Are fast foil wings dead outside of racing?

[deniska]

Me too! traded a guy my Moses for a try of his Nobile split foil. I thought it was broken it felt so bad...jumped off and checked to see if a rope was dragging behind. All he could say is "oh....my.....god" and now rides a Moses.

ZEN is pretty lame
and I say it not because I broke it

[windmaker]

Have been foiling for 14 years now. Have personally owned half a dozen foils and tried many more. Without remembering the specific models, worst foils ever tried were Nobil, Shinn and Cabrinha (maybe they have improved since), best glide and comfort Taaroa, F-One.

[Janus]

I go to a few races a year, but usually riding around on race gear on my own. Even if I gave up racing, Id stick with the fast foil.

The slow wings feel super draggy in comparison. I rode a cabrinha double agent once for a few minutes and no joke had to stop three times to check there was nothing stuck on it! I was certain there must have been a plastic bag stuck on it to feel so draggy and vibrate like that

Hitting seaweed and sea life at speed is the downside to the fast foil

Me too! traded a guy my Moses for a try of his Nobile split foil. I thought it was broken it felt so bad...jumped off and checked to see if a rope was dragging behind. All he could say is "oh....my.....god" and now rides a Moses.

Which Nobile Zen you tried?
I got a Freeride and have no comparison..

[cwood]

I go to a few races a year, but usually riding around on race gear on my own. Even if I gave up racing, Id stick with the fast foil.

The slow wings feel super draggy in comparison. I rode a cabrinha double agent once for a few minutes and no joke had to stop three times to check there was nothing stuck on it! I was certain there must have been a plastic bag stuck on it to feel so draggy and vibrate like that

Hitting seaweed and sea life at speed is the downside to the fast foil

Me too! traded a guy my Moses for a try of his Nobile split foil. I thought it was broken it felt so bad...jumped off and checked to see if a rope was dragging behind. All he could say is "oh....my.....god" and now rides a Moses.

Which Nobile Zen you tried?
I got a Freeride and have no comparison..

No idea what it was....just that it felt like riding over gravel there was so much vibration.

[deniska]

Zen freeride is ok.. probably the best wing they have. The race wing is pretty sketchy.. you would expect it to become more stable with speed.. but it does not.
Both sing like crazy (maybe its the mast?).. And you can't jump on either - you will break inserts and sink the alu-mast like I did..

[Janus]

Zen freeride is ok.. probably the best wing they have. The race wing is pretty sketchy.. you would expect it to become more stable with speed.. but it does not.
Both sing like crazy (maybe its the mast?).. And you can't jump on either - you will break inserts and sink the alu-mast like I did..

Ok thanks, in that case I’ll stop jumping it and take off the straps.

[gbrungra]

I would love to race (I like sailboat racing), but I need to learn transitions first. I’m hoping to get a surf wing to help w that.

[OzBungy]

I aspire to go fast, but 80% of the times I ride are more suited to a slower more forgiving foil. I am a long way short of exhausting the possibilities and the skills to be perfected on my slower surf foil.

My suspicion is that there is more speed to be gained from getting a high-mid performance foil kite before I buy a high performance foil. My longer term plan is to buy a foil kite then buy a high performance foil as the market sorts itself out.

It's a little surprising that when I started foiling there were very few properly sorted commercial foiling products available to buy. I found some products I am happy with and nothing from other brands is all that tempting. There seems to be a lot more products available but I feel we still have a way to go before things settle down. Every other week some random kite brand brings out some foil product that looks like every other aluminium mast, bolt on wings foil. The top of the range seems pretty nice but the price tag is a bit more than I am comfortable with.

[TomW]

I aspire to go fast, but 80% of the times I ride are more suited to a slower more forgiving foil. I am a long way short of exhausting the possibilities and the skills to be perfected on my slower surf foil.

My suspicion is that there is more speed to be gained from getting a high-mid performance foil kite before I buy a high performance foil. My longer term plan is to buy a foil kite then buy a high performance foil as the market sorts itself out.

It's a little surprising that when I started foiling there were very few properly sorted commercial foiling products available to buy. I found some products I am happy with and nothing from other brands is all that tempting. There seems to be a lot more products available but I feel we still have a way to go before things settle down. Every other week some random kite brand brings out some foil product that looks like every other aluminium mast, bolt on wings foil. The top of the range seems pretty nice but the price tag is a bit more than I am comfortable with.

I changed from North Monos to Hyperlinks. 7 and 9m. Faster, but not by a lot. Primarily just easier to crank them and get controlled full power up wind.

[juanpasala]

I aspire to go fast, but 80% of the times I ride are more suited to a slower more forgiving foil. I am a long way short of exhausting the possibilities and the skills to be perfected on my slower surf foil.

My suspicion is that there is more speed to be gained from getting a high-mid performance foil kite before I buy a high performance foil. My longer term plan is to buy a foil kite then buy a high performance foil as the market sorts itself out.

It's a little surprising that when I started foiling there were very few properly sorted commercial foiling products available to buy. I found some products I am happy with and nothing from other brands is all that tempting. There seems to be a lot more products available but I feel we still have a way to go before things settle down. Every other week some random kite brand brings out some foil product that looks like every other aluminium mast, bolt on wings foil. The top of the range seems pretty nice but the price tag is a bit more than I am comfortable with.

Wont win that much speed, Hydrofoil wings really limit the performance of the kites, speccially whils going downwind.
First get an intermediate hydrofoil than you can then ugrade with just a n extra wing (Moses-Levitaz-Alpinefoils), then go for the foilkites.