Fastest production hydrofoils

[WH Lithuania]

What are the fastest production hydrofoils used in competitions? Probably top guys are using custom rigs, but there should be few production foils used to get place in top 10?

[FrederikS]

All of the hydrofoil setups in top 10 at the European championship are available for everyone. Taaroa Sword 2 with the new extreme racing wing setup has been available for a while now, same thing goes for the Levitaz Bionic and KFA Mako. Only proper new one is the mikeslab but I guess that is available as well.

[granini]

Look at the Gold Cup:
- KFA
- Sword 2
- Levitaz

Cheers

Granini

[Jimmy Mazzanti]

You may notice that
Moses HF had
2 top ten riders at the Europeans and 1 in Gizzeria (Maks, 8th in Cagliari , he was not present )
and these 2 riders just started hydrofoiling?
also won both comps in women division with Elena

cheers

[davesails7]

Look at the Gold Cup:
- KFA
- Sword 2
- Levitaz

Cheers

Granini

And Spotz (2 or 3), just that the top spotz riders missing from this gold cup.

I don't know about the sword 2. You can buy the flat g10 race wings which are supposed to be the same that Maxime uses, but the guys I've seen with them didnt do well. One switched to spotz 3 and much faster around the course now. Is the wing and mast Maxime has different than the ones taaroa sells? Do you have to be world class to be better on the flat wing? I don't know, but I haven't seen any racers choosing sword 2 over spotz 2/3.

Spotz 2/3 is considered to definitely be the fastest by all racers in my area (east coast US). We don't have any levitaz or Moses vorace to compare to though.

Last I heard, Mikes Lab is not currently available except for prototypes.

[Mossy 757]

I think the results out of Gizzeria don't represent a complete sampling of top racers because there was only 1 North American competitor. If we combine the gear listings for the Gold Cup and the Pro Tour, you see a lot of top guys on Mike's Lab, Spotz, Levitaz, and KFA.

The dominance of Sword riders confuses me, like Dave said, because nobody is coming up the rankings on Swords, just people who have always been on Sword and remain there.

Mario Calbucci did fairly well on his BangaFoil, but they're not available for retail sales yet. Nobody was on the F-One Grand Prix Race foil either.

If the question is: "I want to buy the best race foil so I can be competitive at regattas" I think you could go with any of the above mentioned products and rider skill will be the measure of how you place. I'd personally advise you to find a foil that has an easy mechanism by which to tune the AoA of your rear stabilizer and change out front wings as the manufacturers make refinements to them.

Given what I've seen and heard over the last year, I think being able to adjust your wing/stab angle for the conditions is the key to consistency at a multi-day regatta. Beyond that, there's no clear indication that gear is making a huge difference for people, the results have appeared mostly consistent as guys switch brands/generations of kites/foils over time.

I would love to see a scatter plot of rider weight and height relative to their results. I'm not sure, but there seems to be some indication that light & scrawny (Max, Axel, Olly) is faster than big jacked guys who carry a lot more mass (The Florians and Riccardo).

[gbrungra]

I think the results out of Gizzeria don't represent a complete sampling of top racers because there was only 1 North American competitor. If we combine the gear listings for the Gold Cup and the Pro Tour, you see a lot of top guys on Mike's Lab, Spotz, Levitaz, and KFA.

The dominance of Sword riders confuses me, like Dave said, because nobody is coming up the rankings on Swords, just people who have always been on Sword and remain there.

Mario Calbucci did fairly well on his BangaFoil, but they're not available for retail sales yet. Nobody was on the F-One Grand Prix Race foil either.

If the question is: "I want to buy the best race foil so I can be competitive at regattas" I think you could go with any of the above mentioned products and rider skill will be the measure of how you place. I'd personally advise you to find a foil that has an easy mechanism by which to tune the AoA of your rear stabilizer and change out front wings as the manufacturers make refinements to them.

Given what I've seen and heard over the last year, I think being able to adjust your wing/stab angle for the conditions is the key to consistency at a multi-day regatta. Beyond that, there's no clear indication that gear is making a huge difference for people, the results have appeared mostly consistent as guys switch brands/generations of kites/foils over time.

I would love to see a scatter plot of rider weight and height relative to their results. I'm not sure, but there seems to be some indication that light & scrawny (Max, Axel, Olly) is faster than big jacked guys who carry a lot more mass (The Florians and Riccardo).

A scatter plot of rider height/weight and foil brand would also be interesting to see if any of the top foils (KFA, Spotz, etc) are better suited to riders of different weights. It would make sense that each foil (and wing combination) had an idea rider weight.

[Peter_Frank]

Such a plot should include the conditions at each single race (not contest) particularly the wind strength, and which specific wing they used, if you don't believe rider skill exceed the gear

Peter

[Mossy 757]

A scatter plot of rider height/weight and foil brand would also be interesting to see if any of the top foils (KFA, Spotz, etc) are better suited to riders of different weights. It would make sense that each foil (and wing combination) had an idea rider weight.

Such a plot should include the conditions at each single race (not contest) particularly the wind strength, and which specific wing they used, if you don't believe rider skill exceed the gear

Peter

Rider weight, wind strength, wing size, stab AoA, painted/sanded/coated/raw, temp/pressure, salinity, brand, kite, line length, etc.

If you stand back from the data, it's becoming pretty clear that rider skill is shining through in a pretty predictable way. That being said, there are some huge discrepancies in price between gear manufacturers right now, so figuring out the "minimum effective cost" of a race quiver and foil has pretty significant implications on wallet thickness

[davesails7]

It's been posted before, but I thought this was some really good info posted by the Hydrofoil Pro Tour:
http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/mexico-gear/

I hope they do this again for the next Pro Tour stop in San Francisco next month