Fastest production hydrofoils

[davesails7]

I thought the flat wings were supposed to give better upwind performance with a sacrifice of downwind stability.

The guy on the sword flat wings was faster than me upwind and slower downwind. Hes still faster than me upwind on spotz 3, but now we are very close in speed downwind and hes beating me overall. He also changed to diablo kites when he changed to spotz3 so who knows...

[Mossy 757]

He also changed to diablo kites when he changed to spotz3 so who knows...

Agree.

FS 15m
Chrono 12m
Diablo 15m

Just with that knowledge alone I'd be willing to wager who would win in a long downwinder.

[WH Lithuania]

Most of those high performance foils are not fully disassemblable. Is there really such big strength improvement of such construction? It's obviously harder to travel with such setup and it's more costly to change wings or fuselage in case of damage.

[mig27]

Most of those high performance foils are not fully disassemblable. Is there really such big strength improvement of such construction? It's obviously harder to travel with such setup and it's more costly to change wings or fuselage in case of damage.

Besides the strength issue I think it is more for better hydrodynamics. The less seams, the more efficient.

Most racers with foils, which are fully disassemblable, add epoxy filler and sand it for the same reason. And because of that, they become impossible to disassemble

[mar tin]

Hi

My name is martin TURBIL, i'm the manager of TAAROA hydrofoil
i would like the give some info about sword 2 race and my point of view about kitefoil racing

First, the sword 2 flat wings,
Last year we spend lot of time developing new race wings, i made all most 15 front wings prototype ..
after all, we finally find something with a good compromise between upwind and downwind and they are the 2016 race wings (ika registre)
ALL Taaroa rider are on THE SAME WINGS !! the RACE 2016 (maxime noche won the europeen with it)

About witch is the fastest production hydrofoils on the market

if you ONLY look at the results, it's pretty clear, SWORD 2 is doing very well ..

BUT it's not that simple !!

all other race foil on the market are really good and fast foil! But also very different !

maxime, axel, olly, johnny, nico are the top rider at the moment, and they are riding either sword 2 , mikelabs or levitaz (they are the 3 foils on top, for me..)
those riders are very good because they spend lot of time training and more important they know their foil VERY well !
the other thing VERY VERY important is the tuning of the foil and the kite, if you're gear is not perfectly tune, you are not going to be very fast...

cheers

[Horst Sergio]

Hi Martin,

welcome to the forum and thank you for the info. Tried one of your foils some time ago and liked it for the good balance of performance and easiness.

Yes it is pretty interesting to see that foils with very different shapes and construction concepts as spots, levitaz and sword are pretty close on the end.

Can you maybe name disadvantages you see within the constructions of Moses and Spots or is it just your experience from races that they are actually not so fast?

Is there any advise you can give to normal customers how to tune a foil with low effort before first use by sanding (which areas of strut and wings and what grain size of sanding paper)
with respect to a good compromise for speed, low ventilation in most conditions (temperatures and water typ as salty, pollen, etc.)?

You got the results, so I think you could sell some more Swords in the future, but maybe it would pay off to renew your web side, which is not as good and actual as it could be.
Maybe ... as also the one of spotz and mikeslab is not better.

Thanks

[f2020]

I have two Sword2 foils. The 2016 Race Wing is absolutely amazing. Very fast with very good upwind capabilities and very fun to sail as well as it turns very fast.

[WH Lithuania]

Looks like custom Mike's foils dominates top 10 in the USA http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/usa-gear/.

[Mossy 757]

Looks like custom Mike's foils dominates top 10 in the USA http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/usa-gear/.

http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/mru-gear/

Axel, Maxime, and Alex Caizergues all jumped on the F-One Grand Prix foil for the Mauritius race. Alex competed in San Fran on a Banga Foil but looks like he's doing better on this gear.

Interesting that the Axel and Max are pretty much as fast as they've always been on the new foils. Levitaz and KFA are also on the map, mostly because of Olly Bridge and the German Flysurfer riders.

So looks like the state of the art is Mike's Lab, F-One, Levitaz, and KFA.

[Bletti]

Looks like custom Mike's foils dominates top 10 in the USA http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/usa-gear/.

http://hydrofoilprotour.info/equipment/mru-gear/

Axel, Maxime, and Alex Caizergues all jumped on the F-One Grand Prix foil for the Mauritius race. Alex competed in San Fran on a Banga Foil but looks like he's doing better on this gear.

Interesting that the Axel and Max are pretty much as fast as they've always been on the new foils. Levitaz and KFA are also on the map, mostly because of Olly Bridge and the German Flysurfer riders.

So looks like the state of the art is Mike's Lab, F-One, Levitaz, and KFA.

That equipment list doesn't seam to be accurate. I've heard from one of the racers there that that Axel and Maxime are on Sword 2 foils, not f-one.