Canard Foil

[Denisesewa]

two days ago I got to ride the crazyfoil in spi Texas, there are several issues which need to be worked out IMO, the wings are very thin(1/4 inch) flat, symmetrical foil and appear to be mounted @ zero/zero, it is pitch sensitive but not pitch unstable, I rode strapless with a cloud 7m in about 15 mph, once up on foil ( it foiled up early) it was difficult to control roll and yaw and almost impossible to carve a turn, I think this is due to the "swing moment" of the fusalage being in front of the mast, once the vertical component of the fuselage gets out of line with the direction of travel it yaws unpredictably, I could probably learn to deal with this but its not a pleasent feeling, straight line flight is ok under pull from the kite but with the kite high or "shut off" glide was difficult to control, the foil tends to "round up" when healed over.
I think the canard idea has potential but needs refinement in this case to be viable for kite foiling.
The following is a list of commercial foils I have ridden so far in order of preferance-
Mhl lift 2014 and 15, nice medium speed FR foil, predicatable performance.
Slingshot nf2, heavy but nice ride, medium speed.
Cabrinha double agent, decent ride somewhat like liquidforce but faster, makes noise at times.
TKF Manta, decent ride, smooth and quiet, heavy kinda slow.
liquidforce, slow, twitchy with short fuselage, heavy.
2014 Carafino, absolute junk.
Magic carpet from ebay, almost unridable, junk.
Crazyfoil, not viable for kitefoiling in present configuration.
That being said I prefer my latest diy foil to all of them, it has the most predicatble behavior in all aspects and has advanced my skills bigtime this spring, my mhl is a close second for all around fun.
Just my opinion on all of this.

[revhed]

Great description of canard flying experience, we have felt similar and really think that only skilled KBHF pilots can even manage all but simple flight.
As for foils you have tested, now that you can feel what is good I sure hope you get the chance to fly,
Sword
Spotz
Zeeko
Alpine
Ketos
Levitaz
As all of these are much higher performance providing much lower drag coefficienct that is noticeable and fun!
RH

[Denisesewa]

Hey Rev!
I would really like to ride any of the euro foils but they are not common here, I did just buy an LP. foil but wont receive it in time for this trip,maybe I will get to ride it later this summer.

[ronnie]

two days ago I got to ride the crazyfoil in spi Texas, there are several issues which need to be worked out IMO, the wings are very thin(1/4 inch) flat, symmetrical foil and appear to be mounted @ zero/zero, it is pitch sensitive but not pitch unstable, I rode strapless with a cloud 7m in about 15 mph, once up on foil ( it foiled up early) it was difficult to control roll and yaw and almost impossible to carve a turn, I think this is due to the "swing moment" of the fusalage being in front of the mast, once the vertical component of the fuselage gets out of line with the direction of travel it yaws unpredictably, I could probably learn to deal with this but its not a pleasent feeling, straight line flight is ok under pull from the kite but with the kite high or "shut off" glide was difficult to control, the foil tends to "round up" when healed over.
I think the canard idea has potential but needs refinement in this case to be viable for kite foiling.
The following is a list of commercial foils I have ridden so far in order of preferance-
Mhl lift 2014 and 15, nice medium speed FR foil, predicatable performance.
Slingshot nf2, heavy but nice ride, medium speed.
Cabrinha double agent, decent ride somewhat like liquidforce but faster, makes noise at times.
TKF Manta, decent ride, smooth and quiet, heavy kinda slow.
liquidforce, slow, twitchy with short fuselage, heavy.
2014 Carafino, absolute junk.
Magic carpet from ebay, almost unridable, junk.
Crazyfoil, not viable for kitefoiling in present configuration.
That being said I prefer my latest diy foil to all of them, it has the most predicatble behavior in all aspects and has advanced my skills bigtime this spring, my mhl is a close second for all around fun.
Just my opinion on all of this.

Thanks for that description Denisesewa,

I'd expressed about a few puzzling things before:

"I'm surprised that they changed the mast on the CrazyFoil in the way that they have. Sure - its safer - but it looks less efficient."
and
"Seems to me that they need to get the foil on the feet of someone who can take it to it's limits. I'm not sure if it's the foil's limits or the rider's limits we are seeing - plus it would help them see if there are developments needed and in what direction.
They seem to be very good at the tooling and manufacturing - not so sure about the design, performance and promotion sides, but they do seem to be a small team trying to start up from scratch with limited resources"

It's surprising on the Crazyfoil that they put the vertical web of the fuselage at the front. At the rear, it could have acted like a tailplane. It seems there is a lot of development needed. Using canard airfoils for the wings, which are designed to work together to stabilise the centre of lift is something else I thought would be fundamental to the design.

Design wise, it needs to be on a par performance wise with foils that are available already.
This is a top windsurfer (and one of the best windfoilers) doing some wakefoiling 3 years ago.


This is a canard model plane, with moveable wings, but at least it shows that a canard design can manoeuvre.

