I just bought a used spitfire 3-wing setup, with my loan/demo prompting Atomic's thread. I am LOVING the spitfire so far, I expected a learning curve to get used to it, but first try on the XXLW, it just fit immediately ... stable and nice turning. Last few sessions I've focused on XLW, fast and carvey, love the turning off the back foot, stomping turns like a surf shortboard.
I have been riding Stringy for past 5 years, so it's a small variation on a ride I am already well used to. When I got my stringy, it was considered lame by the foil elite, biggest wings at the beach compared to their race oriented foils. Now it's lame because everyone is on huge surf wings and riding tiny kites, smallest wings at the beach. I like to ride more powered up than the other ocal foil riders, 1 kite size less than twin tippers, but 1 kite size above the surf wing foilers. I prefer powered fast carves, like snowboarding. The spitfire feels great, I figure it adds 20% extra tight turning. I will be interested to experiment with smaller kite sizes with the XXLW. The XLW does require more speed, will drop off foil at lower speeds, so smaller kite isn't as fun. I have no intention to try the small original wings.
Additional thoughts:
-- Mako niche comparison: I don't twintip much any more, but when I do, it's on a mako! Love that board, not quite a twintip.
-- turning wings around: yes, you can attempt to use any wings in a canard set up and they will work basically. But getting the balance right requires a lot of fiddling around. Back when spitfire first came out, I attempted to copy the original wings with g10, sized up 30% on rear wing and 10% on stab for additional lift and lower speed performance. It worked, but had a tendency to drop off foil, required excessive rear foot pressure. I didn't want to invest the time so left the experiment. I also tried it with an oversize stringy wing later on, couldn't get it to work, wanted to nose dive, had the stab wrong for sure ... but again, couldn't be bothered to figure it out.
-- base plate, mine fit 90mm spacing without issue.
-- mast angle....interesting, will measure that, Atomic is making a copy of XXLW, so that may help with tuning.
-- ono: nothing on their site about canards that I could find, abandoned it? the other company I was aware of years ago was crazyfoil in quebec, but more wake oriented. That's about it. I wondered at the time if the lack of canard interest might have been patent related, restricted from pursuing it? No one in surf foil world is trying it that I am aware of. I may attempt an XXXLW and try it wing foiling.