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Are fast foil wings dead outside of racing?

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windmaker
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Re: Are fast foil wings dead outside of racing?

Postby windmaker » Tue May 07, 2019 3:56 pm

OzBungy wrote:
Tue May 07, 2019 3:20 am
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.
You will a slightly better upwind and downwind angle with a good foil kite but not more speed, especially if powered up.

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davesails7
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Re: Are fast foil wings dead outside of racing?

Postby davesails7 » Wed May 08, 2019 10:33 pm

gbrungra wrote:
Mon May 06, 2019 11:07 pm
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.
I hear this a lot. No need to have your transitions nailed to race. There will be other guys who cant do transitions at the race, so you will be able to race them. When I started racing, I couldn't foil through any transitions, but still had a blast and it motivated me to work harder at it.

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tkaraszewski
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Re: Are fast foil wings dead outside of racing?

Postby tkaraszewski » Wed May 08, 2019 11:28 pm

davesails7 wrote:
Wed May 08, 2019 10:33 pm
I hear this a lot. No need to have your transitions nailed to race. There will be other guys who cant do transitions at the race, so you will be able to race them. When I started racing, I couldn't foil through any transitions, but still had a blast and it motivated me to work harder at it.
I would like to do some "Wednesday night" level racing, but there's none near me. The closest spot I can go to race is San Francisco, which is an hour flight away. If I do try and race Thursday nights in SF eventually, I'd like to at least be able to tack reasonably reliably. :)

It might be easier to start a kite racing series in Oregon or Seattle than to fly to SF on Thursday nights.


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