[revhed]

(and currently the best windfoiler)

No offence, but one needs to be very careful with statements like "the best" maybe better to post "one of the best".
https://www.facebook.com/Horuefoil/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUaLq7aavjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGHcbKrPL8s
Taking ABSOLUTELY nothing away from MR. ANTOINE ALBEAU, a living legend and hell of a nice guy!
rh

[ronnie]

(and currently the best windfoiler)

No offence, but one needs to be very careful with statements like "the best" maybe better to post "one of the best".
https://www.facebook.com/Horuefoil/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUaLq7aavjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGHcbKrPL8s
Taking ABSOLUTELY nothing away from MR. ANTOINE ALBEAU, a living legend and hell of a nice guy!
rh

Fair point! I have amended my post.

Philippe is leading the way in actually doing a wide variety of windfoiling.

Antoine is amazing at all forms of windsurfing (including a Freestyle World Championship), but in terms of windfoiling, he seems to be focusing on just racing and speed at the moment.

[foilonfoil]

IMO, we have evolutionally product design and revolutionaly product design.

For the most part, foils have even evolving with tweaks to material construction techniques, component interfacing, and performance tuning/stability and today we have some great foils that are easy to ride and provide choices in performance by simply swapping masts and wings. Ultimately, ridership will dictate how successful foils are as riders put time on the water and in the air and prove out the performance and reliability of the various products.

Making revolutionary changes to design is risky unless there is a massive pay back in terms of construction cost, performance, or ease of use. If the product has none of these benefits, the question is why bother? No better example of this was North and their LTD foil design with its massive cost, inflexible wing configuration, and low performance.

I'm all for seeing new designs but manufacturers need to dial down the rhetoric especially when there does not appear to be any more benefit other than recovery when caveating which in my own experience is really something that you struggle with a little as a beginner but once proficient, becomes a non issue.

I do like the idea of a Canard wing design but it's very early days and its going to be years before we know if this is an alternative to current designs or a dead end.

[irwe]

I rode the CrazyFoil in SPI as well. Denise's assessment is very accurate. On my board SS Alien Air I needed to move the CrazyFoil to 8.5 cm point in the box. This is 3 cm ahead of my normal position for my TKF Manta. It probably would have been better placing the plate to the very front of the box ( >2.5 cm)
I found the foil weight is slightly lighter then my Manta. The mast (strut) is hollow and therefore fills up with water. The mast (strut) is a symmetrical wing and not tapered. Lift off from the water required more speed then my Manta. Once riding the foil preferred to be ridden flat. I didn't find it any easier to recover from foil bombs compared to my Manta. The foil "sang" when ridden. Riding 10 m OR Flite (10 - 15 kts) I have not tried it for wakeboarding yet.
Note: This was a Crazyfoil prototype so I don't know if there will be any modifications in the final product.

https://youtu.be/lKjqwmevojo

[ronnie]

two days ago I got to ride the crazyfoil in spi Texas, there are several issues which need to be worked out IMO, the wings are very thin(1/4 inch) flat, symmetrical foil and appear to be mounted @ zero/zero, it is pitch sensitive but not pitch unstable, I rode strapless with a cloud 7m in about 15 mph, once up on foil ( it foiled up early) it was difficult to control roll and yaw and almost impossible to carve a turn, I think this is due to the "swing moment" of the fusalage being in front of the mast, once the vertical component of the fuselage gets out of line with the direction of travel it yaws unpredictably, I could probably learn to deal with this but its not a pleasent feeling, straight line flight is ok under pull from the kite but with the kite high or "shut off" glide was difficult to control, the foil tends to "round up" when healed over.
I think the canard idea has potential but needs refinement in this case to be viable for kite foiling.
The following is a list of commercial foils I have ridden so far in order of preferance-
Mhl lift 2014 and 15, nice medium speed FR foil, predicatable performance.
Slingshot nf2, heavy but nice ride, medium speed.
Cabrinha double agent, decent ride somewhat like liquidforce but faster, makes noise at times.
TKF Manta, decent ride, smooth and quiet, heavy kinda slow.
liquidforce, slow, twitchy with short fuselage, heavy.
2014 Carafino, absolute junk.
Magic carpet from ebay, almost unridable, junk.
Crazyfoil, not viable for kitefoiling in present configuration.
That being said I prefer my latest diy foil to all of them, it has the most predicatble behavior in all aspects and has advanced my skills bigtime this spring, my mhl is a close second for all around fun.
Just my opinion on all of this.

Crazyfoil have been trying out a 1m mast.


I'd like to see them succeed and develop the canard foil.

It sounds like they need to get the wings closer together and use canard airfoils to assist with the pitch stability when the fuselage is shortened? Maybe even out the front and rear wing areas a bit, as unlike a plane, the weight is 1m away from the wings, and the lift % has to be transferring quite a lot from the front to rear wing as the AOA increases?

The glider in this is maybe a useful guide?





The dihedral main wing might help with roll stability and the yaw problem could be reduced with the shorter fuselage?

[ronnie]

I think the Brunotti Glider twintip foil is a Canard design, with both wings lifting.
If that turns out to be the case, then it may lead to them (or others) investigating turning one of the wings around and using it in one direction only, which should make it a lot more efficient, but with much different weight required on the front foot.