Zeeko Spitfire Hydrofoil

[aleks]

Huh ?

Whats the difference ?

Whether you control pitch with your front foot or rear foot, should give the same, right ?
As you are evenly balanced

Or ?

PF

Not right . Spitfire has different size lifting wings on front and back (unlike regular foil with one lifting wing), hence different effort required to push them down. Small front wing requires much less effort to be pushed down.

Yes, it feels evenly balanced (equal foot pressure) when I ride straight forward. However since the front wing is small, it dives much faster with a lot less input from front foot. For example, I can easily do Kai Lenny style pumping on a regular foil, but on Spitfire it touches down right away. I'll try to do it with a back foot next time, will see what happens.

Moving foil forward would help, but that would make it unbalanced (which I really hate). I'll test how much forward I can comfortably push it. However on Ronnie's video I see that he put his Spitfire all the way back, unlike Airsurfer who has it all the way forward

[ronnie]

Huh ?

Whats the difference ?

Whether you control pitch with your front foot or rear foot, should give the same, right ?
As you are evenly balanced

Or ?

PF

Not right . Spitfire has different size lifting wings on front and back (unlike regular foil with one lifting wing), hence different effort required to push them down. Small front wing requires much less effort to be pushed down.

Yes, it feels evenly balanced (equal foot pressure) when I ride straight forward. However since the front wing is small, it dives much faster with a lot less input from front foot. For example, I can easily do Kai Lenny style pumping on a regular foil, but on Spitfire it touches down right away. I'll try to do it with a back foot next time, will see what happens.

Moving foil forward would help, but that would make it unbalanced (which I really hate). I'll test how much forward I can comfortably push it. However on Ronnie's video I see that he put his Spitfire all the way back, unlike Airsurfer who has it all the way forward

BIB
If you mean the latest video on the previous page, surely the Spitfire foil is mounted with some of the tracks visible to the rear of the plate? so it is mounted well forward?

[borist]

Huh ?

Whats the difference ?

Whether you control pitch with your front foot or rear foot, should give the same, right ?
As you are evenly balanced

Or ?

PF

I have only a brief experience with this foil. I think because of lift increases more behind the mast it feels little different than a typical foil that is trimmed to back foot bias. When in stable stance going straight Spitfire feels the same. However when balance is disturbed (wave, sudden speed increase/decrease ...) correction feels a bit different, back foot driven of course. I tend to under correct. Just something to get used to.

[airsurfer]

Notice I'm riding the dwarf craft 54 looks like the rider in the last video was riding the dwarf craft 42. Riding style and strap position probably account for different mast positions. I've tried it in 3 positions all the way back all the way forward and in the middle. I like it all the way forward I can easily move my rear foot forward when necessary to compensate its harder to go the other way.

[juandesooka]

It’s roughly 3 months since the Spitfire released and it seems the excitement has died down. Curious to hear the thoughts of those who have invested in one. Is it the new design that is going to change everything? Or is it just another interesting variation, something a little different to add to a quiver?

Seems a natural for freeride and for wave oriented, if indeed it minimizes catastrophic crashes when front wing breaches. That in particular seems useful for surf/sup applications.

I wonder what kind of patent/copyright limitations there may be for other manufacturers developing a canard foil? Has zeeko and crazyfoil sewed it up? Or does it just require just enough design variation to get past the patent? Or maybe others can just license the design. Dunno...will be interesting to see how things play out over next year.

[Starsky]

Its like a super niche within a niche. There just cant be that many out there. Hard to really get traction, when only a tiny portion of foilers can ride in waves. The market does look to be stabilizing a bit with not a lot of new producers jumping in this past year.

I'm interested to see if they follow up with a bigger wing set up sort of like the carver wing they put out for the traditional set up. Have yet to read a negative opinion of the carver wing. That got many of the potential wave foilers thinking in terms of bigger wings. Then the spitfire comes out with a tiny fast main wing. Concept could well be the future for wave/freeride, but I think it might take a second generation bigger wing to get the traction their looking for with the wave oriented foiler.

But I'm just guessing.

[ptraykovski]

I've been riding it as my go-to foil since it came out, and due to a warm winter on Cape Cod and a trip to DR have about 15-20 sessions on it. I don't think it a super niche product as works really well for carving up swell and bay chop, not just true wave riding. Here we have ~ 1 m, 4-6 s bay chop so not open ocean swell and it is super fun to make downwind s-turns on steep sections of the chop.

It is a bit small for my 230 lb (105 kg) weight so need a bit of power to have fun. As soon as there is about 14 - 16 knots and I can use my 9 m or smaller kite I really enjoy it. I can ride it on straight lines in less wind with bigger kites, but tough for me to stay on the foil through the end of a turn with big kites and low wind unless I really concentrate to keep speed up, or find a bit of wave to carve on. There is a lighter guy here who also has a spitfire (160 -170 lbs) and he does a bit better in light wind.

What I really like about it compared to my previous foil is I can go full speed into my turns and really lay into the carves...super fun! On my old foil I always felt I had to head up and slow down a bit before carving into a turn to stay in control and not blow out. It also handles rough choppy water much better..just blasts right through. On my old foil as soon as the wind was over 16 or so and I could get a 10 m kite and surfboard going I would switch. Now I enjoy foiling well into the low to mid 20s before I really want to switch to a surfboard, depending on the waves also.

I'm looking forward to the bigger wings they say will come out this spring/summer for lighter wind, but as soon as I am on my 9 I will probably put the small wings back on. It also jumps and lands well.

So I think it is pretty fun freeride foil for someone more into carving out some turns at higher speeds, and less into the long distance, race type freeriding.

[ronnie]

deleted.

[aleks]

I've been riding Spitfire with 96cm mast for a few days (which is about 10cm longer than the mast it came with by default). So far I love it! Now I have much less (almost none) ventilations / cavitations and more margin for error. Or it might be that I'm just getting used to Spitfire, who knows! Either way, I love those powered transitions, especially the part where I don't hit water with my face

[3InletsWindsports]

I'm sure the idea of riding half a metre above the water is supposed to be drier.
But the water keeps chasing me, and catching me.