 l of volume. You can find dwg and sketchUp file attached in the zip-file.
Bernds-PMS-2015-11-12-outline-rocker-Schnitte-v6-w.jpg
The shape of the board still fits perfect to my (62 kg) demands for freestyle and going distance. But I now plan to construct an as small as possible, but still all-round board for travel, as seen first basic shape on the first side. In principle I think a travel board with volume should use the volume to carry things especially the strut and all foil parts, so should be hollow. Talking about monofoil also a fold able strut (similar to the daggerboard of big windsurfer) could be possible, as there is no fuselage in the way, when folded frontward, but maybe to early for that.

Additional for every volume board I think in the future we will see more flexible noses which maybe could also be designed detachable for transport. An unflexible nose on a long board causes a lot of load on the foil connection, when the wings ventilate when coming up and the nose is catapulted back to the surface.
So my new design from principle will be something like a very small but thick hollow body with about 100 x 25 x 15 with maybe folding surfaces for a wider front foot placement, one cross strap in front and a hook in the back, an fold able or attachable nose of around 30 cm. All surfaces build as sandwich with a wood core build like a classic boat with rips, all covered with carbon on inner and outer side.

The airush raceboard has a nice similar shape with a very narrow tail, but you have to want to go that deep into the backstrap, why I think I will better go for a hook, when the tail wide = foot length. And the nose of the airush is thinner than the rest, but not yet flexible.

Image


@downunder: Maybe next time :D
Attachments
Bernds-PMS-2015-11-12-outline-rocker-Schnitte-v6-w2.zip
(403.64 KiB) Downloaded 129 times

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Horst Sergio » Mon Oct 24, 2016 8:46 pm

A bit new experiences with the monofoil:

1. Even if it requires a bit more a bigger board that floats itself, than a normal foil, as it is more difficult to go directly into foil flight, it is possible to use smaller boards. :) Tested down to around 110 x 43 cm till now.
Although changing foot position will be more difficult as it is still very hard to do them in flight (succeed just one till now). But the advantage is than a small board without stabi is extremly compact compared to a normal foil. And as the pressure point is closer to the strut and their also no loads to the connection due to a long nose it can be build pretty light.

Image
( my actual monofoil with his brother ;-) )


2. As already discussed in theory the plot showes that a monofoil is a real high performer. The wind in the following plot comes from south and the upwind course is on the right. As visible the monofoil was going well closer than 45° against the wind. And I was just using a 9 m² sonic2 in maybe 14 knts of wind so, for sure it is possible to go even higher.

Image

3. The plot of the velocity of the first 16 km showes what also already expected. The speed range is pretty small of about 19 - 27 km/h. The problem is that it is very difficult to handle the stability of higher speeds so you normally go a bit more than the minimum speed but not much more. So in this case a wing with lower AR but more stability could be faster due to handling. Hope to test something in the near future.

Image

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby foilonfoil » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:33 pm

Horst Sergio wrote:The speed range is pretty small of about 19 - 27 km/h. The problem is that it is very difficult to handle the stability of higher speeds so you normally go a bit more than the minimum speed but not much more...
I am surprised how slow it is. I'm easily doing 40km/h plus every session. Would moving to a lower aspect wing to add stability be appropriate?

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby ronnie » Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:03 pm


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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Horst Sergio » Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:56 pm

@foilonfoil:
Yes I think a wing with lower AR and a higher chord could have a lower pitch reaction time and therefore allow higher speed if the rest as the profile is similar. The actual setup could also go easily > 50 km/h but my brain can't :wink: .
But there are many new big wings as for example the carver from zeeko and others, that can do both, going slower and still going fast with maybe a better stability for the mono. Hope I will try some of those soon.

@ronnie:
Thanks for sharing. Andi is a great creative guy living also in south of Bavaria and maybe one of the best kite designers, as he has not just very much practical experience with all types of kites but also studied aerodynamics and he is also a great kiter who can test the limits of his constructions. Once have seen him at >30 knts on a 21 m² Speed3 (on the end in the safety) and once heard about he was out with his 6 m² Cronix in gusts up to 60 knts (for sure than also in the safety), for sure not a good idea, but good luck till now he has survived. :)

About the foil skis, I think he said that they are not bad, but the handling on the beach or if you loose one is terrible.

In the next two weeks hope we will test our first twin-foil which could also have some similarity to the mono and we will report.

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Kamikuza » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:52 pm

Not a Facebook gag then :o but it looks as unwieldy as I thought it would be :(

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Horst Sergio » Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:07 pm

Kamikuza wrote:Not a Facebook gag then :o but it looks as unwieldy as I thought it would be :(
If you would know Aeroandi himself, you wouldn't wonder, he can make everything flying :wink: .

Tried a new "Super-Size-Wing" (70 cm or more) and a cross strap for the mono. But the results were as expected:

Better stay with low aspect and therefore long chord to be enough pitch stable and sure going big and slow is good for the mono.
Track between km 3,5 - 4,5 before riding the normal Element-Mono to compare

Image
Image

And trying new strap configurations on a pocket-board where you can't yet change foot position in flight ... is a stupid idea :oops:
DSC_2755.JPG
But one cross straps in general could be a good solution for very narrow boards with arround 25 cm as my new very-first-travel-Proto. But you will have to use a much wider than a normal strap which has to be attached in this case on the sidewalls of the board to have the whole 25 cm free for both foots when tacking or jibing.

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby Horst Sergio » Fri Dec 02, 2016 1:56 pm

Hi there,

just a few new words about the mono getting adult. I had the "luck" of breaking my stabi a bit when touching during start handling ... wouldn't have happened with the mono :wink: . But the advantage was that I have done therefore two sessions with each more than 25 km just on the mono. And therefore I finally broke through the final barrier to make the mono being an adult foil.

I can now switch feet in every cases and positions when flying, for sure it is still very difficult and needs concentration as it was two years ago on the normal foil but it works :D .

Actually my mono (setup as seen in the video) can:

- be ridden in 7 - 18 knts of wind with my 9 m² Kite, also if it is gusty and choppy
- do full flying jibes with changing foot positions also with 3 straps. (Success rate around 60% but rising fast)
- I started to try flying tacks, didn't get one without touchdown on the end but maybe also full flying in the future
- do back flips with full flying landings on one side with more than 80% and also 360 and flying tack to switch are getting easy
- not do catapults when riding to high and the wing ventilates and also the strut doesn't ventilate in cold sweat water as normal foils do
- ... oh and the window of possible courses is up to 280° wide as shown in the pic :D

Only problem is still that absolute speed limit is 30 km/h and normally not even faster than 26 km/h just due to lack of stability. And as minimum speed without lifting kite is around 19 km/h also the speed window is small, which makes it difficult to do wide 360 and other things.

But still waiting for the new bigger wing and hope this will significant increase speed window to both side while also being easier for foot change.

If this is the case it is possible I maybe not switch 100% to just monofoil but maybe more than 50%. :D

First run with constant wind but down to 6 knts
Image
Image

Secound run around 12 o'clock with gusts up to 18 knts maybe more
http://www.addicted-sports.com/webcam/c ... 12/01/1230
2016-12-01_3.jpg
Will do a video when my jibes become cleaner :)
And yes, maybe next time I try to write my name when tracking :rollgrin:
Last edited by Horst Sergio on Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Monofoil or "riding stabless", setup and riding

Postby ronnie » Fri Dec 02, 2016 3:51 pm

Horst Sergio wrote:Hi there,

just a few new words about the mono getting adult. I had the "luck" of breaking my stabi a bit when touching during start handling ... wouldn't have happened with the mono :wink: . But the advantage was that I have done therefore two sessions with each more than 25 km just on the mono. And therefore I finally broke through the final barrier to make the mono being an adult foil.

I can now switch feet in every cases and positions when flying, for sure it is still very difficult and needs concentration as it was two years ago on the normal foil but it works :D .

Actually my mono (setup as seen in the video) can:

- be ridden in 7 - 18 knts of wind with my 9 m² Kite, also if it is gusty and choppy
- do full flying jibes with changing foot positions also with 3 straps. (Success rate around 60% but rising fast)
- I started to try flying tacks, didn't get one without touchdown on the end but maybe also full flying in the future
- do back flips with full flying landings on one side with more than 80% and also 360 and flying tack to switch are getting easy
- not do catapults when riding to high and the wing ventilates and also the strut doesn't ventilate in cold sweat water as normal foils do
- ... oh and the window of possible courses is up to 280° wide as shown in the pic :D

Only problem is still that absolute speed limit is 30 km/h and normally not even faster than 26 km/h just due to lack of stability. And as minimum speed without lifting kite is around 19 km/h also the speed window is small, which makes it difficult to do wide 360 and other things.

But still waiting for the new bigger wing and hope this will significant increase speed window to both side while also being easier for foot change.

If this is the case it is possible I maybe not switch 100% to just monofoil but maybe more than 50%. :D

First run with constant wind but down to 6 knts
Image
Image

Secound run around 12 o'clock with gusts up to 18 knts maybe more
http://www.addicted-sports.com/webcam/c ... 12/01/1230
2016-12-01.jpg

Will do a video when my jibes become cleaner :)
And yes, maybe next time I try to write my name when tracking :rollgrin:
Hi Horst,

Congratulations on pushing the single wing envelope!
From an engineering point of view, it makes sense to me that a single wing foil has the highest potential for efficiency - so I think the potential is there.

One potential area for improvement would be with swept back wings. That gives similar benefits to the longer chord length, but also might increase the amount of twist-off of the outer ends of the wing at higher speed? It could also possibly help shed weeds.

The pitch problem in theory has a relationship to mast length. The longer the mast, the further forward and aft the centre of lift moves for a given change in AOA. That means a shorter mast should be more stable. With windsurf foils, they have wide boards (70 to 90cm) and slightly shorter masts, as they tend to keep the mast more upright, though they do tilt it to windward when going upwind.
There may be benefits with a mono foil to have a short mast which stays near vertical and have outboard footstraps to provide leverage? The mast would have to be different from a kitefoil mast as it would need a profile like a windsurf fin and there would be greater bending loads on the mast.
Such a foil in flat water could also be suitable for speed kiting, as well as very light wind kiting (with different wing designs).

Those are all very much 'maybe' ideas.

Keep up the good work - I expect it will pay off big-time!


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